In my ongoing and likely futile effort to write a review for every game in my Steam library (#515 out of 1000+)... it's time for Carto.


First impressions? Carto is an absolutely gorgeous, delightfully comfy game and I love it death.

Carto is one of those games that doesn't sound too interesting when you describe it, but when its in your hands, you can't help but smile at how charmingly everything fits together. One of those special, rare games that manages to mine greatness out of deceptively simple systems and mechanics. Put simply, Carto is built around a very simple puzzle gimmick. For fans of classic RPGs, it's a gimmick not dissimilar to Dark Cloud's city building mechanic: the world is in disarray, and it is up to you restore the land (and perhaps make a few improvement) but arranging landscape tiles on a map grid. Each tile possess different terrain that can potentially affect adjacent tiles, and how you shape the landscape -- and how you place landmarks in relation to each other -- has a drastic and immediate affect on the world and the people who live in it. Sometimes you'll be rearranging the world simply to find your way through it, other times -- well, most of the time -- you'll be modifying the world to suit the interests of NPCs. In thanks they will often reward you with additional map tiles, which you will then use to further manipulate the landscape, creating increasingly complex continental layouts as you juggle the desires of more and more people making more and more demands of your cartographic contortions.

Story-wise, Carto is fundamentally a puzzle game first and foremost, and an adventure game only a distant second. The premise is fairly loose, and though there are characters and dialog and plot, they mostly serve only as vehicles to direct you from one problem to solve to the next. You play as some kind of deity -- or at least the mischievous child of one -- on an adventure to restore the world to its correct form in the wake of an accidental almost-apocalypse. The people you meet typically have little to say that lamenting whatever problem they have with the world when you meet, and later celebrating the serendipity of your solution. Occasionally you'll get a bit more characterization or world-building -- especially from the more prominent NPCs that shuttle you from one region (or chapter) of the world to the next -- but, while flavorful, the story is only really an excuse. It works just as well as it could, maintaining a laid-back atmosphere that meshes well with the lighthearted, casual nature of the puzzles that will occupy most of your time and focus.

And -- though I speak now as someone who was once a very strange child who spent an inordinate amount of time playing with globes and drawing countless maps (based both on reality and imagination) on incalculable sheets of paper -- I find this whole experience -- from concept to execution -- utterly delightful. The only complaint I can think to offer is simply that I want more! And, I must admit, I'm not sure this is an appetite that could ever fully be satiated. But, if nothing else, I would greatly appreciate something like a sandbox mode w/ randomized quests and/or something like a "free build" mode. Carto's core campaign is certainly engaging and surprisingly charming, but it's dreadfully brief and over far too soon. And, tragically, far too linear. A second playthrough, sadly, will resemble the first far too closely.

Last but also least: there's the issue of the bugs. Which were... well, not as infrequent as I would've hoped. Most annoying are the recurring issues with input devices -- my gamepad would randomly stop working, suddenly, and when the gamepad disconnects there's nothing to be done as the game refuses to recognize a mouse. The only solution is to use the keyboard to manually exit and do a forced shut-down via the Windows Task Manager. That this occurred on more than just one or two occasions proved an unfortunate blight on an otherwise thoroughly delightful game.


But, insofar as these things go, these issues are, I think, very easy to forgive.

The ultimate appeal of Carto boils down to a single question: do you love maps and cartography? If not, Carto will very likely bore you to tears. But if not, if you're at all like myself and have spent far more time than you'd ever care to admit scribbling out your own maps by pen or pencil for as long as you can remember -- well, then, in that case I can all but promise that you will discover in Carto a new (if brief) obsession.

[i]In my ongoing and likely futile effort to write a review for every game in my Steam library [/i](#515 out of 1000+)[i]... it's time for[/i] [b]Carto.[/b] [h2]┛An Amazingly Fun Mapmaking Odyssey┏[/h2] First impressions? [i]Carto[/i] is an absolutely gorgeous, delightfully comfy game and I love it death. [i]Carto[/i] is one of those games that doesn't sound too interesting when you describe it, but when its in your hands, you can't help but smile at how charmingly everything fits together. One of those special, rare games that manages to mine greatness out of deceptively simple systems and mechanics. Put simply, [i]Carto[/i] is built around a very simple puzzle gimmick. For fans of classic RPGs, it's a gimmick not dissimilar to [i]Dark Cloud's[/i] city building mechanic: the world is in disarray, and it is up to you restore the land (and perhaps make a few improvement) but arranging landscape tiles on a map grid. Each tile possess different terrain that can potentially affect adjacent tiles, and how you shape the landscape -- and how you place landmarks in relation to each other -- has a drastic and immediate affect on the world and the people who live in it. Sometimes you'll be rearranging the world simply to find your way through it, other times -- well, most of the time -- you'll be modifying the world to suit the interests of NPCs. In thanks they will often reward you with additional map tiles, which you will then use to further manipulate the landscape, creating increasingly complex continental layouts as you juggle the desires of more and more people making more and more demands of your cartographic contortions. Story-wise, [i]Carto[/i] is fundamentally a puzzle game first and foremost, and an adventure game only a distant second. The premise is fairly loose, and though there are characters and dialog and plot, they mostly serve only as vehicles to direct you from one problem to solve to the next. You play as some kind of deity -- or at least the mischievous child of one -- on an adventure to restore the world to its correct form in the wake of an accidental almost-apocalypse. The people you meet typically have little to say that lamenting whatever problem they have with the world when you meet, and later celebrating the serendipity of your solution. Occasionally you'll get a bit more characterization or world-building -- especially from the more prominent NPCs that shuttle you from one region (or chapter) of the world to the next -- but, while flavorful, the story is only really an excuse. It works just as well as it could, maintaining a laid-back atmosphere that meshes well with the lighthearted, casual nature of the puzzles that will occupy most of your time and focus. And -- though I speak now as someone who was once a very strange child who spent an inordinate amount of time playing with globes and drawing countless maps (based both on reality and imagination) on incalculable sheets of paper -- I find this whole experience -- from concept to execution -- utterly delightful. The only complaint I can think to offer is simply that I want more! And, I must admit, I'm not sure this is an appetite that could ever fully be satiated. But, if nothing else, I would greatly appreciate something like a sandbox mode w/ randomized quests and/or something like a "free build" mode. [i]Carto's[/i] core campaign is certainly engaging and surprisingly charming, but it's dreadfully brief and over far too soon. And, tragically, far too linear. A second playthrough, sadly, will resemble the first far too closely. Last but also least: there's the issue of the bugs. Which were... well, not as [i]infrequent[/i] as I would've hoped. Most annoying are the recurring issues with input devices -- my gamepad would randomly stop working, suddenly, and when the gamepad disconnects there's nothing to be done as the game refuses to recognize a mouse. The only solution is to use the keyboard to manually exit and do a forced shut-down via the Windows Task Manager. That this occurred on more than just one or two occasions proved an unfortunate blight on an otherwise thoroughly delightful game. [table][tr][td][b]UPDATE:[/b] Apparently [i]Carto[/i] has no mouse support whatsoever. At some point, I think, we're going to need to have a long conversation about game developers who release their games on PC -- in the 2st century!, no less -- with no mouse support. This would've been hard to justify in the 1990s, but today? It's an indefensible omission.[/td][/tr][/table] But, insofar as these things go, these issues are, I think, very easy to forgive. The ultimate appeal of [i]Carto boils[/i] down to a single question: do you love maps and cartography? If not, [i]Carto[/i] will very likely bore you to tears. But if not, if you're at all like myself and have spent far more time than you'd ever care to admit scribbling out your own maps by pen or pencil for as long as you can remember -- well, then, in that case I can all but promise that you will discover in [i]Carto[/i] a new (if brief) obsession. [h3]Arbitrary Rating: 9/10[/h3] [h1]▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▱[/h1]