Welcome back for another Demo Dive. Today, we’ll be taking a look at Islets Defense, the debut game from MiniGoof Studios.

Normally, I start these off with some kind of anecdote about how I found the demo, or why I’m checking the game out in the first place. I don’t have one of those this time. Islets Defense is just one of several hundred demos currently available on Steam. It looked neat, so I downloaded Islet Defense’s demo with the intention of playing it eventually.

Today was eventually.

First things first: the demo was fun. I really liked it. However, to explain why I enjoyed it, we first need to answer the question: what is Islets Defense?

Islets Defense is a somewhat new take on the traditional Tower Defence formula. You’re still building and upgrading towers, but the cadence for how you do all of this is different. The game is framed around turns, and any action that the player takes counts as a turn. This change makes time, specifically the number of turns until the next wave of enemies, a lot more valuable as a resource when compared to other similar titles. It also informs a lot of the game’s design in some really neat ways.

The first of those interesting changes is how creating your fortifications works. Take a look at the screenshot that I’ve included below. You should see the 4 primary actions that players can take on a given turn at the bottom of the screen: build, upgrade, morph, and explore.

Terraforming the level in Islets Defense.

You’ll also notice that each action has a number of red crystals at the top of their card. The number of crystals directly correlates to where the cards are located in relation to one another with the leftmost card having 1 out of 4, and the rightmost having 4 out of 4. These crystals control what available actions you can perform with each card. For example, you can only build a woodcutter’s hut when build has a single crystal. However, once build has 4 crystals, you’re able to build anything including powerful cannons.

Adding a forest tile to my island in Islets Defense.

After using an action card, it moves to the leftmost spot in the queue, and every other card moves up to fill the available space. This allows the cards that aren’t played to slowly gain access to the full breadth of their potential.

This system of limiting what each action can do at any given time asks players to put far more thought into when they decide to build something compared to your typical Tower Defence title. As such, I was thinking several moves ahead in the same way that I would while playing most other strategy titles, which made what I played of Islets Defense a fairly engrossing experience.

It also introduces a neat meta-level challenge to Islet Defense: how few turns can you finish a level in? The demo recorded my highscores for each level, which I didn’t think much of at first. However, I went back to collect footage of the game, and found myself trying to best my previous scores, and subsequently had to amend a portion of this article. I guess it doesn’t matter what type of game I’m playing: I always get a little bit competitive, even if it’s just with myself.

Regardless, if competition isn’t your vibe, I still think Islets Defense has something for you. Each of the demo’s 3 levels has a bonus objective. None of them were particularly difficult, but the objective on the third level does force you to tackle that level a little bit differently. The third map also features a modifier that radically changes how it plays when compared against the first 2 levels.

That was my one source of consternation with Islets Defense: I wasn’t confident that it’d have any legs. The mechanics of the game are interesting, but that wouldn’t matter without a bevy of equally interesting levels to help players utilize those mechanics to the fullest.

Preparing defences to fight back against the oncoming horde in Islets Defense.

While the demo is only 3 levels long, I think it does a good enough job of assuaging my initial misgivings. All 3 levels have a unique layout that force the player to prioritize different actions, and the third, as already mentioned, has a modifier that completely changes how it plays relative to the rest of the demo. It’s not a lot to go off of, but it shows that MiniGoof is aware that they needed to put their best foot forward with this demo, and I’d say they pulled that off. It also gave me a lot more confidence that the full game will go the distance, and feature several unique ideas to keep levels fresh.

Also, you can make the cannons sound like rubber-ducks while shooting. I just think that’s neat.

It’s probably redundant to repeat, but I really enjoyed the demo for Islets Defense. The unique spin on Tower Defence already had me hooked, but it was chasing new highscores in each level that really sealed the deal for me. It’s a game that feels easy to pick up, but it’s got some legs for folks who want a bit more out of their games. Even if that “more” is simply chasing your own highscores.

Either way, if you’re at all interested in trying Islets Defense for yourself, you can find the demo on Steam, or MiniGoof’s Itch.io page. As previously stated, it’s 3 levels in length (plus a tutorial). The whole thing took me about an hour to play through. At least, I think it was an hour. It’s hard to tell since I got distracted replaying levels to beat my highscores.

If you decide to give it a go, let me know what you thought. Also, here are my highscores so you’ve got something to brag about if you can beat them.

My highscores in the demo for Islet Defense.

Islets Defense is scheduled to release sometime in 2025, though a specific date hasn’t been listed at the time of writing. Wishlisting the game will notify you when it releases, and also helps MiniGoof with visibility on Steam.

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