My Talking Hank: Islands Preview - “A colourful and enjoyable way to entertain the whole family”
With over 23 billion downloads and counting, it would be fair to assume everyone has at least a passing familiarity with Outfit7’s Talking Tom & Friends franchise. It’s a huge franchise spanning virtual pets to endless runners and includes My Talking Hank: Islands, which shines a spotlight on one of Talking Tom’s friends in a surprisingly fun way.
How to take care of Hank
If you long for the days of Tamagotchis but don’t want to fret over it throughout the day, then My Talking Hank: Islands has you covered. It features a simple care system for your new friend, but it respects your time, which is lovely.
Throughout the in-game day, Hank will deplete three parameters; sleep, hygiene, and hunger, like a sim but less demanding. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to rectify these. Back at the house, you have a nice hammock, kitchen area, and bathroom to take care of Hank’s needs.
Something noteworthy about these care gauges is that they are fairly easy to replenish. For hygiene, you can brush Hank’s teeth or bathe him, and for hunger, it’s a simple task of buying food with some of the many coins you’ll find lying around and feeding it to him. Even sleeping you will replenish 1% of the gauge every second. There are no waiting hours to do things, the fun can continue which is perfect for the kid who can’t sit still.
Gotta collect them all
As you explore the island you’ll stumble across a number of unique items such as shells and bugs, and assorted paraphernalia like a captain’s hat. By grabbing them, they’ll be added to your shelf of collectibles and transformed into a sticker for your album - a nice little catalogue of what you’ve found on your journey.
Besides these items, there are also other types of stickers to collect and spread across six albums in total - one for Hank and each of his friends - which you’ll receive by completing minigames or finding them lying around the island. These and the above items are some pretty good ways to add objectives without being overly pushy with them. They work quite well.
Meet the colourful cast
You may have noticed that we mentioned Hank’s friends above. Before you get ahead of yourselves, these aren’t the cast of characters you already know from the series, but a group of new acquaintances whom you’ll meet along your adventures. To begin with, you’ll only have access to an elephant pal, but as you level up you can introduce yourself to four other animal companions, each with their own special games to play. The Turtle is big into recycling and will have you colour-coordinate trash into cans. The Lion meanwhile will let you give him a new hairdo, whilst our personal favourite, the Dolphin, wants to play football.
There is a ship and a map on the north of the island that shows plans for at least a further two islands and six more companions, so there will be more friends to make. Each of these characters is designed in a delightfully cute way so you’ll always find yourself happy to return to them. Which you will, because when they’re bored they’ll definitely invite you to visit via a flashing red button.
The main event
The main draw for My Talking Hank:Islands is, of course, the plethora of mini-games at your feet. You can hardly travel two steps without tripping over a diversion to spend your time on, and there is a huge amount to choose from. Somehow, they all seem to be different as well, which is quite impressive.
Outside your door there is an easel to practice colouring in on, you could enjoy a sandbox version of Battleships where you try to uncover hidden beach-themed items, or you can try to catch falling bananas for your monkey pal. There is an impressive amount of choices, and they are all fun in their own way, and perfect to keep you occupied for a while.
As you might expect, My Talking Hank: Islands isn’t going to demand your attention for long play sessions, but then that’s not the point. It makes for a cracking family game, with its colourful characters and entertaining mini-games. If you want your family to develop some useful skills through games, and see if they will let the dog out for the bathroom, then My Talking Hank: Islands is one to check out when it launches for iOS and Android on July 4th.