Mind the map.
Anyone who has ever played tile-matching, friendship-sabotaging board game Carcassonne will recognise Carto’s main mechanic: square tiles must be placed according to the patterns on each side. If the patterns match the edge of another tile, they can be placed next to each other; a forest tile must border another forest tile, a desert tile must border another desert tile, and so on. The titular character, lost in a world far below the airship where she and her Granny normally live, must navigate this strange tiled world to find her way home – and maybe help a few people along the way.
Carto does one thing, and it does it well – for the most part. The tile-matching concept is a refreshing one in the indie game space, and one that makes for interesting and varied puzzles. Most of the time, the puzzles consist of wandering the map, finding new map pieces, talking to people and trying to understand the clues they’ve given you. One person might say that there’s a cottage hidden in the middle of the forest – place forest tiles around an empty centre, and the cottage tile will magically appear. Other people might hint at a circular path, something at the mouth of the river, or a patch of yellow flowers, and it’s up to Carto to arrange the tiles just as they’ve been described.
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