When I first started this, my naïve first impressions were, "Wait... is all you do in this game just walk around the island and take pictures of the wildlife?" and, while the answer to that is yes, it's far more compelling than you may realise.

Alba: A Wildlife Adventure is set on the fictional Spanish island town of Secarral, where the titular character is staying on vacation to visit her grandparents. While she's there, the town mayor and a shady businessman make the announcement that the town's beloved nature reserve is getting torn down to make way for a five-star luxury hotel. Now it's up to Alba and her best friend, Inés, to form a Wildlife Rescue League and save the island with petitions and photographs.

It's a short, sweet and incredibly cute adventure that is very confident in its messaging and presentation and conveys that through simple, cozy gameplay as you catalogue all of the island's adorable animals (none of which you can pet, unfortunately.) The locals and locales of the island are all really charming as well, which helps sell its chill summer vibes and relaxing atmosphere.

My only complaints with the game are its animal variety and smaller things like not being able to move around while you have your phone out to take a picture. These two go hand-in-hand since the vast majority of the animals you encounter on the island are birds and many of them you're only able to catalogue by photographing them as they're flying. Since they never really stop or fly slowly enough, it can be quite tedious as you try to line up the shot and zoom perfectly.

But I digress. Despite this, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure is a truly wonderful game with a powerful message that is conveyed sincerely and naturally through the exploration and joy of its environment, helped by the oh-so-charming sights, sounds, and vibes of the island and its people.

9.5/10

the path to finding new media can be so wild sometimes. a month ago the youtube algorithm randomly recommends me a video about the fear of space from a video essayist who combines all kinds of media into their given theses. I like the video, check out another, one about games with the most "alive" environments. it's mostly about red dead redemption, but for at least a minute it's alba. which is now likely one of my favorite games of the year

um, yeah! this is exceptional for what it is: a warm-hearted, couple-hour, culturally rich game about community, ecology, and exploration through the eyes of a child.

the vibes are impeccable and the characters are sketched out well enough to feel tangible and human. absolutely overflows with charm. a lot of small, smart elements that keep the island feeling alive, both in terms of the wildlife and community. very grateful that it has room for additional save slots, as I could totally see myself revisiting this if I ever want to warm up my spirit

positive wildlife conservation themes and pretty wholesome.

the gameplay isn't anything too insane. most of it is just taking pictures and pressing A until you've interacted with everything in a given area, but it's clearly created for a younger audience and so i don't think its fair for me to say "wow gameplay chugs" or anything like that. definitely the best part is trying to get all of the animals scanned on your phone, as you can listen to the sounds they make in the wildlife guide and then recognize that sound in game to figure out where they are if you can't easily see them.

unfortunately, i feel like so many birds look like each other (lmao) and that's kinda just a fault of reality, i guess, but when they're flying in the air and such it's very difficult to actually tell what a bird is unless you're pointing the camera at it. as such, a large portion of this game is spent looking at birds with your camera that you already have logged, which ends up feeling a little silly. totally could be a me problem though for sure. also, the wildlife guide is disappointingly bare. it has all of the creatures, what they look like, their scientific name, and their sound, but that's it. there's no fun fact or diet or wingspan or anything listed about the creatures, and that ends up making them feel more like checks on a checklist as opposed to creatures that you should strive to conserve, which i feel reduces the effect of this game overall.

there is a website called Ecologi that supports reforestation, and the creators of Alba, Ustwo Games, commits one tree to that mission for every game downloaded or sold. as of my time of writing, they're currently in place 5th on the leaderboard for businesses with just over 1 million trees funded, which i think is pretty neat. to conclude: Alba: A Wildlife Adventure is a cute and simple game without much mechanical depth, but one for a good cause. i think it's pretty easy to get behind, and definitely deserves to exist.

a very cute little educative game but i would say it's suited more towards children, i wish i had this kind of games to play when i was a kid... i would absolutely love it. but now as an adult, i would say it lacks many things - my biggest complaint being the lack of description / information on the guidebook. it would be amazing if every animal had their description (i think it should be a default with this kind of game, i thought i just didn't know where to check but turns out the option is simply not there) - this way we would be able to learn actually cool facts and possibly memorize them but the way it is in the game, i forgot about most of the birds 20 minutes after scanning them. one other thing that struck me as weird: there is no achievement for scanning every animal? i am not saying this is bad, it just felt like a different choice to me since i was 100% sure there would be an achievement for this from my previous gaming experiences. to end on a good note, the sound design was absolutely amazing and i loved learning about each animal's unique sounds!