Tentacular Island Builder Expansion Adds More Life to the Game

Tentacular is one of those VR games that is a joy for many reasons. One thing I noticed is that it is the type that once you’re done with it, you can step away and feel satisfied. What’s great about the free Island Builder update for Tentacular is that it adds this additional creative element that could be ongoing, yet also builds on what’s fun about the game in general.

For those who didn’t get into the Firepunchd Games and Devolver Digital title back when it first showed up on the Meta Quest, PS VR2, or Windows PC VR headsets, the concept is simple. In Tentacular, you are essentially some sort of kraken-like creature. You were raised alongside humans after hatching from an egg. After coming of age, you step into the workforce and start helping out everyone on La Kalma island with odd jobs. It’s primarily a physics-based puzzle game with various situations littered across stages, but there’s also an overarching storyline that offers some insights into the characters, island, and situation they’re dealing with.

But the real fun involves figuring out how to solve problems when you only have two tentacles.

While there are some extra missions in the Tentacular Island Builder update, which are quite fun and feel different from what came before, the selling point is the titular Island Builder. This gives you access to a sandbox space that lets you create your own own island or see other people’s islands. I just couldn’t stop playing with the new suite of tools.

Some of the basic ones involve just being able to create landmasses and elements. Others involve getting a whole building toy box of different elements and features to help you put things together. There are pieces that allow you to combine items. Basically everything I encountered in the main game was available as an option when building or decorating in this supplemental area. While the first hour or so involved just messing around with the creation glove and building blocks for developing my own unique island, I really felt like I’d gotten to a point where I could build a small town that made sense to me. But also, I will admit that I had fun sort of destroying things a bit when my vision wasn’t adding up either. Since they weren’t the NPCs I was used to from the real game, I didn’t feel the same guilt as I would like… tossing a car or boat around there.

The ability to visit other people’s islands is also a fantastic perk. Tentacular’s base game is very good at presenting puzzles someone can play without getting VR or motion sick. Because I was moving around so much more when constructing my own island in the sandbox element, I did notice I’d need to take breaks a bit more frequently. If I knew I only needed like five or ten minutes, I’d usually keep my Meta Quest 3 on and head to some other players’ creations instead. 

The only thing I didn’t like is, honestly, the Tentacular cheat terminal. I ended up using it to play around with and unlock a thing, and I absolutely hated the inputs. The nature of it means you need to grab letters from the board and place them in the area in the proper order to spell out the correct phase. But because of the lack of the precision, when I grabbed “O” I also got “F” or “G.” The only time I could get the exact single letter I needed was if it was in the front row (so R, S, T, Y, V, W, X, Y, or Z). It was incredibly frustrating and I would have appreciated a little break in the immersion to make it more accommodating.

Before the Tentacular Island Builder free update dropped, it was probably one of the absolute best VR games you could get due to how well the concept and execution come together. After that new addition, I think it is absolutely in the top five. It feels like the perfect playground who ever got sucked into a SimCity or Sims style game for hours because they just wanted to design how the metropolis or house looked. It provides an even better excuse to head back to the game and maybe play it more often after beating the original levels.

Tentacular is available on the Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest Pro, PS VR2, and Windows PC VR headsets, and the Island Builder update is live.