Alba: A Wildlife Adventure

The game begins with Alba, a small child on a beach with her grandparents, who love wildlife and photography. The next scene jumps ahead in time, and Alba and her friend find a washed up dolphin on the beach and want to rescue it. After succeeding, they then vow to form a group which saves the environment.

After this intro, Alba is given her Grandma's old phone which has an app that can identify wildlife, and you are left to explore the island, cataloguing the animals. These are mainly various birds, but a few mammals are also around. Some birds can look similar, so it's often worth pointing the camera at them to quickly check if they are identified or not.

Soon, you find that the nature reserve, which you wanted restoring, is going to be removed in favour of a huge hotel to improve tourism. Your new aim is to gain 50 signatures on the petition to halt the construction.

As you play, you are given sub-objectives to find specific animals, picking up trash, rescuing animals or repairing wooden constructs like signs, birdhouses and bridges.

The island is large enough to be interesting, but not large enough to get lost, especially since you are given a very helpful map which clearly shows your location and the specific areas. Graphically it’s simplistic with a low-poly style, but it looks nice and suits the tone of the game.

The game takes place over a few days, and will take you 2.5 hours or so to complete. The game has a similar feel to A Short Hike where it is a nice experience and will appeal to casual/new gamers, but can be enjoyed by others wanting a nice change of pace.

There’s a couple of optional side-quests but it’s mainly “walk over there and talk to that person”. Maybe a few more objectives would have been nice, and a few more non-birds to find.