App Army Assemble: Castaway Home Designer - pick up furniture and put it down

Castaway Home Designer is a rather twee home designer (shocker) in which you build up your tropical village and make it look - in other words - fabulooooous.

You'll basically unlock furniture and place specific pieces in specific areas whilst trying to make the house owners happy. The happier they are with your efforts, the higher you'll score.

But is the game actually worth playing? At review, we didn't really think so as we summarised, "It may look the part, but Castaway Home Designer is too restrictive and basic to keep you entertained."

We also asked our hardened bunch of mobile gaming experts in the App Army what they made of it. Here's their report in full.

Tom Clark

Okay, I played this a bit. I like the concept, but there's not much info to get you going, and I don't like the graphics. Not sure of the target audience, but if this is meant for children more info is needed on what to do. For me, it's quite boring but some adjustments might make an okay game. Right now, not so much. And, I got to ask - what besides an island does this game have to do with being a castaway?

Ethan Harold

Graphics are sub-par, gameplay is pretty boring, and there's no help in the beginning really. In short, I'm not sure who this game is designed for, but most likely not for anyone under the age of 12. Accordingly, the game has about as much depth as the kid's end of a swimming pool.

Chase Geier

Many games have home decoration aspects, and some games just focus on decoration like this game. The thing is, that's all it is: nothing special. Open packs, get new furniture, and place it in the house to complete the quest for that house. I have seen other decorating games before and they offered more.

But, ignoring that, it does everything it's supposed to. It does its job well and I congratulate it on that, and maybe over time some more things will be added. But, for now I just see it as boring

Laura Egri

If you ever had the feeling that you're living in a dollhouse it had to be this game - a cardboard dollhouse, to be more precise. The graphics are nice and clear, and if you needed to scratch a decorator sim itch, you've got it. Otherwise, even the many items you can unlock items doesn't add much to the gameplay. It's simply missing something to make it catchy. It handles well and may please some collectors of this kind of game or a child's play time, but that's all.

Matt King

I'm on my second house and I already can't finish it. I need windows which I don't have. I bought packs - no windows - so now I'm expected to spend real cash or grind videos until I get the windows. Not my idea of fun.

Kainen Ryan

Okay, so a game about Wilson the ball would be more fun than this game. It's a play-to-unlock-stuff-for-your-house sim. The sim that really no one wanted, and even decorators would find this dull. There're plenty of things to buy with real money and not much to do in game.

It's for kids, I believe, as surely I can't see any adults wanting to play this for very long.

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