Yoku's Island Express

A Bug’s Life

- Kimberley Ballard

Sometimes it’s the small things that make the biggest difference. In this charming open-world adventure game you play a dung beetle called Yoku, who’s just arrived on the tropical island of Mokumana to replace an ageing pterodactyl as its postmaster. You’re all ready to take on the Island Express and start delivering post, except you soon discover the island and its inhabitants are in grave danger. An ancient evil called the God Slayer has woken from its slumber, and Yoku must bring together the Old Ones hidden across the island to defeat it. 

This is a beautifully quirky game full of fun surprises. Instead of rolling dung, Yoku is attached to a white pinball, which you roll across the island to get from place to place. Because this isn’t just an adventure game, it’s a pinball game too, with endless rooms and tunnels for you to explore. Using your controller’s triggers, you can switch on the pinball flippers dotted across the island, left for blue and yellow for right. It can be tricky at first: jump on the wrong part of a flipper and it’ll send you sprawling through the wrong tunnel, but you can easily fall back and start again. You can also hit bouncy nodules to release shiny slabs of fruit, which you’ll need to collect, and crack open purple crystals and collect their shards to open doorways into new areas.