I love this little game. The different game modes - daily and random - while using the exactly same rules, provide different experiences. In random, you have to constantly take into consideration whether placing certain locations will net you more points in the future (e.g. whether starting a new forest chain is a good idea or not). Daily always has the same cards inside, so you learn then and optimize the islands as much as possible, to score as high as you can.
However, the rules are not clear enough. For example, it's not specified that forests are only "touching" when adjacent orthogonally, which is contrary to what other locations, which only have to be "near" (i.e. adjacent orthogonally OR diagonally) something. Additionally, I've only learnt about creating "lakes" on islands through the comments. While it's often not the best way to score points, it would be nonetheless good to know that it's a possibility. Those are my biggest gripes with the game.
Next, about the game design itself:
- Boats - their placement is very restrictive - not only you have to sacrifice plenty of space for them to score good points, you also can't place them too close to each other. I seriously think they are the worst location in the game and I only place them when I absolutely have to. Offering 2 points per each square to nearest boat or island might sound bi at first, but take into account that you have to give them plenty of space to score big.
- Churches - love the idea of requiring them to be on separate islands, but for the most part I think they are just weaker mountains. Yes, if you get 4 towns next to them, you'll score more points than for 4 forests near a mountain, but the forests synergize with themselves - towns do not. I think a nice alternative for churches would be scoring 1 point for every adjacent town and 1 point for every town on the island instead, while keeping the restriction of 1 church per island.
- Beaches aren't the best thing in the game, but fill a nice niche of bridging land and sea. Maybe offering effect similar to churches would be good for them - 1 point for 1 adjacent land, 3 for 2, 5 for 3 and 8 for 4 (making "beach lakes" much worthwhile!).
- Towns are good as they are, usually worth 2 or 3 points. It's just that forests and mountains are a better combo than towns and churches.
- Waves - love this one. Simple guaranteed 2 points if you can fill their requirement plus a potential for 1 extra point for nearby towns.
- Forests & mountains - those two are the real moneymakers. Mountain near a forest = 2 points. Mountain near 2 chained forests = 7 points! And the bigger the chained forest is, the easier it is to place more forests and mountains near them! That is most likely the reason why forests have to be "touching" instead of "near" each other to get points. I still think that changing the forests to "near" and buffing points from other sources would be better for the game overall.
Anyway, that's just my 2 cents on the game design. It's still an amazing little game!