You
and your friends all make a living by selling goods amongst a chain of
beautiful tropical islands. Sounds great, right? Well, there's a
problem. None of you are successful enough to buy your own seaplane, so
you all pitched in and bought one together, which means that each day
you all have to use the same plane to make all of the day's deliveries –
and some of you aren't going to get paid. To make matters worse, the
plane is in such disrepair that the instrumentation is broken, the
compass demagnetized, and the windshield is covered in cracks, duct
tape, and the remains of a few unfortunate seagulls, so the pilot might
as well be flying blind...
Each day in Island Hopper, players auction
off the Captain's seat; the player who becomes the Captain is in charge
of flying the plane for the day, but cannot make any deliveries of their
own. To make their deliveries, the other players bribe the Captain to
fly to the islands to which they need to go, thereby earning themselves
cash. When it's time for the Captain to fly, the Captain must close his
eyes, pick up their goods tokens, and attempt to land them in an
island's harbor. A successful landing means that players can fulfill
their contracts and the captain collects his bribe — but if the goods
splash into the sea, you might find yourself under water...