Quick Review: Carto

I’ve heard of games where you make your own maps, this takes it to the next level.

This is like the start of an animated film.

Developed by Sunhead Games and released by Humble Games and XD on October 27th, 2020, Carto is the story of the eponymous young girl, who lives in an airship with her grandmother. The lady owns a magical map, which she can use to remake the world below to her whim by swapping around square pieces of land. One night, Carto sneaks behind her back and plays with the artefact, accidentally causing a nasty storm that throws both herself and the magical map out of the airship. Now equipped with nothing but said map, but able to modify the world to a reality-warping degree, the little girl embarks on a quest to go home.

One map piece after the other, till we've put the world
back in one piece! (....That never happens.)

    That girl by the lake wasn't there earlier! Hi, new girl!

Carto moves around with the arrows, picks up items with Space, and uses items with W. Press Tab to enter Map Mode, where you can move map pieces around with the arrows, rotate them with A and D, or add some of the newly-acquired pieces with W. Map-making follows a few rules. The big one is that you can only stick map squares together if their connecting sides are identical (plains with plains, forests with forests, water with water, etc.) This extends to special elements such as roads and rivers.

I found this place (and this sheep) by making a + shape
with all the patches of white flowers pointing to the center.
Suddenly, new square!

A major puzzle element here involves not only making a path for yourself, but often placing tiles in a specific manner to make something appear – either a brand new tile, or an NPC. Last but not least, swapping a tile with Carto or an NPC on it will also teleport them around. One example in Chapter 3 involves making a circle out of four bending river paths, which causes an NPC to appear inside it; but then you also have to move Carto around so that she ends up within the circle, since she cannot cross water otherwise. Several clever takes on that idea are employed throughout.

Almost there...

Now if this desert could stop rearranging itself
every few seconds...

At some point, the challenge becomes to decipher the little clues that are given to you by the NPCs and the surroundings in order to figure out what to do next. Notably, you’re never at risk of running out of space moving squares around, so you can spread them around however much you want while you rearrange the map to get where you need to go. Later chapters introduce concepts such as undergrounds where your map doesn’t work (forcing you to figure out how to swap the squares of a floor you don’t see at the moment), moving squares together to form images (like putting a lake in the form of a fish), or having entire tetrominoes to swap around instead of squares.

Even in the cold, these paper sheets survive.
Good thing too, we need them more than ever.

It's cute even when little Carto dangerously slips ands slides
across an icy surface! Careful kid, protect your head!

Hands-down the cutest game I’ve played so far this year, bustling with charm, Carto is one of a kind. Not just in its gameplay mechanic that I’m fairly certain has never been done before – or at least never to this extent – but also in how simple its story is, and how both lovingly combine into one. At its core, the plot is all about Carto making her way through the world in search of her grandma, and meeting various new cultures with their peculiar customs. And as her horizons expand, so does her reach, hence the new map pieces. You can even gather puzzle pieces by completing side-quests, which have their own secret at the end of it all. Definitely worth your time, especially if you’re looking for new cutesy puzzle games with unique challenges to offer.

Carto is available on Steam for 19.99$.