Sometimes you want to relax with a cozy game, enjoying soft visuals, soothing music, and a nice handful of colorful tiles to lay down. DORFROMANTIK is a perfect example of the genre it helped to revive. A soothing game from start to finish where you create sprawling landscapes of rural idyll. And some other times you want such a game to reach into your grey matter and give it a serious squeeze. A game that will test your logical thinking and will make sure you're a bit on your edge, seeing your resources dwindle. Time's running up and you must make some good decisions to keep going. PLANETILES is that kind of tile-laying adventure.
Don't get me wrong, it's not that the game isn't cozy in its way. Or pretty. Or soothing, even! It is colorful, with every tile a cute little square of terrain, with a little overcooked user interface where everything needs to be a pretty little picture. It works the same way as all games in the genre on face value - you get a stack of tiles, here called Chunks, and you drop them on your playing field to score some points. How PLANETILES differs from its contemporaries is the degree of challenge it will put in front of you. It's not an easy game! You're given a meagre handful of chunks to work with and they will run out fast. To score new ones into your deck you need to fulfill missions, which usually tells you to amass a certain terrain type in a cluster. Or have a group of a particular, firm number. Those little quests will give you much-needed refills, but they are never numerous. You will need to keep cooking those quests constantly to keep in the game, and that is not as simple as it sounds.
Because you have other, loftier goals. You need to fill the planet as full as possible, as reducing gaps will multiply your final score. Which is your main source of progression? On top of that, you want to make those 3 by 3 squares of the same terrain type as that grants you structures that offer substantial gameplay benefits. Either arming you with the ability to replace your current chunks, give coveted singular chunks of a terrain type you need, or even re-roll missions if they seem impossible with your current hand. If that wasn't enough to stress you out a bit, each upgrade - which empowers a structure - will come with a bit of a cataclysm to mess up your well-laid plans. Seismic activity can raise mountains where you didn't want them. Meteors can delete some progress. Flooding can render some chunks useless for your missions. And there are more, all nasty in some way.
But you're not completely defenseless! As you play and gain experience points, you unlock Advanced Technology - special modifiers you can bring to any run that will help you with the challenge at hand. You will unlock slots to select your favorite structures, which will help the RNG pick them for future upgrades during gameplay. And Planet Protectors! Much valuable chance to not suffer a chosen cataclysm when it should occur.
Normally I am not a huge fan of firm goals set by the game. They often can feel limiting, especially in more cozy experiences which should allow for a bit more flexibility. Yet PLANETILES uses them very well, giving the limited number of planets and their setups very sensible checklists of things to achieve. Scoring particularly high scores, making sure the planet is filled to the brim, or finishing the primary goal while using certain technology. I appreciate this guiding hand here - having a well-laid down goal to try to fulfill gives a challenging puzzle a much-needed moment of triumph.
So yeah, I have a lot of fun with PLANETILES. My only gripe lies with the User Interface which, while stylized to fit the game vibe, I find a little... bloated. A nitpick, to be sure, but for a good hour or two into the game I was often a bit confused by it. Especially when I can't lay down a new chunk and the mission doesn't end on its own, requiring you to wrap it up manually. A strange choice, but I got used to it. Other than that, it's a well-made tile-laying game that offers a bit more challenge than the other titles in the genre as well as a fairly unique take on the core mechanics. It looks great. It sounds right. It's a pleasure to play. If you're aching for a bit of a brain tease, for that ol'fashioned neuron activator, you will not go wrong with this game!
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