Tinkerlands

Tinkerlands (2025) is a creative adventure about exploring fantasy islands to build a thriving community from the junk you find. You must defeat mythical enemies and scavenge for resources to expand your settlement. It may sound like a standard survival game, but the scale of the pixelated world and scope for loot take you on an endless adventure in service of the community you are building.

---

You play a hero washed up on a mysterious island and must brave the prowling monsters to search for the resources you need to survive. Soon, you meet other shipwrecked people and work to build a settlement for everyone. As you play, defeating ever stronger foes earns you better equipment and tools. You nurture your relationships with the villagers and get to know each new inhabitant.

Play revolves around exploring new parts of the island to gather resources, both from the environment and the creatures inhabiting it. You can play on your own or with your friends, going on adventures across the world. To collect the best materials, you must defeat huge fantasy monsters, from a ball of goo to a giant laser-shooting spider. You can use both melee weapons and bows and arrows to fight, and using the loot you get, you can upgrade your weapons, enabling you to take on stronger foes. You bring the resources you gather back to your settlement, where you can use them to craft new decorations and items for your townsfolk to use.

The result is a game where the adventure is in service of your community rather than accumulating power. Gradually expanding your settlement and getting to know its inhabitants is a lot of fun and adds purpose to your fighting and exploring.

---

Our examiner, Ben Kendall, first checked Tinkerlands a year ago. It was re-examined by Thom Robertson and updated 5 months ago.