Islands of Insight

About

"Islands of Insight is a serene shared-world puzzle game set in a floating island realm, filled with ancient wonders, natural beauty, and puzzles to solve. The Deluxe Edition offers a premium cosmetic set, desktop and mobile wallpapers, alongside the standard game. Explore, solve puzzles, and uncover secrets at your own pace in this mesmerizing world."

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player Play through the game's story or campaign solo

72%

Audience ScoreBased on 3,223 reviews

story52 positive mentions

optimization88 negative mentions

The game offers a vast variety of puzzles, ranging from easy to extremely challenging, providing a satisfying experience for puzzle enthusiasts.
Beautiful graphics and immersive environments enhance the exploration aspect, making it enjoyable to wander around while solving puzzles.
The game allows for casual play, letting players choose which puzzles to tackle at their own pace without the pressure of a strict progression system.

The game suffers from significant performance issues, including long loading times and frequent crashes, making it frustrating to play.
The always-online requirement feels unnecessary, as the multiplayer aspect does not add meaningful interaction, leading to server-related lag and disconnects.
Many puzzles are trivial or repetitive, with a large number of hidden object challenges that detract from the overall puzzle-solving experience.

story
351 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
15%
76%
9%
The game's story is largely considered forgettable and disjointed, with many players noting that it feels like an afterthought compared to the puzzle-solving mechanics. While there are bits of lore scattered throughout, they often lack coherence and fail to engage players, leading many to focus solely on the puzzles instead. Overall, the narrative is seen as vague and uninteresting, with players expressing a preference for the gameplay over the story elements.
- “The story exists through text lore and while this certainly isn't a game I recommend because of its narrative, I do find myself really interested in the overall narrative that is slowly unraveling.”
- “This game is a beautiful open world puzzle game with a story you figure out along the way.”
- “The story is a pleasant, low-tension one, and it's more philosophical than engaging, but I think that's a good thing for a game that wants you to just enjoy it regardless of whether or not you want to progress the campaign.”
- “There is no relevant story to speak of, though, so keep that in mind.”
- “The (unvoiced) story is frankly mind-numbing and borderline alien with how abstract it is.”
- “The story is paper thin, if you can even call it a story.”
graphics
300 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
41%
54%
5%
The graphics of the game are widely praised for their stunning visuals and vibrant environments, which enhance the overall aesthetic experience. However, many players report significant performance issues, including stuttering and crashes, even on lower settings, indicating that the game is poorly optimized for a range of hardware. While the art style and attention to detail are commendable, the high graphical demands may hinder accessibility for players with less powerful systems.
- “The art style is stunning, with vibrant colors and immersive environments that truly bring each island to life.”
- “Incredible graphics, and very rich world design.”
- “The graphics are beautiful, the music soothing, and the puzzles just right.”
- “This game is truly one of a kind but the high graphical demands and failed multiplayer have tainted my perception of the game.”
- “God... no matter what settings, what graphics, even if it looks like it's a 3D game from the early 2000s, by the time I finish changing video settings... it runs like garbage.”
- “Performance, even on the lowest possible settings, is inexcusably bad and even people with better graphics cards than me are complaining about it.”
optimization
294 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
13%
57%
30%
The game's optimization has been widely criticized, with many players reporting severe performance issues, including stuttering, lag, and high resource demands even on powerful hardware. The transition to an offline mode has not alleviated these problems, and the game's always-online requirement has further complicated performance stability. Overall, players recommend waiting for significant updates and optimizations before purchasing, as the current state is deemed unplayable for many.
- “Despite the world being so large and complex, it runs smoothly on my GeForce 1080.”
- “After several updates, it runs smoother, finally has offline mode, and optimized a lot of the minor bugs, and therefore I will finally and honestly recommend the game :)”
- “I'd like to eventually see some performance optimizations, but the game already runs quite well for me on the quality preset.”
- “Unfortunately, the game has insanely bad performance (even on high-end machines), and the decision to make the game some sort of MMO-puzzle game only seems to hinder the game rather than help (you can't even really interact with each other's puzzles).”
- “It is abysmal how unoptimized this game is.”
- “Performance, even on the lowest possible settings, is inexcusably bad and even people with better graphics cards than me are complaining about it.”
gameplay
279 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
23%
76%
1%
The gameplay is characterized by a rich variety of engaging puzzles set in a beautifully designed open world, offering a satisfying blend of exploration and problem-solving. While many players appreciate the depth and mechanics of the puzzles, concerns about online connectivity issues and performance detract from the overall experience. Despite these drawbacks, the game provides a relaxing and addictive gameplay loop, making it appealing for fans of logic and environmental puzzles.
- “From engaging mechanics to clever design, every element contributes to a deeply satisfying gameplay experience.”
- “The gameplay itself was quite a fun and relaxing experience.”
- “The core gameplay loop is dangerously addicting, the puzzles quickly become brain stumpers, and the world is beautiful to look at.”
- “While the design of the actual puzzles is phenomenal and should by all means receive a recommendation from me, the gameplay experience, and the false advertising leave me rather wanting to cure my boredom by defenestrating myself.”
- “The decision to make platforming a significant part of the game is in conflict with the gameplay experience.”
- “But it's not good enough to justify the premium price tag for the game, and all of the other aspects of gameplay that were intended to justify that price tag actually just bring the quality of the product down.”
music
154 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
40%
58%
2%
The music in the game is generally praised for its calming and soothing qualities, enhancing the relaxing atmosphere while players engage with various puzzles. While many find the soundtrack pleasant and fitting, some note that it can become repetitive over time, particularly during music puzzles, which can be challenging and sometimes frustrating. Overall, the audio complements the gameplay well, creating an immersive experience, though certain music puzzles may lack clarity and musicality.
- “Stunning visuals and beautiful otherworldly music.”
- “The soundtrack and effects complemented the gameplay well; it’s calming and helps you focus on the puzzles, creating a relaxing atmosphere.”
- “The music is top tier and really relaxing, and the traversal of the world is fun.”
- “Though the music-based ones were borderline impossible for me.”
- “Additionally, music grids have tremendous potential, but the game's designers seem to think that a high-difficulty music grid should just be a random assortment of noises played at high speed, with little actual sense of musicality required for solving them.”
- “It also has the bane of my existence: music puzzles.”
stability
78 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
3%
97%
The game's stability is heavily criticized, with numerous reports of bugs, crashes, and performance issues that significantly detract from the overall experience. Players have noted frequent server problems, long loading times, and a lack of effective support from developers, leading many to feel the game is essentially abandoned. While the puzzle design is appreciated, the technical shortcomings make it difficult to recommend the game.
- “No glitches in the areas I explored.”
- “No glitches in the areas I explored.”
- “Don't buy; they took the online servers down and the offline mode is a buggy mess. The game has been abandoned.”
- “It pains me to not recommend Islands of Insight because it is my favorite puzzle game of all time, but due to technical issues, I can't recommend it to anyone despite loving my time with the game. I could go on about the good things in the game, puzzle design, visual direction, hint system, but that's a bit beside the point when my game itself crashes every 20 minutes consistently and I have been through troubleshooting with the help desk twice. It has come down to 'wait for future updates,' but the game is essentially abandoned at this point, unfortunately.”
- “Game freezes and crashes on startup, making it impossible to play.”
grinding
48 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
2%
2%
96%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be tedious and time-consuming, with many puzzles becoming repetitive and lacking in satisfaction. While some puzzles can be enjoyable, the overall experience is marred by a focus on quantity over quality, leading to a grind-heavy gameplay loop primarily aimed at leveling up and completing checklists. Despite these frustrations, the game offers a wealth of content and a microtransaction-free cosmetic system, which some players appreciate.
- “You can do a bunch of small quests that don't time out no matter how long you take and get a small amount of rewards in exchange, so they're really not grindy, they're just there in case you feel like doing them.”
- “Overall feels really grindy for no reason in particular.”
- “The philosophy of this game is definitely quantity over quality and many of the areas and puzzles are just very tedious and repetitive.”
- “After the skill tree is full, you'd be grinding puzzles for cosmetic points in a game with no cosmetic satisfaction.”
atmosphere
48 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
71%
23%
6%
The atmosphere of the game is widely praised for its calming and beautiful environment, enhanced by soothing music and sound effects that create a relaxing experience. Players appreciate the cozy, zen-like ambiance that complements the diverse puzzles, making it ideal for unwinding and exploration. However, some users noted that technical issues could detract from the overall experience, despite the captivating atmosphere.
- “The soundtrack and effects complemented the gameplay well, it’s calming and helps you focus on the puzzles, creating a relaxing atmosphere.”
- “The world is absolutely gorgeous, the different areas of the map all have their varying themes, and overall there's a zen-like atmosphere that elevates this game from just being a collection of puzzles.”
- “I absolutely love this game ♡ the relaxing atmosphere, music, and puzzles are perfect for unwinding.”
- “A game with a relaxing atmosphere shouldn't be frustrating.”
- “Feels similar to The Witness and The Talos Principle in atmosphere, but plays closer to something like Guild Wars 2 if it were a puzzle game.”
- “The world is absolutely gorgeous, the different areas of the map all have their varying themes, and overall there's a zenlike atmosphere that elevates this game from just being a collection of puzzles.”
replayability
19 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
21%
63%
16%
The game boasts exceptional replayability due to its vast size, procedural generation, and the cyclical nature of puzzles that reset periodically, ensuring players can continually engage with fresh challenges. Many users report investing over 100 hours without exhausting the content, suggesting a nearly infinite replay value. However, some players express concerns about the always-online requirement and a lack of a curated experience, which may detract from the overall enjoyment for certain individuals.
- “To achieve even more replayability, some puzzles 'despawn and cycle' in the mainland, which turns this amazingly designed world into a framework for endless replayability.”
- “This procedural generation adds to the replayability and keeps the experience fresh.”
- “I've put in over 100 hours and nowhere near collecting everything, so there is a heap of replay value.”
- “The puzzles in the main islands are reset periodically to ensure replayability.”
- “It remains to be seen if the game has the depth and replayability it claims to have, but so far it seems extremely promising.”
- “Lack of a curated experience might be off-putting for some; replayability is rather low.”
monetization
14 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
14%
29%
57%
The monetization aspect of the game has received mixed reviews, with some players criticizing the presence of microtransactions, daily quests, and a privacy policy that raises concerns about data collection. However, others appreciate the lack of in-game purchases and the availability of cosmetics, although the multiplayer experience is seen as lacking. Overall, the game's monetization strategy appears to detract from the enjoyment for some players, particularly those misled by advertising.
- “No in-game purchases.”
- “+ Seems like a decent selection of cosmetics with no microtransactions (besides deluxe edition), though I haven't even really looked at it (multiplayer too lackluster for me to care).”
- “I think this is a perfect example of a good concept turned into modern gaming hell: always online singleplayer, microtransactions, daily quests and cosmetic currencies, and the looming threat of a giant privacy policy from the publisher that includes a lot more personal data than what should be needed for a game company.”
- “But due to the wrong advertising that lures people into the game for coop, I'll keep this review itself as negative.”
- “If you found one of the old advertisements, or see that there is 'coop/party' and you want a coop puzzle game, then don't bother.”
humor
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the humor in the game to be amusing, particularly in the sight of others engaging in puzzling activities, despite questioning its classification as an MMO. The comedic elements seem to stem from the absurdity of the situation, contributing to an overall lighthearted experience.
- “It's a bit baffling to me why it is even an MMO in the first place, but it's funny seeing other people darting around doing puzzles, I guess.”
- “Hilarious.”
- “Funny thing, this is the first and only game I ever had to do this, and guess what?”
emotional
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The emotional aspect of the game is often tied to the frustration players feel when faced with challenging puzzles, particularly those requiring precise navigation through randomly placed obstacles. This difficulty can lead to a sense of helplessness, detracting from the overall enjoyment and emotional engagement with the game.