Looking for a cozy relaxing cleaning game with no timers and no need to rush? Island Restoration is the game for you. You should try the demo!
The Gameplay of Island Restoration
Island Restoration opened with me on an island, ready to clean. Although a backstory isn’t necessary for this type of game, I was curious about what happened on the island. There was litter all over the place; life-sucking vines had covered some of the palm trees; there were animals in distress and oil spills all over the place. No need to figure out what happened, though; time to get to work and fix it!
Island Restoration didn’t have a tutorial, but it’s okay; it was a very easy game to figure out. The gameplay is familiar enough to be comfortable but different enough that it presents some fun, new challenges and a mini-game too.
When I began, I had three tools in my hot bar: a grabber, a power washer and a shovel. There were different types of cleaning that I needed to do with each type of tool.
The grabber was for picking up garbage. It took me a minute to figure this out, but there was an icon that changed a bit when I was able to actually in range to pick up an item. I also learned that it was easier to aim for a piece of garbage from a distance than up close, at least with a controller. Once I learned those things, I found the mechanic to be quite meditative. There were 3 types of garbage: glass bottles, plastic bottles and cans.
After a time, my garbage bag would get full, and I had to go back to the boat to empty it. That activated a fun mini-game. There were 3 containers on the ship, one for each type of garbage. I had to take items out of my bag, one piece at a time, and put it in the right container. I found that to be surprisingly fun. When I put an item in the wrong container, a red visual would appear. But if I put it in the right container, the visual was white. If I got them all correct, I was rewarded with the word “Perfect”. Love that!
The power washer was used to clean up oil spills. They were all over the beach, and pro tip – there are oil spills on the grassy areas too. That took me a bit to figure out. Sometimes the power washer would run out of water, and I had to refill it, but that was easy. I was on an island, and there was water everywhere!
The shovel was used to clean up mud piles. There’s a handy progress meter that I chose to have displayed on my screen. For a long time, it said I had found 94% of the garbage, so I searched in vain for the rest. I could not find it until I began to clean up mud piles. Pro tip – garbage can hide under mud piles!
Cleaning up Animals in Island Restoration
There were animals in distress in Island Restoration too. When I found one, a different hot bar would pop up on the right-hand side of my screen. It contained a pair of cutters and a bar of soap. I noticed the animals had some sort of string wrapped around them, so I had to select the cutters and cut it away. I was able to pick up and rotate the animal to do this. The scissors were a bit tricky to use; I had to be in exactly the right spot, and it took more than one press of my controller button, but it was very gratifying when the animal was finally free. I spoke with the game dev about this, and he said the cutter mechanic is definitely on his list of things to improve for the full game. I’m glad to hear that. After the string was removed, I switched to the bar of soap and thoroughly cleaned the animal, top, bottom and sides. When it was all clean, I got a nice graphic reward.
Let’s Not Forget the Palm Trees in Island Restoration
All of the palm trees in Island Restoration are the same color but some have fat vines running up them. Those are the ones I needed to clean and for that I used my power washer. I aimed it at the tree until the icon changed, getting larger. That’s how I knew I was aiming at the sweet spot. I shot water at the tree, and using a multi-step visual sequence, the tree was transformed. It became bright and colorful and those vines sprouted beautiful red flowers. It was fun to watch. The demo has three levels to play, and in the second one there were vines on boulders too. When I used the power washer on them, they turned green; it was a lot of fun!
A Game Mechanic Called Contracts
The dev invented a really neat mechanic which he called contracts. They become available as you progress in the game; you don’t have to buy them or accumulate points or anything. He told me to think of contracts as an endless job board. You can visit it if you want and can choose a contract if you want. Selecting a contract causes the game to build a brand new, completely unique island for you to clean.
This island would be in addition to the ones provided for everyone who plays the game. Your contract island would be randomly generated, and there are over 1 billion combinations of islands, so you never have to clean the same contract island twice. I thought that was brilliant, and it gives Island Restoration a lot of replay value.
Save Feature in Island Restoration
I’d be remiss if I didn’t discuss the save feature in Island Restoration. In the demo, the game only saves after completing a level. That’s less than ideal for players who, for whatever reason, can’t complete a full level before exiting the game. The dev understands that and is working to implement a more flexible save system. He hopes to have it up and running for the official game launch. But if he doesn’t meet that deadline, it will definitely happen soon after. I think the game will be much improved with more save options so I was happy to hear that.
Final Thoughts
Sometimes you want to play a game that’s very involved, a game where you have pages of notes to refer to and lots of decisions to make. But sometimes you want a game that’s really easy and rewarding; Island Restoration is that type of game. In addition to the simple and easy-to-understand gameplay, there was even a clue system that I utilised from time to time. I played on a controller, and when I pressed Y, all the areas that needed to be cleaned were highlighted for a brief time. In addition, Island Restoration has no timers, no need to sleep or eat, and nothing to do but clean areas. It’s very cozy and relaxing.
The full game will have 4 different biomes, and each biome will have multiple levels. Only the tropical island was available in the demo. The full game will also have a skill tree with lots of upgrades and extra tools will be available. The full game has a lot more than I could describe in this article and more than the demo touches on. But the demo does give a good feel for the gameplay.
Island Restoration is the product of a solo dev, and he did a great job! As I played, I had a couple of questions, so I posted them on his Discord server. I received a helpful reply pretty quickly. I’m always impressed with game devs who are very responsive to players. To me, it indicates that they are committed to developing an excellent game and want to make sure the players have the best possible experience with it. So, bravo to EliteTheDev, the game devs for Island Restoration.
The demo is available now on Steam; the full game will hopefully be released in September 2026.
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