Isle of Tune - An Addictive Game To Create Music By Creating Roads On An Island

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The problem with the Internet these days is that there's just too many fun things to do. If you're even remotely interested in music or casual gaming, we've found another fantastic time vampire for you to play with (and I mean that in the nicest possible way).

Have you got a little time to kill? If so, read on with fair warning. You're about to be introduced to something fascinating and mildly addictive. It's ostensibly a way to create music, but there's something about the puzzle of how to make it sound even better that just keeps you playing with it. You can probably say goodbye to your productivity for the rest of today.

Isle Of Tune is a neat little idea, letting you visually create music by creating roads on an island. As the cars go around your roads, they pass trees, plants, lights and houses each of which make a unique sound and can be given a pitch. The result of which is a pleasant ensemble, due to the creator's smart use of a pentatonic scale.

Play A Tune

There's no sign-up "” all you do is start playing. If you want to save at any stage you have three save slots available, provided you've got cookies enabled. You can begin with an empty island or check out one of the demo islands. Take your pick. The basic setup is pretty straight-forward, so you can start building roads and adding musical scenery without any trouble.

If you add a car and press go, the tunes will commence. Personally, I was quite happy to leave them running while I created. There's three cars, so things can get pretty interesting.

If you start with a blank slate, try adding loops early on to get a feel for the different sounds you can create. I suggest doing it early, merely because placing a loop will replace anything underneath it. So, if you get them out there first you won't undo your work.

Tips & Tricks

A few tricks with roads and loops: If a car reaches a crossroad it will go straight ahead. If it reaches a T-intersection it will turn left by default. So, if you want to add an extra leg as a loop, make the car hit a T-intersection and branch off. When it hits the end of your loop it'll come back and go straight through the intersection. If you prefer, you can click on the intersection cross and it will give you options to force the direction.

As you can probably tell by watching the demos and loops, you can change the pitch by changing the colour of the scenery items (the trees, plants, lights and houses). All you need to do is click on the object and you'll get pitch and rhythm options.

The puzzle part of it grabs you quite by surprise, when you realise you're trying to use up the most possible room on the island or to re-create a favourite tune. Check out some of the best demos to see 'Computer Love', 'Beat it', 'Kids' and 'Smoke On The Water'. Soon enough you'll probably want to try your own.

If you've made something brilliant, it can be easily shared on Facebook or Twitter.

Tuneful Competition

Since this ingenious little application is so simple and yet engrossing, I'm quite looking forward to letting it entertain some kids for a while.

Of course, this game is outclassed by both music programs and games with bells and whistles, but being the best is not the point at all. This is just an enjoyable combination of both to entertain you and put a smile on your face. Its biggest competitor is the rest of the Internet.

Here's a few good examples of games which might compete for your attention:

Feel free to share your Isle Of Tune masterpieces with us in the comments!