Island Saver: A Reference Guide

Overview

A companion guide for Bionauts new and old. Learn what the Savvy Islands have in store for you, how to tame the rarest bankimals, or where to find that last hidden egg!

Introduction

Island Saver is a fun and quirky first-person adventure for all ages, and this reference guide is intended to provide resources for its wide and diverse audience.

The game is developed by Stormcloud Games and published by National Westminster Bank (NatWest) and is currently free on Steam. According to an August 2020 update, revenue from its two paid DLCs supports charities:

Originally posted by Island Saver:

Revenue from the DLC goes to support two charities: YoungMoney who focus on real-world financial education for children, and Special Effect, a charity that helps less able-bodied gamers with adaptive equipment so they can continue to enjoy playing video games.

There are two DLCs available at $5 USD each, which will be mandatory if you’re an achievement hunter, who will delight at how easy the >2% achievements are to earn.

Gameplay Basics

The primary function of your player character, the Bionaut, is to clean a polluted island with your dual-function trash blaster. Refill its water tank using any natural water source (oceans, rivers, ponds, waterfalls) and empty your collected refuse to nearby recycling bins.

Your secondary function is to learn about and manage money so that you can more fully explore the island. Intimidating financial concepts are simplified to their bare components and explained in ways that are fun and engaging.

• All missed achievements can be earned after beating the game (except “Money Matters” which is unlikely to be missed during normal gameplay)
• You cannot die or get hurt; falling into the water will summon you back to the land and falling from great heights will briefly disorient you or spill some of your inventory onto the ground
• Your account balance does not carry between islands, but your PIN code and purchased upgrades do; your objective therefore is not to “get rich,” but merely to make enough to continue your adventure
• If you find the in-game commentary repetitive, you can disable reminders in the menu under Options > General > Reminders OFF
• If you forget your PIN code, you will simply be asked to reset it
• Money and non-degradable objects (pollution, seeds, hats) that fall into the ocean or get lost under terrain will be returned to you automatically after a short time (instantly to about a minute); this mechanic ensures no trash is unrecoverable, and penalizes you if you try to dump your trash into the sea!
• You can pick up litterbugs with your trash blaster; try to shoot them into water!
• Only the DLCs have collectible achievements; finding all the eggs in the main campaign is an optional adventure

• After depositing a foreign currency into the exchange machine, begin vacuuming while pointing at the exchange slot. So long as you can hold the full return, any “missed” coins are just for the tax bot
• Bartering requires a quantity (10-12) from a specific set of items, but does not require variety: you can complete the trade with any combination of those three items, or even by using just a single type
• Cleanable trash always appears in multiples of 5 (and usually 10); with the higher storage upgrades, you can even use the trash amounts to ensure when there is none left to pick up
• Although it is mentioned at the very beginning of the game, litter makes goop appear, so try and pick up litter before you wash off goop
• Shoot 1 doubloon into a Recycling Machine to get 10 litter back
• Money and non-degradable objects (tax tokens, seeds, fertilizer) will not despawn except as described above when they are merely teleported elsewhere; for this reason, you can temporarily store these objects in the world for later retrieval which can help manage your inventory
• Use Alt+Enter to toggle Windowed Full-screen; the game will pause when its window does not have focus

The loan system emulates the basic components of bank loans, including interest and early payment benefits. Unlike real life, you can save more than a third of your borrowed amount and negate interest entirely by just paying early every time the prompt comes up. The game is called Island Saver after all!

Each island features its own unique seed shop for replanting crops. A given zone’s seeds will be unlocked when needed.

Trash blaster upgrades become available after visiting certain zones in-game. You can find when using this table:

Paintballs become available in the “Fun!” shop after visiting Turtle Beach on #1 Sandy Island. Two zones later after visiting Croc Beach you can also buy fun hats! The shop’s inventory and prices persist across the game.

Crafting

Put those tax tokens to work! For every 10 doubloons you make, 1 is collected automatically and converted by the Tax Bot to a tax token. You can use these tokens directly to refresh recycling bins for 1 token each or build bridges for 10-20.

About halfway through #2 Icecap Island, you’ll also unlock the ability to craft specific items as you explore. These items range from tax machines to water pumps!

Although some crafted items like garden plots are required to progress the story, building the rest is your choice. The further you progress, the more you may want to hang onto your trash in case there is something interesting to build.

Occasionally you need fertilizer for your gardens. You can find fertilizer machines beside the recycling machines in zones that use them. There are five color-coded types of fertilizer you can craft using the display on that zone’s machine or the table below.

Bankimals (Main Campaign)

Each island features 14 unique creatures for a total of 70 bankimals! There are 2 rideable “apex” creatures per island in that total, plus 4 unlockable saddles in the Dinosaur Island DLC.

After eating an amount of their favorite food, bankimals will roll back and forth in place until you “save” them by vaccing the stuck coins from their slots. Different creatures will reward different currencies.

After befriending each apex bankimal and unlocking the ability after Turtle Beach in #1 Sandy Island, you can summon them to your location instantly using B for controller or Q for keyboard!

* Rideable Creature

* Rideable Creature

* Rideable Creature

Bankimals (DLC)

All bankimals in the DLC return ♻.

* Rideable Creature

* Rideable Creature

Maps

Below are maps showing the locations of collectible eggs and artifacts for the main campaign, as well as a map of fossil locations for Dinosaur Island and a convenient overview of supply line locations and exchange rates for the Fantasy Island DLC.

Icons marked with arrows require riding a creature or are above or below the primary player field. Look for notes beneath each map for comments.

An egg is hidden in a cave on the South East side of Primate Playground

If you are missing one egg, it’s probably in the alcove near the Gold Gate. Go to the left and jump down

There is an egg on a hidden island on the West side of the zone between Tiger Cave and Litterbug Burrow. You will need the Mountain Goat to reach it

If you have tips enabled in the menu, an occasional announcement will tell you where to look for missing golden eggs

Achievements & Badges

Island Saver features 13 original achievements, plus 10 additional achievements for each available DLC for a total of 33 achievements. The achievement icons are color-coded to indicate which of the campaigns they are applicable to: orange for the base game, blue for Dinosaur Island DLC, and Pink for Fantasy Island DLC.

Although possible, it is unlikely that any achievements will be missed during the normal course of gameplay. For example, an achievement to “exchange any currency at its best price” (“Money Matters”) exists, but it would be unusual to miss.

The exceptions to that rule are with Dinosaur Island, where simply reading the achievement descriptions will tell you all need to do. For that reason, only the “optional” achievements will be listed below.

Money Matters
Exchange any currency at its best price.

Tank Driver
Ride on an Ankylosaurus

Raptor Rider
Ride on a Velociraptor

Fossil Hunter
Find all Newton’s lost fossils

Note: The “Golden Egg” achievement for the Fantasy Island DLC is story-related and unmissable, so it is not listed here.

Like achievements, the in-game “badges” will mostly be completed automatically during normal gameplay. Badges can be viewed through the game menu and do consider collectible counts during the main campaign.

The only badges likely to be missed during the initial playthrough will be one to hit a litterbug with poop, and various counters for painting bankimals and putting hats on them. View the in-game “badges” menu for more details.

Disclaimer

All images in this guide contain content that is property of the publisher, National Westminster Bank plc, or the developer, Stormcloud Games. Their inclusion here is for reference only, and does not imply the developer or publisher’s affiliation with or endorsement of this guide or its contents. All map images have been watermarked by M. Doucet, the author of this guide, and may not be re-used elsewhere on or outside of Steam without consent from the author.