Put on your thinking caps, adventure fans! Return to Mysterious Island, released by Chillingo and based on the novel by Jules Verne, is one doozy of a mobile adventure game. With its panoramic 3D environment, terrific soundtrack, and slew of mini-puzzles and mysteries, Return to Mysterious Island immerses you in a world that you won’t soon forget.

Playing as Mina, you are a sailor who finds yourself washed ashore on a seemingly deserted South Pacific island. Utilizing your wits and the little strength you have left, you must fend for yourself, exploring your new environment and hoping to find rescue along the way. You explore this new world by dragging your finger around the screen, which allows you to see 360 degrees around, as well as up and down. Icons will appear to alert you to interactive areas, where you might collect items you find or use those items to impact the environment. One of your first tasks, as you might imagine if you’ve ever watched Survivor, is to make a fire. Of course, this will require some sort of tools and flammable objects. Look around and see what you can come up with. Tap the icons to pick up items, explore your inventory list, combine items to create more useful items, and so forth. Arrows indicate an area to which you can walk. Tapping these arrows moves you from one fairly static scene to the next, as there is little to no video/motion in the game. Despite this, the gorgeous landscapes often make you forget that you are watching static images, and do little to pull you out of the gaming experience.

The graphics are outstanding, to the point that they are almost photo-realistic. Hints and text boxes accompany a female voiceover with terrific clarity. The ambient sounds and renaissance-fair like music serve to enhance the experience tremendously. Touch controls are utilized for everything, whether dragging one item to combine it with another or tapping icons to move, pick up, and use objects. The icons, though they may make item collection a bit too easy, are a huge help in keeping the player’s frustration level at bay, as you could easily tap screens for a long time before stumbling upon that crucial object that you must have to continue.

Playing this game has been an enjoyable experience thus far. Fortunately, there appears to be more than one way to solve some puzzles. Our adventure cred is not as polished as some gamers, so the purported 15 hours of gameplay will likely take us much more time, which is ok with us. We imagine that finishing this game will be like finishing a great book: satisfied with the journey, but left craving more. There is also an e-walkthrough available from the main menu for impatient gamers or for those times that you just cannot figure out what to do next. Our suggestion is to do your best to avoid the temptation, as solving it on your own is way more rewarding. Replay value will probably differ from player to player, as expected, given the game’s similarity to a novel. The privilege of playing for yourself will cost you $4.99 in the app store, as you might assume for such a premium game. Return to Mysterious Island washes up on shore with a very solid 4-Dimple rating.

Jules Verne’s Return To Mysterious Island gets our AppSmile 4-Dimple rating:

Video by Chillingo