Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness is a farm-simulation video game, published and developed by Marvelous Interactive, in Japan, and released in North America by Natsume, exclusively for the Nintendo DS. It is the fourth installment of the Harvest Moon series on the DS, and the first one to give players the opportunity to choose between a female, or male main character.

The story is pretty basic, with a player who chooses to be either Mark or Chelsea, which are stranded on a deserted island, together with their family of four members. In order to survive, the player needs to farm and grow his own food, which will attract other people to the island and, steadily but surely, will develop the local community. The actions of the characters are controlled by means of the touchscreen, boasting a much more improved control scheme than that of the previous DS titles in the Harvest Moon franchise.

This game uses the Nintendo Wi-Fi for a farm-ranking service, and a voice chat session that employs the built-in microphone of the DS. The game has received mixed reviews, with critics complaining of the long distances which need to be covered on the island and of the fact that, at the beginning levels, even the most simple tasks prove to be very difficult to accomplish. Obviously, this can easily scare off the casual gamers. Here's some of the things one can unlock in this interesting game.

UNLOCKABLES

Sub-villagers

Complete the indicated task to have the corresponding person appear.

Young men
Jake: Upgrade the cafe/diner.
Daniel: Upgrade the road from the ranch, the Original Inn has appeared, and East Town is available.
Taka: Over 15 sub-villagers have appeared and East Town is available
Hiro: Island Hotel is built.
Lloyd: Lanna has appeared.
Logan: Upgrade road at Regis' place.
Luke: Over 10 sub-villagers have appeared and East Town is available

Older Men
Sean: Visit the meadow area.
Gerald: Visit the jungle area.
Jon: Upgrade the West Town Main Road and East Town is available.
Knox: Upgrade Pierre's Island Hotel Road.
Blair: Participate in over 5 Festival events.
Philip: Upgrade the road to the meadow area.
Lance: Luke has appeared.

Here's a video of this game: