My Tribe
Verdict: simply addictive
In a Nutshell: My Tribe is a “life simulation” game with a story book element.
“Shipwrecked on a beautiful tropical island, your brave little tribespeople must build a new home! With your guidance, the tribe will uncover mysterious secrets, research new technologies, and construct massive wonders! Come back often to feed your tribe, clothe them, and look after the babies and children!”
- Fun Rating: Fun
- ESRB: E
- Players/Mode: Single-player / Campaign
- Game Duration: as long as you want (currently looking at 20+ hours myself)
- System: PC and Mac
- Developer: Grubby Games
- Website: http://grubbygames.com/mytribe/
- Cost: buy it from Grubby Games for $19.95 (plus 60 day money back garauntee)
- Demo: pick it up from the Grubby Games site
| Would I play this again? | i’ll be checking in on my tribe from time to time |
| Would I recommend this game? | yes |
| Was the story good? | yes |
| Was the music good? | absolutely |
| Were the graphics good? | yes |
| Was this game difficult? | no |
| Was this game frustrating? | no |
| Was this game offensive? | no |
| Was this game worth your time/money? | yes |
Playing the game
In My Tribe, you, the player, assume the role of an invisible guiding hand of a group of shipwrecked adventurers. Lost on a tropical island, you help them survive by gathering things like building materials, food, celestial dust, and doing research. Most tasks can be handled by the tribe members once you set up each member’s priorities. Collecting special items like star and moon dust, mushrooms, and barrels that wash up on the beach usually require you to pick a tribe person up by the scruff of the neck and place them on the item.
To ensure the survival of your tribe requires four main things: a place to sleep, food, a place to cook the food, and babies. “Calling the stork” as the game refers to it, is another manual task of putting the lucky couple together.
In order to advance technologically, you’ll have to get your tribespeople to do research at the Science Lab. This allows your tribe to build new types of structures or concoct new potions. One of the big tasks of the game is to build a new ship so your tribe can keep exploring and requires a considerable amount of research and construction time. The science lab is also where you can mix potions for things like increasing skills, changing hair color and helping a designated couple to produce twins.
The settings for the game allow you to control the speed of time and pause the game if, for example, you don’t want your tribe to die off when you go on vacation.
What the game gets right
My Tribe certainly tickles the senses with happy island music and a storybook art style that is fun and simple. However, the game keeps from sheltering the player in this whimsical environment with some welcomed realism: your tribespeople can die from old age and starvation.
As a lover of puzzles in games (when the puzzles make sense . . . yeah, I’m still eyeing you, Seventh Guest) the “mysteries” in My Tribe are difficult enough to be worth figuring out even if the satisfaction of solving them is sometimes a bigger pay off than the unlocked secret.
What the game gets wrong
As far as gameplay elements go, I was a little disappointed that there was no way to zoom out. The map and arrow keys get you around the map fairly quickly (and the map isn’t that big to begin with) so, perhaps I’ve just been spoiled with other types of games.
And what’s with there being only untanned white people on this island? Are we the only people group that think being on a deserted island would be fun?
Sum it up
My Tribe was the first life simulation style game I’ve tried. With all of the building and research elements of a real time strategy, I kept building defensively and tried to rush up the “tech tree” (i.e. max out the technological advancements). I groomed one tribes woman to be the supreme matriarch, envisioning her leading her pirate band to pillage distant shores! None can stand in her way! Avast! (O.K. I’m done now.)
With the variety of things to talk about in this game (death, where babies come from, etc) and the difficulty spread (between the puzzles and things like changing the way people look), My Tribe appears to be a great game for an adult/kid co-op.
If you’re simply not a fan of invading barbarians or pirates pillaging your diligence, or like people to “get along”, or just have a few minutes to play now and then, or all of the above, then head on over to Grubby Games and give My Tribe a spin.
Other games you might like to read about:
The Amazing Brain TrainRate this Game
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...