by Robert Jestic

Created on: November 29, 2008   Last Updated: February 03, 2011

Shiprecked on a tropical island, your tribe of little people must carve out a new life on the island with your guidance. My Tribe is definitely aimed at a specific type of gamer. Gamers who want to turn on a game for the first time and immediately start to play, while picking up the rules and strategies as they go along, will hate this game. On the other hand, gamers who enjoy long term gameplay with progress taking place over days, weeks, and even months, will find My Tribe an enjoyable gaming experience.

The graphics are nice, and the music is soothing and hauntingly hypnotic. The choices of islands for your tribe seems almost endless, with each island having a pleasant look. Once you tribe is on the selected island, here is where the frustration will begin to set in for the "get right to the action" gamers. Without taking at least twenty minutes to thoroughly study the directions, it is very difficult to figure out what is going on with your tribe people. There are some screen prompts that lead you to house building and fishing, but it is difficult to figure out exactly how to accomplish some tasks. Once a box of tools are found, you can direct the tribe to chop down trees to build a house. Once you start a person chopping down a tree, they continue chopping trees without being told. Additionally, the fishing function seemed odd. To make one of your tribe catch fish you simply dump them in deep water and they eventually walk to shore carrying a fish. When a barrel with a fish hook is found, it seems to make no difference in the fishing procedure, as the tribe member still has to be dumped into the deep water to fish.

The time and effort needed to learn all the subleties and strategies of the game will make it a winner for some gamers, and a loser for others. My Tribe has some very interesting features, including puzzles to be solved, and babies being born to keep the island population flourishing with a younger generation. The sad fact, however, is that many gamers will never see just how challenging and satisfying My Tribe can be, because they will not have the patience required to really enjoy the game.

I rate My Tribe 3.0 only because of the limited audience that this game will attract.

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