Paradise Bay - Just chill out, it's lovely out there

Paradise Bay isn't for me. That doesn't mean it's a bad game, it doesn't mean it's mechanically broken, and it doesn't mean its payment scheme is flawed. It just means that I'm not the target audience. And that's fine.

It might not be for you either. And that's fine as well. You don't have to get angry about it. Get angry about something else, something that actually matters.

Yes, it's basically Farmville but on an island with fishing turtles. But it's gorgeous, it's pretty well put together, and it's designed to serve a purpose. And it serves that purpose very well.

The game sees you rebuilding an island. You're the trademaster, which means you need to trade things with the other inhabitants of your new home. Fortunately they're all entirely incapable of producing anything for themselves.

That means you need to grow crops, send turtles to get fish, mine for ore, cook, make drinks, and generally do everything you can to make sure the useless layabouts you live with don't starve to death.

If you've played a cultivation game before you'll know the rhythms here. Everything takes time to grow or extract from the ground. You can make items at shops, but they take a while to build as well.

And you've got limited storage space, and specific orders that you need to fill. It's all about balancing what you're growing, what you're making, and what the needy bobble-heads you're serving want.

It's the sort of game you dip into from time to time. You'll set some crops growing, do some deals, harvest some ore, and then close everything down and get on with the rest of your day. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Crop it

Yes, there are multiple currencies, plenty of wait-timers, and you need an internet connection for the game to work. But if those things annoy you then the rest of the game will probably anger you beyond all reason.

Because it's not for you. And it's not for me. But it's for someone. In fact it's probably going to be for quite a lot of someones.

And they're going to adore it. It's polished, entertaining, and does everything it can to get its claws in you as soon as possible.

And yes, you could rail against it. You could bemoan the changes that are occurring in the games industry. Or you could go and play something you love instead.