I love tile-laying games. It is one of those genres I can't get enough of. Something is soothing in the very act, the soft and gentle thought process that goes into picking up a spot for your next tile. It's meditative, in a way, and yet still managed to tingle enough neurons to be engaging. Fun even! It might come from the fact that I was, in the past, an avid board game player. Holding a piece of colorful cardboard in various shapes to put down, slowly building up the scenery, and interacting with it was always a pleasure. Carcassone, a classic far and wide, comes to mind. It's no wonder that adding the power of video gaming to the experience can make it more immersive. Taking in the sounds, enjoying cute buildings growing from the tiles, forming a cohesive scene. Great way to relax, at least, for me.
Since the massive success of DORFROMANTIK - in my eyes a father of the genre revival - there came many more titles in this flavor. Some are blatant copycats. Others try to do something unique, to varying degrees of success. TINY ATOLLS, for me, is an example of a very good take on the genre without having to rip off any predecessors even on its core ideas. First of all, you start on an island with limited space and your goal is to fill it up using your tiles, with cute little homes, forests, fields, and the like. The system, intuitively, rewards you for laying them down in groups. But there's a secondary system overlaying the first - colors. Every type of tile comes in either red, yellow, or blue, and grouping colors is an equally legitimate way of making points. Which, classically, you need to progress in the game - here by unlocking new islands you will need to find more space for your tiles to place on.
It's a simple but effective combination that allows enough leeway in your placement to never feel stuck, but still limiting enough to make you think about your decisions. But that alone wouldn't cut the mustard! Need more, need some goals, small and frequent. And so, we get a variety of quests. First, a well-known thing across this genre, making a group of tile types of color big enough to score some extra tiles. Second - constructions! A pre-made advanced tiles that ask you to fill them up with specific types to fulfill their creation, turning into various buildings. Coffee Shops, vineyards, sawmills, camps, and the like.
And that's still not all, because you don't even have to wait for a quest to give you an advanced building - plenty of them are made by arranging various tiles in specific formations, rewarding experimentation. All of those systems work very well together, fuelling your engagement and participation, and making your foresight and decisions matter in the long run.
I would be remiss to not mention the great audiovisuals of the game! The music is very soothing and very fitting. It puts me at ease, gets me nice, and relaxed - it's like a cozy blanket and a cup of tea. But it was the visuals and the art style that first caught my attention. The game is very pastel, soft, and sweet in its presentation. Nothing is overwhelmingly vibrant, but it radiates calmness. Each construction is precious and cute, with a big prop attached to it to sell exactly what it is. Once you've completed an island and played enough to fill it with completed quest buildings it looks like a thriving community. Also, there are whales and dolphins in the sea around every island - how sweet!
For me, measuring games like TINY ATOLLS ultimately comes down to replayability. I played plenty of cozy games, some truly great on the first play, that ultimately failed to keep me going. There must be something to chase, some gentle goal to keep me on track. TINY ATOLLS got its hands on the secret formula and managed to find something to be sure. Because I always return to it, now and then launching it up to see how far I can go this time, to check if I can discover another secret combination. To, one day, conquer the entire atoll with my cute little buildings. And I hope you'll give it a go too, because it's a very good game to sink into.
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