Enjoyment - 6/10
Difficulty - 3/10

Carto likes to have hot bubble baths while listening to lo-fi. Short puzzle game with a lot of charm.
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Hey, that's pretty good! A well-designed adventure puzzler with flawless execution. It doesn't ever get hugely challenging, but stays interesting by constantly adding new twists to the main mechanic. It's thematically simple as well, but doesn't stray too far into kitsch territory, mainly because everything has a purpose - you're not just taking in the sights of forests and deserts and mountains, you interact with them. And the game knows exactly where and when to end - this is some masterful control of pacing. You never feel bored or overloaded, and after finishing, it just feels complete - as always, I hoped for a thematic conclusion, but in such a case it's not necessary. Cute and well-rounded.

Carto is a lovely short breeze adventure, everything here is full of charm and charisma, as a puzzle games it is one of a kind, from time to time there will be that puzzle game that has a neat unique ideia, and executes upon it beautifully, and thats Carto.

The idea of moving not the player but the map is really interesting, and here it works like a charm, as a little cartographer you'll navigate your way using the maps itself, the original idea is expanded upon greatly and
it doesn't overstay its welcome, it's so well thought.

That alongside with a charming cast of characters, a lot of animal friends! and a heartwarming finale adds up to a must play puzzle game, maybe they could use some hint system at some point, but other than that, it's a delight.

A lovely, short game where you rearrange map tiles to solve puzzles.

The core idea is great and has a lot of potential but the game shies away from anything too complex which is a bit of a shame.

The art is quite nice and the story is simple but heartwarming.

this was so fucking cute.

a sweet little adventure title with compelling puzzle gameplay. it knows not to overstay its welcome and gets just about as much mileage that it can out of what's here without dragging or repeating itself.

not sure if i'd be able to get through a sequel without some iteration or switching up but as this was by itself, i liked it a lot.

The cutesy indie game habit of sanding every conceivable edge off is frustratingly in full force here. The map-orientation-based puzzle gameplay shows some promise early on but Carto is afraid to truly follow through on this and show the real potential of these mechanics either because it doesn't know how to or because it's afraid that doing so would risk alienating some of its audience. The overall quality of the game is honestly better than this rating indicates, but I found the experience to ultimately just be so disappointing in how underdeveloped and utterly toothless it is.

[Reposting my old reviews from another site for archive, and updating them if needed]

This took me 1 month to finish, which might sound weird considering it's just 5-6 hours in length. This is one of those games that needs a specific kind of mood to enjoy for me, and honestly there's a part of me that wants this game to not end yet because it's just so goddamn lovely. I'm very, very impressed by how this good this game turned out to be.

The game's main mechanic is connecting a bunch of map tiles in certain ways to be able to progress. It could have very easily ran out of steam early on, but it just keeps adding interesting twists in each new level, which is enough to keep the game far away from being boring. It successfully makes you feel like you have this all-powerful ability in your hands, while also offering a sense of adventure from exploring new and strange places.

An aspect of the game that really surprised me is the story and world lore. The game sets up a cohesive and charismatic world filled with neat and memorable characters, and each time the game presents each new bits of the story as the adventure goes, it feels so exciting to me. There's a good variety of biomes to explore, and each new area has it's own community with it's own culture and stuff. By the end of the game, I actually got attached to many of the characters, despite most of them not having a significant amount of development, since y'know, it's such a short game. There's also some very touching moments in the story, and I almost cried at one point.

There's also a particularly cool aspect in the story that not only adds an interesting layer to the way the player views this world, but also supplements all the side story arcs in the game in a satisfying way. I don't want to mention it by name to avoid spoiling it.

Lastly, the chill and jolly vibes of this game is very palpable. From seeing various events that happen in the story, and the way they're presented, it's clear to me that the devs intended this game to feel uplifting. The way the many of the characters talk to each other, the art style, the music; everything in this game is just built to make me smile and it's very lovely.

This is an easy 4.5 stars for me, and the only reason I won't give it a higher score is because I know they can do so much more with this world and gameplay concept. I feel like they're holding back at times, but it still turned out to be wonderful.

Carto is a cute game with a unique idea and solid execution. You are a kid who can rearrange the map they are standing on to solve simple orientation and location based puzzles for people in various lands.

The art is really great and the theme/narrative matches up with it really nicely. It has some Dragon Quest vibes for me, of going to a community, helping them out with something, then moving on. Very light and breezy to play through.

The puzzles are interesting, but get a bit samey. There are a couple of unique twists, but I wanted this to be more about exploration than it is. As is, Carto is mainly a game about pattern matching and working your way through the narrative.

Fast playthrough and a pretty cool time. Worth checking out if the art and gimmick appeal to you!