As far as the many crafting games on Steam go, Ikonei Island is probably the most chill of the bunch where even getting thrashed by monsters just simply means you get respawned at home (and without losing any resources or progress). The art, design, and atmosphere is highly colorful and cute. I liked that it expanded on the world of Earthlock given that the original RPG game felt paradoxically as remarkably bland as it was colorful. The gameplay is relatively straightforward. There isn't anything complicated in how things are done - no special techniques you have to unlock, no bosses, no complex procedures to get things working. Even the fight with pirates is little more than a simple puzzle game. This is both the best and the least engaging aspect of the game: it's very easy to get into and it is extremely short for a crafting game, but it also always leaves much to be desired. There is a lot of potential to be had in this game, but like Earthlock, Ikonei Island tends to hold itself back.

While the game is enjoying on its own merits, it does have some major flaws: 1) you can only have one main character active at any time while the others just simply stand around and twiddle their thumbs; 2) there's very little back story and no meaningful interaction between the four main characters (the NPC characters are frankly more interesting but they aren't given much to do either); 3) the quests are remarkably vague (whoever wrote these scenarios really needs to work on their communication skills); 4) the various annoying - albiet not game-breaking - glitches; and 5) the personality of Frogboy. Don't get me wrong - I like puns and it was cute the first time around, but Frogboy just simply gets annoying.

Overall, I still would rate the game positively for anyone looking for a low-stakes escapist crafting game. Among the many crafting games out their Ikonei Island has remarkably beautiful visuals, fairly simple controls, and a very chill atmosphere that allows you to go at your own pace without any unnecessary pressure.

The graphics are nice, the controlling is bad to ok.
Inventory and so on are all ok.

The problems I have are:

• The voice of the ...goddess? is too sweet. As an adult my first thought was, is she a scammer? For children it might be ok.
  
• You don't have a mouse cursor but use your actions in the direction where you look. This is easy and good from the idea, messy from the implementation, because in the first few fights I already realized I have no control where I attack. Perhaps this is no problem if you play with a controller instead of a keyboard?
  
• You have to unlock altars and you get shown some symbols to see what you need to unlock them. I have NO idea what these symbols mean in many cases, but there is no text. Just a symbol.
  
• When I planted and harvested my first plants I thought: "yes, now it starts". But no, that was just an intermezzo and there was no way you could do it again until some time in the future. A time I did not reach because I uninstalled before that time. And you can see I played for over 1 1/2 hours. But did not reach the point where I could freely farm.
  
• Running around looking for an altar to unlock to unlock an altar is not funny. There is no fun in that. It is meaningless work and I was bored out of my mind.
  
• Because of the dark graphics in the areas without an unlocked altar I did not see a way and did not find the area to explore. I had to download a video from the developers (thank you for that btw, it helped!) to find out how to progress.

So:
- Fights are bad and running around bored to do something I don't really care about?

Yeah, does not sound like my kind of game. Sorry.