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.

Completed with 100% of achievements unlocked (1,000G). Not a word that I'd usually use, but "chill" is the perfect description for this charming little puzzle adventure, based around the novel mechanic of manipulating the environment by re-arrangement of map tiles within a square grid. This is explored to an impressive extent - while it starts off fairly simple, by the end of the game there's a definite level of challenge here, with restrictions to map arrangements require edges of tiles to match up to others of the same type and it's satisfying to see layouts come together effectively. As a simple early example, a gentle dialog hint might suggest that a person is located in an area surrounded by flowers, and arranging four flower-lines tiles in a square around a central gap makes a new central tile appear with the sought-after character. A touching story ties the whole experience together, centred on themes of family and friendship.

Cute and creative puzzle game. The whole premise is about finding map pieces and moving/rotating them to open up new paths or uncover secrets. It could get a little frustrating when you feel stumped on the solution but when you feeling get it, the feeling is next level.

The art style is definitely one of this games highlights, everything looks great. Characters are adorable and the maps and scenery are gorgeous to look at.

Story is good for what it is, it takes you to a variety of different settings which keeps it interesting over the game's short playtime. Not much replay value but the initial playthrough is enough.

Despite the occasional roadblock and lack of tutorial/hints, Carto is a great little comfort puzzler. Would recommend.

[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 - First Playthrough🌲

[Before buying/starting for the first time]

I have been interested in this game for a while now!, It looked really cute, had some interesting quirky gameplay mechanics and just had an amazing artstyle, I bought this game along a few other indies that looked great, I will play and reflect my thoughts on them here on Backloggd... Though I do actually write reviews in my note app since I tend to write during gameplay, I do the same when watching films, though in games it's easier to take breaks and doesn't break up the flow as much as during a game, atleast not during major sections of a story-heavy game.

[Reflections]

I finished the game now after 3 sessions in total!, it was quite short but pretty sweet, it grabbed me emotionally towards the end. I just wished you could continue playing some post story content but it's all right.

The game was worth my money!, Carto had great humor, one of my most liked things about it. The map mechanics kept it's charm, except on the iceberg area, that was the only part where I actually didn't have the will to figure the right placement out and where I ended up googling. Other than that I had fun with the various puzzles, not super complicated though.

I think the music was a little simple and didn't have enough distinct themes based on the area you were in. But it was sweet and I can see myself listening to it on spotify!

I enjoy short games like this, it was what I expected , maybe more emotional as I was expecting a more simple puzzle game with a map gimmick to unlock secret areas, I have realized in the past that I don't love quiet main characters, it makes it harder to relate to them emotionally, but I also think the payoff of a silent character talking towards the end of the game in strong emotional moments makes those moments feel more special.

I would say that it just felt a little empty and dull, and the areas felt really short.

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.