Alba: A Wildlife Adventure Review (jonpol)
I really enjoyed playing Alba: A Wildlife Adventure. It is wholesome, fun, and surprisingly inspiring. It is appropriate for kids, but I enjoyed it as an adult; it made me feel like a kid again (in a good way). It is not difficult and is pretty short (Steam reports that I have played about 5 hours and I definitely took my time), but if that doesn't put you off and my description appeals to you then I would definitely recommend it.
Often "kids games" feel a bit patronizing (I felt this way as a kid, especially), where there is a danger that the creators view the fact that something is a "game" as enough motivation for a kid to play it no matter how poor the game design might be. Alba; A Wildlife Adventure doesn't fall into this trap! It is clearly made by developers who understand how to make a good game. (There are a few minor interface issues that I think could be improved, but the core gameplay loop and how you keep getting new things to do is very well done.)
There is a message (that wildlife is important and valuable) and the game doesn't try to hide that there is a message that it's advocating or what that message is, but I felt like the developers were really smart about their approach to teaching this message. The game doesn't just assert "wildlife is important and valuable because we say that it is", but instead shows why wildlife is important and valuable by making finding and identifying wildlife its core mechanic and making it fun. As I played I kept thinking "I want to do this in real life", which I thought was really clever and a good example of effective "gamifcation" that emphasized showing over telling in getting the message across.
In addition to the obvious message about wildlife there is another theme that runs through the entire game about how individuals can make a difference, and although this is definitely something that I think is great for kids ("you can make a difference even if you're a kid") I also found it really inspiring as an adult ("you can make a difference even if you're just a single person").
Finally, it should be mentioned that Alba: A Wildlife Adventure looks and sounds really great. It's fun to just explore the island and to see and hear all of the different things. After playing it I felt like I took a Summer vacation there just like the Alba.