Survival Island: Evolve vs The Survivalists
Survival Island: Evolve
Survival Island: Evolve is a different sort but "work-in-progress" survival game that may not look like much but is pretty well-made. In this game, you'll need to mine for resources; craft a variety of items; hunt various beasts, both large and small, as well as build your very own base. There are plenty of stuff for you to scavenge too by simply exploring every corner of the island you're stranded on. The game also supports co-operative gameplay along with a single player mode.However, the game seems to have a rather odd theme. It's prehistoric in some way since there are dinosaurs and yet the other animals that you can hunt in the game seem to be rather modern-looking (in terms of evolution).
That said, Survival Island: Evolve is a pretty good mobile version of a prehistoric survival game that fills a niche of demands and as such, the game has enjoyed a sizeable number of installs on Google Play. The game is only available on Android.
The Survivalists
The Survivalists is a survival-themed adventure game focusing on exploring a vast archipelago filled with hidden secrets and treasures as well as mysterious temples and dangerous terrains. The goal here is not only to make a life for yourself by recruiting and training the local monkeys to help with your many mundane chores, but to find a way to crack the mystery shrouding the archipelago and possibly find a way to finally escape!The Survivalists has a sandbox-style, survival-themed gameplay, which means that you’re expected to gather plenty of resources from the environment, use them to build a base of operations… or even multiple outposts and bases… and make sure you’ve got plenty of protection ready for when the local hostile tribesmen attack you, which they do from time to time.
The map here is simply amazing and if you just love exploring, you’ll find the island-hopping experience here pretty satisfying… that is once you’ve got your raft built. Of course, being set in the tropics, there isn’t a whole lot of different biomes to discover, though there are volcanic and swampy areas that are more dangerous than the normal terrain. Even the sea contains dangers and you’ll do well to avoid the ravenous sharks that are looking for an easy meal.
The best and most interesting part about The Survivalists that really help it stands out from all the other generic sandbox survival games is the fact that you can “recruit” monkeys on the island to help you with any mundane tasks. This encompasses all tasks that can be easily replicated by the monkeys. After all, monkey see, monkey do!
That being said, training your monkeys is, unfortunately, also the most frustrating part of the game. Unlike games with macros, you can’t really save the tasks you’ve taught your monkey as general macros that you can then use whenever you need the same tasks done sometime in the future. Instead, every time you need your monkeys to do something, you’ll have to teach it all over again… which frankly speaking is very annoying.
All in all, The Survivalists is as addictively fun as it looks. Being a survival-themed sandbox adventure, there is plenty of stuff you can craft, items to gather, loyal monkeys to train, and bases to set up as you slowly and steadily explore every inch of the massive archipelago. However, the game isn’t without its flaws and I personally think that the game could have made the monkey-training part a bit more convenient and less annoying for the player.