Family Island is an idyllic building game about a family caught on an island. You get to direct their efforts to build structures, gather resources, and more. Over the course of Family Island, you'll be able to build up a perfect island paradise for your digital family to enjoy.

Family Island is all about a prehistoric family stuck on a tropical island. You're in charge of managing the family's efforts to collect things like berries, twigs, sticks, and starfish and then use these resources to make meals, buildings, and more. You're the master of an island paradise, meaning it's up to you to direct the creation and upgrading of things like looms, houses, and cookfires.

Family Island has a Pixar-like cast of 3d characters. These include the mother, the father, the son, and the daughter, with a few other characters popping in from time to time. As you progress through the game, these characters will acquire roles and learn pivotal skills related to the family's survival on the tropical island. They'll also exchange banter, perform unique animations, and assist you with your collection of resources.

Gameplay in Family Island can be broken up into several phases. Phase one involves gathering. The map is rich with bushes, plants, animals, and other resource nodes that can be interacted with. Tapping on these nodes will direct a family member to walk over and begin harvesting from them. Each action will expend energy, however, so you'll want to make sure that you're harvesting things you need and not things you've got a surplus of.

Phase two involves replenishing stamina. Some nodes, like berries, will give you back stamina when you harvest from them. You can also cook food and perform other tasks in-game to give yourself a little bit of stamina back. This vital management phase will ensure that you can continue playing for a bit longer, helping you build up the resources necessary to make a cool island.

Phase three is building and upgrading. With your newly gathered resources, you'll probably be able to upgrade a building or two or place down a new one. Sometimes, this will involve in-between actions, like crafting gathered resources into parts. As you play more and more, you'll be able to create advanced buildings with more positive effects for your family and more exotic crafting options.

More than many other mobile games on the market, Family Island feels like a microtransaction-fueled construct with a focus on metagame, not gameplay. In other words, your journey through the game is one of acquiring resources, crafting upgrades, and gaining buildings, not one of having fun with the game itself. The game's basic loop involves clicking on piles of stuff on islands and then managing your islanders as they turn that stuff into buildings, resources, and energy. There's little challenge or excitement to this process, only a feeling of progress as you make bigger buildings and turn your island into something you're proud of.

That said, while this game doesn't offer much in the way of strategy or excitement, many players find it perfect as a way to relax. If that's your cup of tea, Family Island might very well be the game for you. If you want thrilling gameplay that doesn't involve waiting for energy to recover so you can gather bushes, however, you might prefer a different game instead.

Like many other mobile games, Family Island is all about resource management. In fact, Family Island is more about resource management than it might seem at first blush. Because the rotating event islands take advantage of your energy and material stockpiles, the key to success in Family Island is maintaining a big bank of resources that you can use on rewarding events, giving you a big leg up in terms of your progression.

When you reach a new island, your first tasks should be ones that increase your energy. This might mean collecting purple trees immediately, or it might mean upgrading your house first to increase the size of your energy bar. After your house, upgrade your shower, bathroom, and totems and then splurge on a big kitchen to make lots of energy food. While this is going on, be sure to throw down basic merchant needs in order to ensure that you can always get the first and second gift. By following this basic strategy, you should get a lot of resources out of each island.

Limited tools, like keys, shovels, axes, and saws, are definitely a resource that should be lightly hoarded. If you find yourself overflowing on any of these it's totally fine to splurge on smaller prizes, but you should always maintain a healthy stockpile for big prizes that show up. As you play the game, you'll get a sense of how often big prizes show up and you'll be able to budget accordingly.

You've got a limited space for resources in Family Island. Luckily, surplus resources can be converted into experience. Holding down the button will make this process go much faster, enabling you to make space in your inventory in no time at all.

Your home island is your home base and should always be in use. No matter what's going on in other places, try to have the basic production structures in your home island rolling. These can be used to make key tools like string and scrapers, enabling you to efficiently build up a stockpile of vital supplies.

The Shaman's quests are not set in stone. Instead of taking difficult tasks, consider refreshing the items until you get things that are a bit easier to work with. This trick can save you a lot of hassle when it comes to gathering exotic materials.

Events can be challenging to navigate, but you can click on some items to get hints about where to find them. This is particularly helpful with resin, which is a valuable commodity that's necessary for many vital construction projects. Knowing where resin is will make your journey through each new island a lot easier.

Finally, don't be afraid to skip stuff that doesn't seem like it's worth it. As fun as event islands are, doing absolutely every single one can be both draining and challenging. If you're not digging what an event is putting down, just leave the island and stop sinking resources into it. Sometimes, going slow is the right choice.

Are you a Family Island master? Want to tell us about your home island setup? Let us know about any tips or tricks we missed in the comments below!