Dream Town Island Review

Game: Dream Town Island
Genre: Simulation, Strategy
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on Steam (Windows), iOS and Android)
Developer | Publisher: Kairosoft
Age Rating: US Everyone | EU 3+
Price: US $12.00 | UK £10.79 | EU € 12,00
Release Date: November 16th, 2023

Review code used, with many thanks to Kairosoft.

Kairosoft’s latest game on the Nintendo Switch is Dream Town Island. It follows a similar style to other Kairosoft management sims we’ve reviewed at LadiesGamers, focusing on creating a place where your residents will live out their lives: working, starting a family, shopping and helping to build your island into a megacity.

Will this game produce sweet dreams or will it be a nightmare?

Starting Your Dream Town Island

There are three starting islands in Dream Town Island: the basic island of Happy Town, Quaint Town with a river, or Busy Town with hills. Don’t worry; you can change the name if you want! The main difference is not the terrain but that 9 of the 98 available residents are unique to each map.

With your first resident selected, you are introduced to Secretary Bella Metro, who will guide you on your town-planning journey. Your island starts with a port, fish shop, florist and one empty house plot. The selected resident luckily wishes to move to the island, and you accept their request.

Before you get a chance to watch the resident move in, the Town Hall Clerk appears and strongly suggests you need a town hall as a base for your planning. Dream Town Island doesn’t guide you the same as some of the other Kairosoft games, but accessing the ‘menu’ and ‘build’ soon gets you to the right place to build the town hall. It’s important to build the town hall, as new buildings, potential new residents and special features are researched and developed there.

Whilst the town hall is being constructed, a mystery person arrives – a potential new resident. You can follow them around and watch to see if your island impresses them. At the start, mystery residents don’t need much to be impressed, but later on, it will take several visits before they decide to move in. A new empty housing lot will allow them to settle, and your Dream Town Island, is on its way to greatness!

Dream Town Island Residents

The residents are key to your success. As they start visiting shops and using facilities, they will increase their stats and earn you money and points, which can be used to attract more people and develop more buildings.

The residents in Dream Town Island have their own lives, and soon after moving to your island, they will want a job. Several candidates can apply for the same job, and likewise, a candidate can apply for several jobs. However, only one resident can work at each of the buildings. The rate of success will depend on the resident’s statistics and the more salary they earn, the more they can spend in the shops. This is one of the activities which can happen automatically, with little orange or blue boxes appearing on the screen, announcing whether the applicant was successful or not.

But it’s not all work! The Dream Town Island residents will develop hobbies as they use the various facilities. There are 12 hobbies to discover, and once they become confident enough, your resident will want to enter a contest. This is a great way to earn money and increase the resident’s rank, which in turn increases their happiness.

Every resident also has a sense of civic responsibility. Residents will put forward ideas to be discussed at the town council. However, each idea will require a number of members to have a specific stats value. Luckily Secretary Bella Metro is on hand to advise the success rate. Generally the town council meetings will result in a new facility, although the latter ones result in an item to boost your Dream Town Island.

Love is in the Air

As time progresses, residents will form friendships with other residents. The Town Hall Clerk can arrange parties to help citizens meet, and as these relationships develop, you can help them become a couple. Your residents will get married in the wedding hall, and you choose which last name the couple will use and which house they will continue to reside in. The other house becomes an empty lot, ready for a new resident. You will also be able to rebuild their house into something more luxurious.

Soon two will become three, and a new generation in Dream Town Island begins. The baby becomes a youth and, after a couple of years, will leave town. But don’t worry, they will return and start their own family! And so the cycle continues.
What becomes of the parents? Well, old age creeps over them, and eventually, they leave your Dream Town Island. They send a message of farewell, hopefully saying that they lived a wonderful life.

Build, and They Will Come

As well as residents, your Dream Town Island needs buildings, and lots of them. From restaurants to zoos, from theme parks to music shops – your town can have it all! Each building has a popularity figure, a land value and rank. These increase as residents use them, but they can get boosted with items. As well as the town hall, there are other special buildings which create items or grow plants. In addition, there are some buildings in which you can hold shares in, adding another source of income. You can even change the landscape, creating hills or ponds. You really can build the town of your dreams!

Most of the buildings have a set of conditions which give rewards when achieved, including the ability to hire staff and place multiples. The gifts could be new items for your residents to purchase, different modes of transport to help them get around your Dream Town Island or new pets to look after. There are also 171 combos, which increase the value and popularity of the two buildings placed. You are told if there is a combination available and shown which buildings form the group, but it’s still a challenge to get them positioned close enough.

Will Your Dream Town Island Become A Megacity?

There are two main objectives in Dream Town Island. To achieve rank 10 by meeting the criteria set by the Town Association Chair and reach an S+ score in your annual report. Ideally, all by the end of 14 years. But there are other objectives, like completing all the titles (number of marriages, total share dividends, etc.), reaching first place in the annual value rankings, enticing all the residents to your town, unlocking all the buildings and gifts, and finding all the combos. Some of these link to other targets, and some are achieved by just playing, but all are satisfying to complete.

Once you’ve got to Spring in Year 15, you can start a New Game +, which carries across various aspects of your original game, regardless of which map you choose next. You will get a percentage of your money and points, as well as the knowledge of the residents, combos and rebuilds. Any statues gained will be available for placing, but the building conditions will need to be re-achieved to regain the gifts and other rewards.

Gameplay

The game works well in either docked or handheld mode, and the touchscreen functionality is well used. Although there is a lot of text, the font is generally large enough to read on a small screen. However, because the island ends up being quite big, I didn’t find Dream Town Island as easy to play in handheld mode as some of the other Kairosoft games.

The menus are extensive, and it’s worth spending time reviewing the information in there, especially with regard to the rebuild options. It’s nice to have a ‘list’ option in the building mode, which goes back into the build menu rather than quitting back to the game. You can also swap between seeing the outside or inside of the building. There are a couple of minor niggles; the food points are covered when playing the mini-games, and it takes a couple of seconds for the ‘confirm’ option to appear at the end of the contests and collect building rewards.

The game time is split into four seasons, with a weekday and weekend in each. These are broken down into 12 ‘hours’, which take about 3 minutes to play. However, with the various pop-ups, building time, contests and council meetings, it takes a lot longer. I took about 30 hours to reach year 15, although my gaming buddy reached year 30 in only 20 hours – it all depends on how much strategy and planning you do!

There are two instances of the game per user, and although Dream Town Island autosaves at the end of each weekday and weekend, I recommend using the manual save, as so much can happen during that time.

Conclusion

Dream Town Island is a dream come true.

Watching the cute pixelated characters go about their daily lives, falling in love and starting a family is delightful. There is a great balance in progressing through the game, playing mini-games, unlocking facilities and building your dream town.

Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up