I found Minute of Islands on Lurkit and managed to snag a key (affiliate link btw). Took me a couple of years but I finally played it!

If you’re a video game creator, I highly recommend creating an account on Lurkit and Terminals to get free game keys and dabble in sponsored content. It shows publishers and developers you can meet their expectations and lets you have a feeling for content creation with deadlines.

On to the review…

Minute of Islands is a story rich adventure game. However, it’s not immediately clear it’s also an apocalyptic horror game with the story focused on one’s own internal struggles.

You play as Mo, a young girl overseeing a cluster of islands. You’re tasked with restoring the machines on the islands, which seems simple enough. You travel from island to island, resetting the machines and turning them back on. However, the story is much deeper, with a focus on how Mo got to where she is and what drives her to maintain these islands.

The mechanics of the game are pretty straightforward. Run around, jump, use your item (i.e., the Omni Switch). I only struggled a bit with one jumping puzzle and Mo just LOVES to cling to ladders when I’m trying to sprint.

There is voice acting in this game, which is a breath of fresh air when it comes to the indie game genre. It really drew me in and kept me hooked. The puzzles are also entertaining while being fairly easy to solve. At the point where the gameplay started to be repetitive, the developers switch things up and add a new element or twist. Each island felt as though it was its own and it was easy to tell I was traveling the map.

Final Thoughts

I did enjoy the story, even though it was quite dark and I had no choice in the outcome. Sadly, I can’t expand on this without spoilers but it was worth seeing the game through. At the end of the day, the game was not what I was expecting but in a good way! Minute of Islands is a pleasant surprise in the sea of indie games. I recommend it!