Youda Survivor 2 Game Review

Return to the mysterious island and help your old tribal friends against a new catastrophe in Youda Survivor 2! The island has been devastated, and your friends there have once again turned to you to save them. Control the weather and other forces of nature to manage your livestock. Turn their eggs, milk and other produce into fine quality foods to keep you alive and strong in this fun time management game!

Youda Survivor 2 is the sequel to 2010's breakout hit time management game by Youda Games. The story continues where the first Youda Survivor game left off after you managed to save an island tribe from a variety of dangers. It has the same quality gameplay, with a few tweaks and additions to make this sequel a more engaging and exciting game.

At the end of the first game, you managed to get yourself off the island. Now, at the start of Youda Survivor 2, you are living peacefully back home with your wife and newborn baby. However, the stillness of the night is interrupted by a rain of fiery meteorites. The tribal shaman from the island appears and tells you that the same thing is happening to the island and also to the rest of the world. He asks for your help, and you agree to return to the island with him. He still keeps calling you 'stranger' though, after all the help you've given him and his people!

When you get to the island, you find that the meteorites have caused a lot of devastation and changed the landscape in various parts of the island. What this means in game terms is that you now get to see different scenery depending on which part of the island you are in. And with different scenery comes different animals you can raise and different food you can make!

Another addition is your ability to choose to play as a male or female character. Not only does this affect the look of your character, it also affects your gameplay. Playing a male will give you better attack skills, food and hydration levels, while playing a female gives better defense, energy efficiency and weather resistance. This opens up a lot of replayability as your strategies change depending on which character you are playing.

The game increases in difficulty and complexity as you progress through the levels (and there are many, many levels in this game!) Each level has a set of goals you need to achieve, and these usually take the form of a specific amount of food you need to produce. Completing these goals will require you to wisely manage your little microcosm. In the early levels, you have watering holes that feed flamingoes. These flamingoes will lay eggs that will feed goats, which will then produce milk. However, the eggs can also be processed by a machine into fried eggs. Depending on your current goals, you will need to manage how many of the eggs should go to the goats and how many should be collected for processing. There are plenty of other foods that can be processed: milk can be processed into milk powder, which can in turn be made into cheese. This cheese can also be cooked with the fried eggs and turned into omelette!

However, producing food is the least of your worries. You will be constantly invaded by pirates, scorpions and other nasties. Fighting them off isn't too difficult, but it does take up some of your precious energy. Energy is very important; you need it to build food-processing machines, cast powerful weather-controlling rituals and fight off the bad guys. And you lose the level if you run out of energy.

Thankfully, gaining energy isn't too difficult. You have a potion-master who will gladly do up energy potions for you. Just put in any of the foodstuff you've collected, wait a bit, and out comes an energy potion! The strength of the potion will depend on how far down the process chain its ingredients are. A raw egg won't give you much energy, but a nice omelette will. There are also special secret recipes that will give you huge boosts and bonuses if you put in the right mix of ingredients.

There's also a lot of other extras that make Youda Survivor 2 stand out amongst the other time management games. There's also a hydration level you need to monitor in addition to your energy levels. There are the obligatory upgrades that you get in between levels. These include the machines and equipment that you can buy as well as the clothing and gear that you earn as you hit certain milestones. In addition, the level progression isn't entirely linear. You will be presented with a few side paths that you can take instead of the main path. These will usually earn you neat rewards and achievements.

There's plenty of stuff in the game to keep you engaged and occupied. The many gameplay elements, the quirky characters and the gorgeous artwork combine to form a nice package. It is a big package as well, with lots of levels to entertain you for hours! You will love Youda Survivor 2 if you liked the original Youda Survivor or other similar time management games such as the Farm Frenzy series.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

You can read more about Youda Survivor 2 and try the game at http://www.game-tycoon.com/youda-survivor-2.html

Steven maintains the time management game review website at http://www.game-tycoon.com/ - a website devoted to strategy, simulation and time management games for the PC and Mac. You can read game reviews, download games and play them online.