The Game
The Bonfire 2: Uncharted Islands by Xigma Games is a sequel to the quite compelling The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands. If you’ve played the original you will be familiar with the general concept of managing your settlers and expanding your settlement around the ever-burning bonfire. The first game showed a lot of potential and could get quite challenging, it was also presented as a 2D “side-scrolling” game. In this epic sequel the game developer has moved from a 2D world into a full 3D one for something of a paper-cut out aesthetic.
The game will challenge you to grow and expand your settlement while ensuring you manage your resources and workers in such a way so as to maintain optimal food and resource supplies. Where The Bonfire games differentiate from some other city builders is the nightly attacks. Every evening various beasts – ranging from wolves to spiders and other quite scary monsters will swarm your village and attack your settlers. You will need to ensure you’ve always got enough guards on patrol and that they are all well equipped. The sequel adds even more depth to what was already a quite deep mobile game. There are a good variety of buildings and production chains which will challenge you to expand your settlement even further than before. You also keep unlocking more buildings with practically every building you construct.
Be weary though – some of your settlers may decide to steal from you or leave you! All settlers have unique characteristics and special skills. The skills combined with suitable tools will allow you to specialise your people for the role they were born to do, be it farmer or guard. The settlers will share their thoughts with you regularly and won’t hesitate to let you know when they are unhappy – something you really want to avoid.
Worth it?
A free version of the game is available, but you are only limited to 10 nights. Personally I didn’t really like this method of getting me to buy the full version for £4.49 on mobile and £9.29 on PC. I would have preferred limiting the number or types of buildings that can be created in the free version, because 10 days are up quite quick and you are essentially forced into the full version.
Free version aside, the paid version is – generally-speaking – worth buying. There are some slight issues, like some performance issues with bigger settlements, not being able to remove trees, some minor visual bugs and it can be quite battery intensive. As a mobile game this is definitely a great choice as there are no gatcha elements and you will find yourself thinking – just one more night for quite a while until you realise you’ve spent the last 3 hours on the game. The expeditions allow you to discover new islands and continue scaling up your resource production. I am unsure if I can justify the full price for PC, although I would also expect less performance issues. The game is also still being worked on and developed further so there will hopefully be future updates with even more amazing things to do with your settlement.
Overall definitely worth checking out, you can always play the demo/free version and if you decide it’s something you like, you will have to purchase the full version to play any further.
Tips
- You can’t remove or move trees/rocks – plan accordingly
- Make sure you can equip your workers with carts and appropriate tools (especially builders) – this will greatly speed up their work
- Match settlers to their jobs based on their special skills
- Always ensure you have more guards than you think you need – sometimes waves of monsters may attack from different sides
- Build homes to house your settlers – they are less vulnerable to attacking beasts than if they sleep by the bonfire
- You need a trading dock to be able to send your ships on expeditions
Useful Links
- Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xigmaGames.thebonfire2&hl=en&gl=US
- Apple Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-bonfire-2-uncharted-shores/id1448849222
- Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1155880/The_Bonfire_2_Uncharted_Shores/
- Discord: https://discord.gg/mukDXDw
- Official Game Page: https://playplayfun.com/the-bonfire-2-uncharted-shores-game-official-page/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thebonfire2game/
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