A great puzzle/mini-game fix to have handy. I only wish there were a few more games in there.
Pogo Island is a mini-game collection that comes with two game modes, Quick Play and Island Adventure. Quick Play is just what it sounds like, you pick one of the mini-games to play and play it as many times as you want.
Island Adventure mode mainly plays like a board game, and there's a little storyline behind it too. You play as the captain of a cruise ship that is shipwrecked on a deserted island. Your crew has gotten lost while searching the island for materials to repair the ship, and your goal is to reunite the crew members and get enough repair materials to leave Pogo Island.
To move around the island you use the spinner. Grab the pointer with the stylus and give it a twirl to see where you land and how many spaces you can move. The spinner changes as you progress in your quest, giving you better options, for example the Idol icon gives you a Jackpot spin and the little running man lets you pick in which direction to move next.
Landing on the Star icon means you have to play one of the micro-games. There are four original micro-games, all based on repairing the ship and gathering the crew. Nuts and Bolts has you sorting the good nuts and bolts from the rusty ones and packing them into barrels. Hammer a Nail is like Whack-a-Mole, you have to hammer the nails that pop up from the floor boards. Sail Repair is a bit of a puzzle game where the parrot drops clothing items for you to sew on and repair the holes on the sail. All Aboard gives you three crates to pack in your cargo and shipmates, and a hammock to launch them onto the ship. I swear, I can't complete this game. I never get anything into the far right crate…
Landing on random spots on the board lets you play a mini-game. The mini-games are just a few of Pogo.com's little hits: Squelchies, Poppit, Phlinx, Tri-Peaks Solitaire and Word Whomp.
Every game requires you to either win it or play it a certain number of times to achieve a certain score in order to move on. Playing games awards you with a rank and tokens that you can transfer to your Pogo.com account. There are also several badges to earn from each game.
All the games are easily controlled with simple taps and drags of the stylus, though I have a hard time with the All Aboard aiming and launching. Maybe it's just me though.
The only real issues I had with the games that had some impact on gameplay was with Squelchies and Phlinx, since there is like a blind spot on the game area in between the screens. And at random times, Tri-Peaks Solitaire would just lock while loading a new game.
Overall, Pogo Island is a great puzzle/mini-game fix to have handy. It's user friendly, easy to pick up and play, and hard to let go. I only wish there were a few more games in there.
Review text part of Grrlgamer.com. Full text and screenshots at http://www.grrlgamer.com/review.php?g=pogoisland