How to play
You do not need a spreadsheet. The game teaches the first hour itself. This page is the same path, in sentences, for when you want the rules without the coach marks.
What you are building
You are Helmut, a sunglasses seller. At the start you choose one industry: Food & Drink, Nightlife, Experiences, or Luxury & Hotels. That industry is the save. The current game does not let you switch later, and it does not ask you to run two industries at once.
Each industry has eight businesses. They appear again in every town you open, but the town changes how they pay. Food & Drink starts at Playa de Palma. Nightlife starts in Palma, on the sunglasses stand. Experiences starts in Sóller. Luxury & Hotels starts in Alcúdia and costs more to get into.
Production
A business earns when its cycle finishes. Early on you start that cycle yourself. The introduction walks through one payout before it asks you to buy anything else. Bigger businesses take longer and pay more. The town can shorten cycles, stretch them, or make two businesses in the lineup the speciality. The regions page describes those differences without turning them into a tier list.
Buying
You spend the town’s cash on more of a business. The buy button can purchase 1, 10, 100, or up to the next ownership milestone. Milestones are markers on that business. They are not a separate currency. Reaching one can complete an island goal. Claiming the goal gives a star on the Island Ladder.
The first business is the one the tutorial wants you to buy more of. After that, the next business in the row is the usual way the town grows. There is no hidden “correct” first purchase beyond what the game already points at: more of the stand you have, then its manager, then the next stand when you can pay for it.
Managers
Each business has one manager, hired once for cash. After that, the business runs its cycles on its own. Nightlife in particular is slow until someone is on the clock. The manager guide covers offline income, which does not exist for a business that was never started and has no manager.
Upgrades
Seasonal cash upgrades sit on a business in the current town. They improve profit or speed. A new season at that town clears those seasonal upgrades there. It does not clear the other towns.
Sun marks are a softer currency you earn by playing. Polish spends them on a business. Island jewels are the premium currency, from rewards or from optional purchases. The shop introduces itself during the tutorial. You do not have to buy anything to leave that step.
A profit boost can be started from a rewarded ad. Watching it is optional. Consent for advertising is handled inside the app, separately from this website.
Your first new season
New Season appears when the current town has Island Fame to claim. It pays that fame, then resets the town’s cash, businesses, and seasonal cash upgrades. Island Fame you hold increases profit, and you can spend fame on its own upgrades. Other open towns, clothes, emblems, and sun marks stay.
The second town on your route is meant to wait until that first reset has meant something. You need Island Fame earned in the industry, and you need proof the current town was actually built: its businesses opened, and at least half of them run by a manager. Later towns ask for a deeper build. Repeating seasons on the first town is not a shortcut past that proof.
Read New season and Island Fame before you reset a town you are still fond of. The game shows a preview of what you gain and what that town loses.
What this page will not tell you
- Exact prices, cycle times, or a “best” industry. Those move when the game is balanced, and the in-game labels are the live ones.
- A path that skips managers. Offline and late businesses assume someone is hired.
- A way to change industry. That switch was removed. Old saves that had several industries keep a leftover profit factor, but you do not open a second industry in a new game.