BTS Island: In the SEOM is a free Puzzle Game produced by HYBE IM and released for mobile phone devices in July 2022. It is the third major game featuring Korean group BTS (not counting rhythm or BT21 games), now featuring the members in a Fun-Sized, cel-shaded art style.
The BTS members are on a boat trip when member RM accidentally breaks the helm. With the ship seemingly adrift, everything seems hopeless... when a flying whale suddenly appears and carries the ship away. The members wake up in a Deserted Island with what seems to be the remains of an abandoned resort. With a broken ship, a phone with very unstable signal and unclear likelihood of rescue, they set out to make the most of their stay by rebuilding what they can and turn this into the vacation they needed.
The game is divided into gameplay and story. The gameplay consists in Falling Blocks/Match-Three Game stages in which you are given a mission (ex. clear all the red blocks, clear all the butter, use a number of power-ups, etc.) to complete in a limited amount of moves. The story is divided in chapters or "days" (as in, each day the characters spend on the island) with a number of missions. Completing a puzzle level gives you a star, which you'll need to unlock the mission of the story; completing story missions will in turn increase the members' levels of happiness, which will give you extra items to complete the levels. Advancing through the story will also open up the island as the resort gets rebuilt, let you redecorate it as you choose, and have members interact with it.
In the SEOM is notable for having the BTS members contributing creatively and providing feedback behind the scenes, with a short Youtube series
showing part of their participation. This includes the logo (pictured right), the theme song (produced by member SUGA), and several levels personally designed by each member.
It also dials back on the Freemium aspects of previous games. While in those you needed to wait for certain item to refill over time (or pay for it) to play at all, In the SEOM changes it to a Video-Game Lives system: you can play all you want, but if you lose a level, you lose a life, and if you lose all your lives you simply need to wait for them to refill, or get more through events or gifts by friends or clubs. Other than that, you can also pay for gems (which are used for mostly aesthetic purposes), boosters, and extra items and outfits for the characters, none of which are essential for the game.
For the other BTS games, see BTS World and BTS Universe Story.
BTS Island: In The SEOM provides examples of:
- Animal Motif: The whale. A flying whale brings BTS to the island, the blast powerup is a purple whale in a floatie and the logo itself has the boys on an island with the whale underneath it.
- Arc Number: "7"note and "613"note are shown throughout the game. For example, when building a fire, they gather 613 pieces of wood and BTS themselves spent 7 days on the island before heading off.
- Black Bead Eyes: Everyone's eyes look like this in the art style, with subtle differences in shape to distinguish each member.
- Chekhov's Gunman: In Day 1, a tortoise approaches RM when he wakes upon the beach. In Day 2, the tortoise returns and becomes RM's pet.
- Combo: Swapping two power-ups together will combine their powers (or, if they're of the same type, exacerbate them). Combining 2 Blasts together will clear the entire screen.
- Contrived Coincidence: A flying whale happens to take BTS to a deserted island that was once an abandoned resort? What are the chances?
- Cute Clumsy Girl: Rare Male Example in RM, who's known to accidentally break or lose things, kicks off the plot by accidentally breaking the helm of the ship, and is told to stay away from fragile things. In addition to him feeling genuinely sorry for his accidents, it's portrayed as an endearing trait, even to other members (though they do poke light fun at it every now and then).
- Department of Redundancy Department: "Seom" means Island so the title is read as BTS Island: In the Island.
- Deserted Island: The premise, though this one has a lot more resources than an usual example. Justified in that this seems to have some kind of magic in it.
- Dialogue Tree: Story missions will sometimes have you pick between different actions proposed by different members. Picking one won't affect the story much beyond doubling the happiness gained of the selected member, which gets you boosters and additional outfits.
- Does Not Like Spam: In Chapter 2, Day 1, Jin is turned into a Human Popsicle so Jungkook decides to thaw him out with his hot cocoa. Thing is, it's mint hot chocolate and Jin hates mint choco.
- Drunk on Milk: The bottles of liquor in the bar instantly fall down and break when SUGA and RM find them, so they serve purely non-alcoholic drinks. Somehow (and to everyone's befuddlement), j-hope gets drunk anyway. Might be a case of Fake High.
- Falling Blocks: Of the Bejeweled sort.
- "Far Side" Island: Played straight in the logo. Averted in the actual game, in which the island is much larger, with a forest and a whole abandoned resort.
- Friend to All Living Things: The boys themselves gain adorable animal allies. Jimin gets a calico cat while RM befriends a tortoise.
- Gravity Screw: Some levels have the Gravity Variety Chamber version, with blocks falling into different directions depending of the area of the screen.
- Hot Drink Cure: When Jin becomes frozen in Chapter 2, Day 1, Jungkook uses his hot chocolate to thaw him out. It works... except Jin's not happy that Jungkook gave him mint choco.
- Instant Expert: RM's destructiveness aside, the members have no problem rebuilding structures, repairing electronics, planting trees and so on with each task taking one hour at most. Partially justified by the island being implied to be vaguely supernatural (and SUGA having a knowledge of electronics and building stuff), but still.
- Kind Hearted Cat Lover: Jimin, who quickly adopts Gang-Yang the Calico cat.
- Lethal Chef: If RM interacts with the outdoor kitchen, he sets the stovetop on fire.
- Mana Meter: The BTS Bomb gauge, which fills whenever you use power-ups. If you fill it by using 10, it will activate the BTS Bomb, in which the member in your screen will jump to the game and clear 20 blocks at once (usually of an area you really need to clear).
- Mass "Oh, Crap!":
- When RM accidentally knocks the steering wheel off the ship, every member of BTS reacts this way.
- This happens again at the beginning of Chapter 2, only this time it's an ice flow that separated them from the car.
- Match-Three Game: "Swapping pieces" type. With the variation that grouping blocks in other ways (a group of four, a line of four, a line of five, an L or T) will transform them into power-ups. There are also various different obstacles: some disappear if you make blocks disappear around them (boxes, bees, coconuts, butter, coffee, bird nests); others can only be destroyed by power-ups (wooden statues); others can also disappear if grouped with blocks of the same color (ice, chains, balloons); and others disappear in very particular ways (birds).
- My God, You Are Serious!: At first, Bang PD thinks that BTS is on an island for the show In The Seom and not actually on a deserted island. One explanation later, he realizes that they're right.
- Mythology Gag: Like in BTS games before it, there's plenty:
- The color purple and BTS and ARMY logos are present all over the game, including in power-ups.
- Bombs and rockets look very similar to ARMY Bombs (the fandom lightstick). One of the first decorations you get is a giant ARMY Bomb as well.
- Whales are a reference to the song "Whalien-52", which uses the 52-hertz whale as a metaphor for loneliness. By the time of the game's release, the whale had evolved into an iconic symbol in the fandom.
- There are several references to in-jokes the members have, such as Jungkook's "Rrrrap Monster!". This includes the interactions you get when you drag a member over another, from Jin and SUGA fishing to the infamous argument j-hope and Jungkook had over a banana during their trainee days.
- The little Idle Animations of the characters include real dances and moves associated with each member. For example, Jungkook (who has been practicing boxing for a while) does some shadow-boxing, Jimin (who studied ballet and modern dance) does a ballet twirl, j-hope does one of his trademark happy dances, Jin brings back his famous "traffic dance", V does the floss dance done in "Go Go", and both RM and Jimin do this.
- The group dance seen when you complete enough story missions (and the one they do at the campfire) is the choreography for BTS' "Fire". The dances each member does when you activate a BTS Bomb are from various BTS choreographies, such as "Boy With Luv" (RM).
- Non-Standard Character Design: Downplayed. While he shares the same body and face shape as the BTS members, Bang PD is the only human character with a visible nose.
- An Odd Place to Sleep: Played for Laughs with SUGA, who is shown sleeping on chairs, on the floor, on dancing stages, and at the top of a cat's post.
- Power-Up: Rockets, Bombs, Tops and Blasts clear a larger area of blocks:
- Rockets clear an entire row or column (depending on whether the BTS logo in it is horizontal or vertical).
- Bombs clear a larger radius of blocks.
- Tops clear the 4 blocks immediately around it, and fly to a random block in the screen to clear it as well. If there's a mission to clear something in specific, it will fly towards that specific type of block.
- Blasts (which look like a tiny whale) will launch water to many spots of the screen. If combined with a regular block, it will clear every single block of that color. If combined with a power-up, it will turn many random blocks into power-ups of the same type and activate them at once.
- There are also boosters, which are items you collect in the island and can help you complete levels.
- Purple Is Powerful: The flying whale that rescues BTS is purple. In-game, all power-ups are purple as well.
- Really Fond of Sleeping: SUGA. One of the first missions involves repairing a chair for him to sleep on.
- Sleepyhead: SUGA, whose sleeping habits (to the point that he sometimes collapses on the spot) are a bit of a...
- Running Gag: The game has a field day with RM's habit of breaking things. Same with SUGA falling asleep.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The flying whale that saves BTS from being lost at sea drops them off at an island. Without it, the poor boys would've died.
- Super-Deformed: The art style.
- Video-Game Lives: You start out with 5 lives, which refill one by one every half an hour. If you fail to clear a level, you lose one. If you lose all lives, you have to wait until they refill again, or get more somewhere else. The latter can be done by having friends or clubs sending lives to you (which you can send in return), or with infinite-lives boosters (received through events) you can activate for a small amount of time.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Downplayed. Jin is happy that he's no longer a Human Popsicle thanks to Jungkook's hot cocoa; he's more annoyed that it was hot mint choco that saved him.
- What Were You Thinking?: Once Bang PD learns just how the boys got on the island, he questions why they let RM — the member known as the God of Destruction — be the one steering.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: j-hope hates insects.
