Carto is a puzzle game that has you guide a young girl (the titular Carto) as she travels to various locales to reunite with her grandmother by organizing and manipulating pieces of a map.

The gameplay splits largely into two modes: one where you explore locations in order to interact with the world, talk to NPCs and find new map pieces and a second where you rearrange pieces of the map in order to alter the terrain in the overworld or allow yourself to move to new locations.

A lot of these puzzles are easy to parse and fun to execute as you watch the effects that your meddling has on the world and in most instances there's a good amount of leniency in how the game allows you to solve the problems.

Some of the puzzles, however, require you to repeat an action multiple times with sometimes unclear indications that you're actually progressing toward your goal.

None of the puzzles are particularly difficult but the solutions can sometimes be obtuse or in some instances struggle to demonstrate progress.

The story is a strong point as Carto is adorable and the various characters that you come across are all incredibly charming. In each area Carto helps the characters solve obstacles often relating to the cultural customs of their fictional lands.

These stories along with a pleasant art style help to make each location memorable while adding to the overall charm of the game.

Ultimately, Carto is a clever puzzle game with a unique mechanic that is bolstered by a story with a heart.