I NEED TO confess something; up until this summer I’d never watched a moment of Love Island. I’d (wrongly) assumed I would hate it because it’s reality TV even though I watched a good bit of Made in Chelsea and every single episode of Jersey Shore. I was wrong though. Like Jack falling for Dani, I fell in love with Love Island and boy did I fall hard.

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As a result of my new found love, when Jack and Dani ran out winners and the programme was whipped from my screen, I had a gap in my life. So I decided to plug that gap by playing Love Island: The Game to find out how I’d get on in the Villa.

It turns out I’m a massive wagon.

I wasn’t really paying attention when I designed my character Saoirse. So much so that I accidentally gave her dreadlocks. I was eventually able to change this but it’s a bit uncomfortable watching this pale Irish girl cracking on in the villa with long dreadlocks.

Anyway, once we got over that hump, I set about trying to get with people around the villa and safe to say it did not go well. The game is set over 12 days with a recoupling after two days. This means it’s pretty chaotic as you try to navigate your way through the list of characters around the place.

Rachel O'Neill Rachel O'Neill

First up was Jasper who I got left with at the first recoupling and who turned out to be a full blown melt. As soon as we coupled up, he pulled me aside and said he wanted to be able to flirt with other people too. Not to be any man’s side salad, I promptly told Jasper where to go and sought comfort elsewhere.

Thanks for nothing Jasper.

What followed then is a merry go round of shifting. I went from Levi to Rohan to Talia and then back to Levi again with about four months of drama in between. Now as Saoirse turned into the female version of Adam Collard, what was cool was nobody turned on me. One of the girls Allegra who got her hands on Jasper after me had it out for me but other than that, everyone was pretty cool.

That was until I got with Levi having dumped Rohan in rather controversial fashion and not two seconds later, he was up on the roof terrace snogging Cherry. This is after we’d had sex TWICE on the very same roof terrace. Now did I see the kiss? No because the producers didn’t show me the kiss so I had to go off second hand information. Unfortunately this meant Levi had to go.

He broke my damn heart.

The nice thing about the game is that it didn’t pigeonhole you. If you wanted to get off with a girl you could as I did with Talia after Levi’s indiscretions. The game offers moments of sense which you don’t expect from a mobile game based around getting with people.

Mairead O'Brien Mairead O'Brien

Mairead O'Brien Mairead O'Brien

Mairead O'Brien Mairead O'Brien

Did I reward Talia for her patience in getting with me?

Did I hell. After the lie detector test where she confessed to not seeing a future with me, I dumped her for Levi again. Her not seeing a future was convenient as I’d been sleeping with Levi behind her back anyway. Yes, I’m a terrible person but Levi was what I wanted, wasn’t he?

Nope.

It turns out that after the introduction of Levi’s ex Lucy to the mix and her determination to get back with him, I couldn’t trust him. In the lead up to the final recoupling, it was soft spoken Jake who never said anything who suddenly declared his undying love for me and that was it. I was his. I was finally stepping off the merry-go-round of love. Once I broke up with Levi again of course, who wasn’t exactly best pleased with me.

But it didn’t matter because Jake and I were in love, right?

Well we got a little bit of heat as I dumped Levi in spectacular fashion at the final recoupling. Everyone was, of course, shocked (although given I’d been through nearly everyone else in the villa, they really shouldn’t have been) but as we spent more time together we realised that we were meant to be.

Rachel O'Neill Rachel O'Neill

But overall is it actually a good game?

In short, yes. The storyline is short enough but there are A LOT of ads you have to watch when you’re playing. If you’re in the garden talking to people, you’ve to watch ads in order to talk to them. You’ve also got to watch ads which let you earn extra gems and quicker access to the episodes. You can buy your own gems too which is a drawback. If you don’t have enough gems, you can miss out on extra aspects of the storyline.

That being said, I’ve spent the last month and a half obsessively playing the game, determined for Saoirse to find love. I’ve made it to the final and knowing my luck, I’m probably going to win.

And you know what? I absolutely deserve it.

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