Zynga's Treasure Isle Facebook Game a Disappointment

Part Mafia Wars, part Farmville, Treasure Isle is the latest game from Facebook juggernaut Zynga. Although it shows potential, Treasure Isle suffers from quite a few problems, including derivative gameplay and unoriginal graphics.

Treasure Isle Gameplay

Treasure Isle's main objective is to wander from island to island, digging up buried treasure. The buried treasure can then be traded in for gold coins, which let players buy better equipment and stylish buildings for their home island.

Unfortunately, the game becomes repetitive very quickly. Every time you dig for treasure, you use up five energy points. You start out Treasure Isle with 100 energy points, meaning you can only dig twenty times before having to wait for your energy to refill at a rate of one energy point every five minutes. This means it takes over eight hours to fully recover your energy without the help of using in-game items.

Considering most of the islands in Treasure Isle have more than twenty places to dig (or have impeding items like trees and ferns which use more energy to clear), most gaming sessions will be done after five or ten minutes. Those familiar with the energy system in Mafia Wars will know all too well how long it takes to recover energy, and Treasure Isle is missing many of the diversions available in Mafia Wars that can provide entertainment while waiting for more energy.

Treasure Isle Graphics

Another aspect where Treasure Isle falls short is in the graphics department. Much like how the energy system in Treasure Isle is derivative of the energy system in Mafia Wars, the graphics in Treasure Isle seem to be copied straight out of Zynga cash-cow Farmville.

The characters in Treasure Isle look like those in Farmville, except instead of wearing overalls and farming gear you're wearing island clothes and wielding a shovel. The plots where you can grow fruit on your home island look suspiciously like the farm squares found throughout Farmville. Even the menus in Treasure Isle look the same.

Treasure Isle Conclusion

Although it presents derivative and inferior gameplay to both Mafia Wars and Farmville, Treasure Isle still looks to be a success for Zynga. According to the Wall Street Journal technology blog "Digits," Treasure Isle gained over seven million users in its first week on Facebook.

Like all other Zynga games, Treasure Isle is sure to have near constant game upgrades and updates. The current Mafia Wars looks almost nothing like how the game looked back in early 2009. Hopefully Zynga will listen to complaints the early users of Treasure Isle have about the gameplay and adjust it accordingly.

Until then, Treasure Isle may be good for a ten minute diversion while you wait for your energy to restore in Mafia Wars or your crops to grow in Farmville, but isn't good for much else.

Source:

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/04/12/app-watch-farmville-creators-go-hunting-for-treasure/