Spiders? Skeleton? Bad omen? My kind of party.
I almost don’t want to call Meshchera A match-three game because I fear how tempting such short selling is. But, this is a game you play within a six by six grid, in which you have to group matching tiles into groups of three or more so that they merge and form other, higher value tiles, so that’s the description we’re dealing with. However, the atmosphere is off the charts, which I’m not used to finding in these types of games. It features gorgeously detailed artwork and background music that you can completely lose yourself in.
In MeshcheraYou can choose to go for the high score or choose from several challenges that will decide how you go in the round, such as “kill five monsters” or “hold 10 monsters for 10 turns.” The gameboard is a dark swamp that will slowly fill with flora and fauna until you can no longer keep up with the creeps by skillfully matching tiles and condensing them into other things. Grass becomes flowers, which become trees, campfires, houses, churches, etc. This is a uniquely complex matching game – you’re not given any information about how the items work or how the different elements on the board behave and interact, so you have to figure it out along the way and course-correct as you learn.
desire
i spent a lot of time playing Meshchera Last week, but some things still elude me. Take the “Create and Destroy a Monster” challenge. I absolutely have no idea How to create a monster, and it’s not for lack of trying. But, it gives me something to keep working on, even if my high scores keep getting higher and higher. The game currently includes 10 challenges, and the developer says more will be coming soon. Meshchera Really cool, and looks like you could see a game like this again ad infinitum. It has already found its home in my “go-to” playdate game folder.
Meshchera PlayDate isn’t available in the catalog (yet?), but don’t let that stop you from trying it. It’s currently on itch.io, and it’s incredibly easy to sideload the game onto Playdate. Once you have the game file, you can drag and drop it directly into your library by signing in to your Playdate account and going to the Sideload tab. This work can also be done through USB. If you need some guidance, Panic has a detailed description of all the options.
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