Thank you SIG Publishing for sending us a review code!

If you were stranded on an island with your partner how many days do you think you could survive with the clothes on your back? Would you still tolerate each other after being rescued? Lost in Tropics challenges you to keeping you and your companion alive and content for twenty-one days. You’ll be doing most of the grunt work while your partner may assist with some tasks if they’re in a good enough mood. Be sure to keep you and your companion well fed and hydrated!

Upon launching the game, you’ll have the option of completing the tutorial, challenge (normal), or hard mode. I found the challenge mode hard enough! The tutorial will teach you the basics of setting up a shelter, fire, gathering materials and hunting food.

When choosing your character, you’ll have to take into consideration their strengths and weaknesses. The character traits can include asthma, a fear of storms, afraid of bugs, fear of water, or being deathly allergic to shellfish which is one of the main sources of meat on the island. Depending on your character’s handicaps, you’ll have a numeric rating indicating their difficulty level between Novice and Expert.

By playing through (and likely failing) scenarios you’ll unlock helpful starting items like an axe, flashlight, rope, or bug spray. Successfully hunting, feeding, or making things will earn you points that can earn you a spot on the global leaderboards if you’re a true survivor.

When you first start a campaign, you should focus on gathering resources like wood and ask your partner to build a shelter and start a camp fire. Once you have a fire for cooking, it's time to start hunting. You can cut down smaller trees for spears which are great for killing crabs. Don’t let them get too close to you as they’ll pinch your leg and cause you to lose health due to bleeding. Until you have a rain catcher you can get your hydration from coconuts. You don’t have to fully chop down a coconut tree to gather coconuts. Rocks are a necessary building material so be sure to mine any black rock you come across. Crafting can commence once you have a workshop in place.

During the daytime you’ll have to stay out of direct sunlight for extended periods of time to avoid getting sunstroke. At night your vision will be impaired significantly unless you have a flashlight handy. I opted to rest at night to replenish my energy level.

The days are never dull as random events take place including a crab rebellion and wasp/hornet invasions. If you start the game with the unlocked bug spray you should be able to fend off the deadly bugs.

If your character gets injured the screen will flash red, but no blood will be shown. Animals are killed for food, but again not a drop of blood is shown. While your character can be either male or female, the partner is always a female. This female companion is wearing a coconut bra and very skimpy undies. Her clothes must have been left behind from whatever they were traveling on prior to being stranded.

I have run into several game glitches where I got stuck in a menu or was not able to grab or interact with otherwise available items. The game interface is clunky and not intuitive. There are shared resources but in order to have enough items to build things you have to drag items to a generic human outline to give resources to your partner.

The graphics are nicely detailed, but the movement physics are weird. The crabs move crazy fast so you have to sneak up on them slowly if you want to be able to hunt them effectively. Your character seems to “float” around the island instead of walking through it. The movements are not realistic at all.

I like the tribal menu music; it sets a nice mood for the game. The sound effects like weather, insects, fire, and rain all seem spot on.

The Steam reviews for Lost in Tropics are mostly negative. I haven’t played Stranded Deep, but it’s more fun according to many of the gamers who have left poor reviews. The $10.99 asking price isn’t terrible, but this game isn’t memorable and the glitches make it hard for me to fully recommend. I would suggest waiting for a sale if you’re curious about Lots in Tropics.