Everything about Skull Island.
Guide Contents
All About Skull Island
Starting
First off, you start with no money on this island. You need to find a chest straight away.
Also, there is no indication as to where your camp is. To find it, just pick a direction and keep going until you find either a chest or your camp.
Mounts
There are no mounts. You start the island on the Griffin, and it cannot be changed.
Hermits and the Dog
There are no hermits and no dog on this island, and so they cannot be used.
Statues and Mines
There is no stone quarry and no iron mine on this island, you are able to build up to iron from the start.
There are none of the usual statues on this island, meaning no Builder, Farmer, Archer or Knight statue.
The only statue is of a person carrying a large hourglass over their back, with a pillar on either side each with 12 connected cirlces on them. Its function is explained later in the Volcano and Time section.
Finding it should be a top priority. On my reign, it was between the second and third portal on the right side.
The Greed
Generally, the greed are the same as usual. However, there are two changes.
First, there are now masked Breeders. I don’t know if these ever appear in the normal game as I have never seen one before, but on Skull Island they appear quite often. They are much tougher than regular ones.
They sometimes seem to have a texture glitch in that their mask only becomes visible when they throw a boulder and it shows on their wrist, though I am not sure if they actually are masked or if it’s just a buggy texture for a different reason.
Second, there is a mountain portal on both sides of the island, rather than a dock portal on one side. Each side has three small portals, as well as the mountain.
Also, the attack is very small on the first day, with only a few greedlings. However, they will immediately get harder and will continue to get harder every single night.
The Volcano and Time
Probably the first thing you will notice is the big volcano in the background. That is what makes this island a challenge island.
After 7 days, it will erupt, firing out large rocks which will hit you directly and burst into greedlings. You have lost the game by this point.
This is where the hourglass statue comes in, shown in the Statues and Mines section.
Each circle on the pillars next to the statue represents one day, adding up to twelve maximum. At any time, you can give the statue three coins. This will add one day to the reign, and the next circle will start glowing.
- Whenever there are at least 6 days left, the lava inside the volcano will move very slightly.
- With 5 days left, it will start to move slightly more.
- At 4, it will begin to wobble.
- When there are only 3 days left or fewer, the lava will start to shake violently and small globs will jump up from the surface.
- If you keep an eye on the background, you can use this to see how long you have left without having to run all the way to the statue.
Also, just to make it clear, day ends when night starts, not when the new day comes.
Getting the Achievement
To get the Cracked the Skull achievement, you do not need to beat the entire island, or get a gold crown award. You either need to get a silver crown award(destroy 4 portals), or ‘destroy’ one mountain portal. I am not sure which, but it is more likely to be a mountain portal that triggers it.
I got it after destroying the three small portals and breaking the mountain portal on the right side (not blowing it up, only sending my knights to fight it). I had not done anything on the left side.
Either way, you will get the silver crown award in the process of getting the achievement.
Textures
Like all the ‘game modes’ in Kingdom, Skull Island has different textures for some things, though they are mostly the same.
The mountain portals have a big skull carved into the rock at the top of it, and what look like teeth lining the edge too, shown in the Greed section.
The Griffin also has alternate colours unique to this island, as seen in all of the screenshots.
The crown on the monarch is also different. You start with a copper-like crown, and after destroying two portals the ghost comes and hands you a new bronze crown. After four portals, the ghost gives you a silver crown, and after six the gold crown that you have in the normal campaign islands.
My Conclusion
This island is incredibly easy to beat, if you know how to play the game.
On my first reign, I knew nothing about it. I found the hourglass statue and had no idea what it did, and lost because the volcano erupted. After that I just started again and figured it out.
Everything in this guide is what I learned on my second reign with what I already knew about the game in general.
I destroyed the entire right side by day 33, and the left side by day 50, and could have even done it much faster if I wanted to. I never even encountered leapers/crown snatchers since they start coming on day ~65.
There is very little pressure, so long as you just plough through it and don’t spend too long doing one side. As I said in the Greed section, the attacks are small to start but get worse very quickly, and if you don’t keep a constant level of progress you will probably easily get overwhelmed and lose.
It is best to deal with one side first, specifically the side that the hourglass statue is on. Once you have cleared one side it will become much easier to manage the other side, but the attacks will still be getting much worse.
If you’re only in it for the achievement and don’t actually care about finishing the island, that’s even easier. Just destroy the side that the statue is on.
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