Ylands

We all remember that first time we picked up the industry champion, Minecraft for the first time. We had a world at our fingertips, seemingly infinite crafting and building possibilities and a survival system that would offer a sense of challenge that prevented us from achieving everything we wanted to do in the first five minutes. Well, Ylands aims to offer this same feeling and does so with a decent level of success.

As mentioned, this game plays rather like Minecraft due to its crafting and building facilities but due to its survival aspects and third-person perspective. It could be argued that this one is akin to the likes of Conan Exile or Day-Z, only with a much more light-hearted and cartoonish design.

Humble Beginnings

The player begins stranded on an island with nothing more than a cloth rag to keep them decent. From there the game asks you to survive, plain and simple. You’ll be given tasks to achieve and gently nudged in the direction that you need to go by the game. However, it never holds your hand throughout the experience. It is a game that encourages experimentation and discovery to succeed. A focus that suits the game well and it’s carried out with aplomb.

However, if you are stuck at any point in time, the game has a wealth of written tutorials to guide you through all the more tricky tasks and will teach you all the tricks of the trade needed to build enough stability for yourself that allows the game to open up and show just how expansive it is.

Build your empire

This game has a very competent building system and allows the player to build fortresses that are as diverse, large and awe-inspiring as their imagination allows. The art style also lends itself to this crafting system very well, allowing players to create structures that are truly unique from one another, and with the various online facilities that are on offer, you can built these areas with your friends and really create something special. Plus, there isn’t the same worry that players will come to your server and raid your belongings like in other games in the genre. The developers have implemented a force field that protects a 30×30 area of land and all the items within this area. Which means you can leave your fortress, go in search of new and interesting things without the stress of other players ransacking your loot.

Beyond the Horizon

The late-game also offers some really intriguing options for the player. As you become more skilled with crafting you gain access to ships and can take off to new islands within your map. There are up to seven unique islands to explore with new items and treasure that will help make your fortress the strongest, coolest and best-resourced structure on the entire map.

Plus, with this game being a free to play title, you can expect to see lots of other players inhabiting the server. Meaning that even if you’re alone on your island and set of to sea. You may not be the first to discover the other lands. So bare this in mind and come prepared.

Solid Survival Fun

This one is not without its flaws. It’s not quite as refined as the top end survival games out there, it doesn’t have as much of a unique selling point either. Basically it is a very well made but ultimately safe design. Though, this doesn’t mean this is a bad game, far from it. It offers some really well designed survival mechanics, the crafting is versatile and easy to use. The UI is again, very accessible and the scale of the maps will surprise those that go into this blind.

Pros

• Expansive maps
• Great survival and crafting mechanics
• Accessible UI
• Free to play

Cons

• Generic art style
• Server issues when at capacity
• Early game can be very slow