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ISLANDERS: Mobile Beginner Guide, Tips and Tricks

Nipun Gimhan
|2025-11-21

Are you interested in a relaxing game where you build beautiful cities on small islands? If yes, then ISLANDERS: Mobile is the perfect game for you. The beginning might feel a little challenging, but with the right guidance, tips, and tricks, your progress will become much smoother. So, this ISLANDERS: Mobile beginner guide is here to be your companion with providing you with what you need for a better start. So, let’s get started and build amazing island cities together!

ISLANDERS: Mobile Beginner Guide

Understand the Basic Gameplay Mechanics

ISLANDERS: Mobile is a relaxed city-building score game where everything revolves around placing buildings on an island to earn points. Each island has a different landscape, and you can choose from many types of buildings to create a beautiful and efficient layout. The most important thing is to understand how points work and how to keep progressing in the game.

Understand the Basic Gameplay Mechanics

How does the Point Scoring Work?

  • Every time you place a building on the island, you earn points.

  • If the building is placed in a good spot, you get positive points. If it’s placed in a bad spot, you get negative points.

  • These points fill up a level-up meter.

  • Earning enough positive points fills the meter, and when it is full, you level up.

  • Leveling up unlocks a new building pack, giving you more buildings to place and continue growing your island.

How Winning and Losing in Your Progress Works?

  • To continue your building journey, you must keep earning points and unlocking new building packs. Planning carefully and building your island efficiently is the key to progress.

  • If you run out of buildings to place and don’t have enough points to reach the next level, your journey on that island will end.

Scout the Entire Island First

In ISLANDERS: Mobile, your goal is to place buildings on an island. Each island has a different landscape and terrain, so it’s important to look at the whole island before placing any building. So, scout for:

  • Where the forests are

  • Where the cliffs, beaches, and flat areas are

  • Where you can build future city zones

  • Where industrial or nature buildings will fit best

By understanding the island layout from the beginning, you can avoid wasting space and place your buildings in the best spots to earn higher scores. You also have a zoom feature that lets you zoom in on your island. This helps you scout the land more clearly and find the best spots for placing your buildings.

Find the Best Scoring Spot for Buildings

One of the most important skills in ISLANDERS: Mobile is learning how to find the best scoring spot for each building. Each building earns points based on the surroundings, so exploring the island and trying different positions is key to getting higher scores.

Before placing a building, take a few seconds to drag it around the island and watch how the score changes. You will see positive and negative points above the building for each position. Placing the building in the best spot will earn more points and help you progress faster. Here are the ISLANDERS: Mobile tips for best spots for buildings:

  • Seaweed Farm: Place near coastal areas with lots of water to get higher points.

  • City Center: This is the main building of your island. Place it in the middle of your island to maximize points.

  • Lumberjack: Lumberjacks get points from trees. Move them around to find the forest area for the highest score.

  • Sawmill: Sawmills get points from both trees and lumberjacks. Place lumberjacks close together, then put a sawmill in the center to earn big bonus points.

Find the Best Scoring Spot for Buildings

Rotate Your Buildings to Keep them Fitted

Space on the island is very valuable during your building process in ISLANDERS: Mobile. Keeping your buildings close together helps you save space, place more buildings, and make your island stronger and more organized while earning more points. That’s why you have the option to rotate your buildings to fit them better next to nearby buildings.

All buildings have unique shapes, and you can rotate them to fit neatly next to nearby buildings. Rotating them to fit corners and empty spaces provides help with  saving space, allows you to place more buildings, and helps create stronger building clusters.

Rotate Your Buildings to Keep them Fitted

For example, when placing houses or mansions, rotating them allows you to fit them tightly together. This helps you create a compact city zone, making your city more organized around the city center and giving you more space to build other important structures.

Choose the Better Building Pack

When you level up by filling your progress bar, you get a chance to acquire a new building pack with newer buildings for your island. You will usually have two choices, so it’s important to pick the best building pack for your island.

Choose the Better Building Pack

Here are the tips for choosing the right pack from our ISLANDERS: Mobile guide:

  • If your island has more coastal areas, pick a pack like Seaweed Farm, which earns more points when placed near the coast.

  • If your island has more forests, choose the Lumber Pack to get higher points from trees.

  • If your island has more open space for city zones, choose packs with houses, mansions, or parks to earn more points.

So, you need to pay attention to your island layout and choose your building pack carefully. Picking the right pack at the right time will help your score grow steadily.

Understand the Building Combinations

While placing buildings on your island, you need to pay attention to building combinations, as some buildings work better when grouped together. Placing certain buildings near each other can increase the points you earn. Here are the best building combinations in ISLANDERS: Mobile, which you can follow to score more points:

  • City Zone: Place the City Center in the middle. Surround it with Mansions, Houses, Parks, and Fountains to earn more points.

  • Wood Industry Zone: Place Lumberjacks near forests to gather more resources. Then, placing a Sawmill near them will increase points even more.

  • Fishing Zones: Build Fishing Fields near the coast. For better combinations, place a Seaweed Farm next to a Seaweed Field to earn extra points.

Understand the Building Combinations

Plan Perfectly for the Next Placement 

In ISLANDERS: Mobile, it’s not just about placing your current buildings. You also need to think ahead and prepare for bigger buildings that appear later, as they give more points. Bigger buildings with scoring more points like Temples, Markets, Breweries, and Landmarks usually appear in the mid-game. You need to be prepared to place these buildings to increase your progress. Here are the ISLANDERS: Mobile tips that you can follow.

  • Keep space available in areas where you want to place them later. Don’t fill every empty spot with small buildings.

  • Plan your layout, so bigger buildings can fit neatly without blocking other structures.

  • Save open areas near the city center for important buildings, as central placement often gives higher scores.

  • Think about access to surrounding resources. For example, placing a Brewery near industrial buildings or a Temple near parks can boost points.

Plan Perfectly for the Next Placement 

So, don’t just focus on your current move. Plan ahead and leave space for future bigger buildings. This helps you earn more points, build your island efficiently, and create a well-organized, high-scoring layout.

Do Not Rush Your Islands

You can explore new islands and build even more in ISLANDERS: Mobile. To do this, look at the skill icon on the right bottom corner of your screen. You will see an island symbol with a circular bar around it. This bar fills up as you earn points by placing buildings. Once it is full, the island icon changes into a compass, allowing you to move to the next island and continue building your city.

However, it’s not a good idea to leave your current island too early. If you move on without using all the space and scoring as many points as possible, you miss out on extra bonuses, rewards, and a higher leaderboard rank. These benefits help you progress faster in future islands.

So, don’t rush. Try to place as many buildings as you can, choose smart locations, and get the maximum score before traveling to the next island. This is the best way to increase your total points and overall success.

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People Also Ask

What type of a game is ISLANDERS: Mobile? 

ISLANDERS: Mobile is a relaxing city-building game where you place buildings on islands to earn points and grow beautiful cities. Each island has different landscapes and challenges.

How do I score more points in ISLANDERS: Mobile?

You can score points in ISLANDERS: Mobile by placing buildings in the best spots near matching surroundings, rotating buildings to fit better, and creating smart combinations.

How to  know where to place buildings in ISLANDERS: Mobile?

Drag the building around the island and watch the score changes. Positive points mean a good spot, and negative points mean a bad spot so place these buildings on the good spots.

Conclusion

Building cities on the islands in ISLANDERS: Mobile isn’t easy. Your success depends on planning your layout, placing buildings in the right spots, understanding each building, and thinking ahead for your next moves. All these challenges can be made easier with our ISLANDERS: Mobile Beginner Guide. Just follow these tips, and you’ll make your city-building progress much smoother and more fun!

Nipun Gimhan
|
Senior Content Writer

For the past 4 years, I’ve been writing guides for action, strategy, and adventure games. As I am a 24 year old student in the field of animation, I have a huge passion analyzing gameplay with computer animation and game design tools, finding clever ways to help players improve. Gaming fuels my creativity, and writing is my way of sharing tips, tricks, and enthusiasm with others