In Youda Survivor 2 HD, you once again play the hero, magically transported back to the island where you last had your adventure. The more things change, the more they stay the same. What I mean by that is that the island looks a good bit like it did when you left it, at least in the early stages of the game. Grasses spring forth from the ground and you can dig them up to form water pools where animals will flock to feed. Everything is cartoony and bright and looks pleasant. Even the attacking pirates are humorous looking. As you progress through the levels and enter the portion where your village is under siege, things get a bit more dry and arid looking. In fact, pirates can poison your water supply, turning the once cool blue water into an angry looking and dangerous orange substance.

The background music in Youda Survivor 2 HD consists of pleasant tropical-sounding music with heavy reggae/steel drum overtones. It works quite well and tends to get stuck in my head. When the pirates attack, you’ll hear a steel drum-based tune that sounds like a pirate shanty, so it's always a nice cue that you are about to be under attack. The sound effects are still as goofy as ever, whether it’s the "gumph" sound a goat makes when eating an egg or the industrious clicking sounds you’ll hear as your machines work to produce the various products.

Your goal in Youda Survivor 2 HD is to make whatever products are required for a particular level and, in doing so, you are once again protecting the tribe from an onslaught of pirates. You first choose your player, male or female, then get started on the first level available for you to play. As you progress, branching areas may open up to you and while they aren’t required, doing them often yields lots of extra points or goodies. In playing the main game, you will work your way through each level by completing the goals listed at the bottom of the screen. There’s a timer going as you play and how quickly you accomplish your goals determines whether you earn a gold, silver or bronze medal for that level. The higher the medal, the more gold coins you receive, which you can use to buy upgrades and so on.

At first, you won’t have any machines available to you to produce products. You may start out with only a patch of grass that you need to dig up and create a pool of water. Doing so will cause birds and beasts alike to group at the pool. Different animals require different means of nutrition. Some only require water, while others feed off the eggs produced by the birds. Still others require things like mushrooms and corn, which you will need to send your diver to gather, in addition to snagging special potions for certain recipes. Your list of goals might include a certain number of products to gather, products you have to manufacture, or even a certain level of health. In between levels, you will have the option (or sometimes, the requirement) of upgrading your existing machines to make more products or even buying new machines.

During each level, you’ll need to monitor your health bar and your hydration level. Consuming products you gather or make will add to your health bar, but you must select the cook and have her prepare concoctions for you. Sometimes, you will obtain recipes from attacking pirates and the items made with these recipes often provide huge amounts of health. To hydrate yourself, you will have to remove buckets of water from your pools and then have the cook combine them into drinking water, so be sure to stock up on those right at the beginning of the level so you aren’t left scrambling at a critical time.

For a good part of the game, you will find yourself "Under Siege" and this means that the pirate tribe is attacking with full force. There will be a graphic at the bottom right of the screen with the pirates bombing your camp continually and chipping away at your tribe’s "life." When you are playing one of these levels, instead of just the simple list at the bottom, you’ll have to collect the listed items and each one will be presented to the tribe’s chief as a wrapped package. Once you’ve collected the items on the list, another list presents itself, and that first completed list is represented by a bomb that lands on the pirates’ side of the graphic, taking away 1/4 of their health. Complete all four lists and you defeat the pirates for that level. I found these levels to be pretty tedious, though. There is also a mode called Siege Mode consisting of 12 levels of doing just that, so if you really love it (I didn’t), you can get your fill here.

Youda Survivor 2 HD is a fairly easy game to play, but it will take time to complete it. You’ll have to get good at strategies for creating food items since often your list will contain items to gather that will be used in the making of yet another item on the list. If you look at your list strategically and gather the items first that are needed to craft other items, once that goal has been checked off your list, you can then use those items to make others or use them to create health-restoring potions. Some of the pirates can be tougher than others to defeat, simply because you can’t outright defeat them. One female pirate simply jumps around and blocks you for a while. While she is totally aggravating, once she quits her dance, you can wipe her out and if you don’t, she uses a horn to summon more pirates, so don’t let her escape!

The scorpions are also back and while they aren’t super dangerous, they will tear down your equipment if left unchecked, so defeat them to yield small amounts of health potion. Lastly, there’s a new scorpion, one with a glowing tail. He can’t be killed and will actually injure you if you try to defeat him, so you have to wait until his tail stops glowing to take him out. The birds are back and will dive bomb your area and swipe anything left on the ground that you haven’t collected, so be sure to tap them out of the way.

Youda Survivor 2 HD is all based on tapping, whether it’s to dig holes, create machines or take out scorpions and pirates. If you find yourself under pirate attack with low health, it’s best to avoid them rather than risk dying. As you progress through the levels, you will obtain spells which give you abilities such as the option to make rain and fill your water pools, a music note to enchant the creatures into giving you extra items, a magnet that when activated will cause all items laying on the ground to be immediately collected (if you have the room in your storehouse for them), an owl to chase away pests, an hourglass to stop the timer, a set of gears which speeds up your manufacturing machines and finally, a spell to instantly turn everything laying around into health potions, which is handy if you are really low on health. Each one comes at a cost to your health, however, so make sure you can take the hit before tapping the spell.

Depending on what type of level you are in, it may be raining with heavy winds blowing which sends extra items blowing your way, or it may be terribly arid where you have to keep a close eye on your hydration and the water level in your pools. You can buy upgrades for your cook and diver to speed them up or allow them to gather more items, respectively. The first thing to upgrade is the size of your storehouse, because more room means more items you can collect. Some levels may require you to buy or upgrade a machine to even unlock them, so you may be forced to replay some older levels to gather extra coins, but sometimes I do this on the really high dollar levels anyway just to max out the upgrades.

There are also a slew of achievements you can earn by accomplishing tasks throughout the game such as defeating a certain number of pirates, etc. Your character will also earn upgrades to his appearance such as tribal clothing and markings. I honestly have no idea how these are earned as they just appeared over time, but they do give you boosts to your abilities, so I assume they are much like achievements.

Youda Survivor 2 HD is not the best game in the world, but it will keep you entertained while you play it. I don’t find that I go back to it, but I did feel the need to beat it. I will say that, although I completed each level, there was a point in the story where the game said I didn’t have one of two important items so I didn’t complete that mission, per se, but I never saw where I missed this totem. It was odd. Still, if you like a challenging game where you have to manage your resources, survive, and fight off enemies, Youda Survivor 2 HD is for you.