The Island Of Rhynin

Exploring a mysterious island from whose bourn no traveler has returned is an appealing trope with deep roots in the pulps and Victorian adventure literature, but the problem is that, unlike the protagonists of these stories, this genre has lots of baggage. One issue is that, obviously, that “no traveler” bit has an implicit “white” in the middle; there are always indigenous folks who’ve been living there and the fact that they’re undiscovered would be news to them. Said indigenous folks are also nearly always portrayed as savages, unsophisticated cannibals ruled by superstition who turn childlike at the doughty hero’s displays of scientific know-how and manly courage. This kind of thing is a turn-off because of the real-world connection between these kinds of stories and the ideologies used to justify colonialism, slavery, and racism, but also because it’s boring – not only is it played out, it also tends to flatten all the characters involved into the world’s stalest archetypes. I’m not saying I write off any game with this premise, to be clear, just that there are some pitfalls here; with sufficient authorial attention to detail and intentionally avoiding slipping into the easiest, default ways of doing things, it’s usually fine!

Er, hang on, I’m getting an update here on the wireless – there’s ultra-generic, low-effort AI cover art? Oh, that doesn’t bode well…

Alas, this is a book one can judge by its cover: Island of Rhynin steers straight into every lazy jungle-island stereotype you can think of, with a story and gameplay that struggle to distinguish themselves from the million other times you’ve seen this sort of thing. There are no details given about why you’re exploring this place or what’s so interesting about it, so the setting never manages to be anything other than a series of cliches: the rickety rope bridge, the altar where heinous sacrifices are made to graven idols, the caverns where the natives lurk in outer darkness that mirrors their spiritual ignorance, ruled by the white man who saved them when they were too dumb to figure out how not to starve. So too do the plot beats fail to cohere into anything unique, with the discovery of secret passages, the revelation of the identity of the natives’ king, and the betrayal of your weaselly (and dark-skinned) sidekick likewise eliciting yawns. The ending is a little surprising, at least, but mostly because it comes out of nowhere – (Spoiler - click to show)there’s nothing about this place that seems appealing, why are we fighting to the death to be the new king?

On the plus side, the writing is pacey and moves through the tropes without getting bogged down, and the gameplay systems seem like they could be engaging: you have a continually-updating series of stats, ranging from raw health to more metaphysical matters like your competence, confidence, and “trust”, which I think has to do with the aforementioned sidekick. As you confront various challenges, these go up and down, but the impact is muted by the fact that the right answer is usually very straightforward to intuit, and there’s no branching – failure just dings some of your stats while success builds them up. It does appear that too-low numbers can lock you out some of the choices available in the endgame, but that sequence isn’t especially reactive anyway, and the perfunctory nature of the epilogues (we’re talking a couple sentences each) means that this can all feel like much ado about nothing. Meanwhile, what feels like a very consequential choice at the beginning of the game – whether you’ll take a spear, pistol, or hatchet with you – was revealed to be less significant than it seems upon replay, as it doesn’t change the choices available to you by nearly as much as you’d think: like, testing the planks in a rope bridge with your spear to make sure you can cross safely makes sense, but apparently shooting them with a gun(!) works just as well.

I don’t want to harp too much on the ways Island of Rhynin fails to make a major impression; it feels like the effort of a neophyte excited by the possibilities of IF, and god knows we were all there once. But thoughtlessly regurgitating a slurry of already-digested tropes doesn’t make for a memorable game, all the more so when a moment of thought would reveal that the tropes aren’t just played-out, they’re harmful – just a bit of mindfulness about this stuff when conceptualizing the game could have made a very big difference indeed.