If six nights a week of shows, catch-up programmes and the podcast weren’t enough Love Island for you, there’s now a free mobile game that lets you play out your own story in the villa.
Love Island: The Game is available on both iOS and Android and sees players take on the role of a female islander entering the villa in the hope of finding love.
For keen Love Island fans, all the hallmarks of the show are here from the show’s catchphrases around “cracking on” and “I’ve got a text” to the basic format of coupling up in order to stay on the island.
Players can customise and name their character to suit them – although only one (slim) body type is available – before entering the villa to begin the gameplay for real.
The basic mechanics revolve around multiple choice scenarios during conversations with other islanders, as well as around actions you do (or don’t) take throughout the experience – ranging from how you respond to another contestant’s flirting or when questioned about your character’s view on others.
This will impact your relationship with every other character in the villa, not just those you’re interacting with directly. For example, trying to recouple with another of the guys is unlikely to go down well with his current in-game partner.
And naturally, these emotions are represented by various emoji appearing on the screen as your actions change how they see you.
Overall, the narrative and gameplay is surprisingly diverse, with players also able to explore the villa between story threads and seek out other characters they want to speak to, and multiple story strands opening and closing in front of you as you take each decision.
However, Love Island: The Game is let down by just how aggressively it tries to push players towards its in-app purchases, which are in place to top up the in-game currency of gems and passes.
Passes are needed to begin each new chapter, while gems are used to unlock more eye-catching outfits or bolder decisions that trigger more interesting narrative routes.
However, both of the currencies you begin the game with are expended more quickly than feels necessary – and we were unable to complete the first day without running out of passes and having to wait for the time lock to pass and hand over new credits.
And the need for gems to unlock outfits and decisions pops up very frequently, blocking some narrative routes.
In both instances, the game pushes the in-app purchase route more than it should – such a mechanism should be an option for those who are willing to spend money, not something almost unavoidable if you want to play for more than 20 minutes at a time.
Ranging from £0.99 to £19.99, it could be easy to quickly rack up a bill in the game through the extra purchases.
It’s also worth noting that the game can be a hefty drain on battery life, and has an age rating of 16 – should you have teenagers keen to try it out.
If you’re a fan of the show then there is every chance you’ll get something out of the game – even if only for a short period as nothing is quite as engaging as the real thing on TV each night.
But if you’re not a fan of Love Island in the first place this is probably one role-playing game to avoid.
