There is a part of me that wants to absolutely tear apart Match Village, a one person casual puzzle game and published by QUByte Interactive. After all, I’m supposed to be a Gamer, someone who spends their free time getting lost in the endless worlds, spellbinding lore and unforgiving, murderous gameplay that comes from the moniker. This is a world where an RPG that clocks in at under thirty hours is a waste of time! Where you upgrade your weapon to the point where you can assassinate a planet, otherwise what are you even doing with your time? It’s a golden age of games, and there’s someone releasing a title that ISN’T a full two months commitment?

Well, yeah. You see, I remember the huge amount of time that I invested in things like Peggle, Plants. Vs. Zombies , and Pop Tire and how much freaking fun I had. Casual titles, love them or hate them, are essential to keeping the ecosphere balanced for making sure that everything doesn’t just become Helldivers II clones, or, worse, Suika Game clones. The thing about good casual titles isn’t that they’re simple, it’s that they look simple and play smoothly. People pick them up and run with them because there’s no preamble needed or mindset to focus on before you start doing whatever silly thing you’re doing. You can just enjoy.

With Match Village, players have no objective other than to get a high score. Your gameboard is an island covered in hexagonal spaces, like a miniature landscape from Settlers of Catan, and you get different pieces seemingly at random. When three like pieces touch, they will group into a single, upgraded establishment, with the three pieces zeroing in on the last piece put down. Making combos unlocks more pieces from the same tile pool, so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy the more you rely or hone in on a particular type of tile. So, for example, if you keep firing off grass matches, you’ll get lawn pieces until you eventually can’t make anymore combos or, in the rare case, run out of tile replenishment.

Conceptually, you don’t get more than that from Match Village, so it’s up to the execution to make the experience worthwhile. And the experience is…okay. It’s simply okay. As far as ideas go, it’s not the worst one: a lot of the tiles are distinct enough that, even with an isometric viewpoint that’s slightly obscured by the HUD of the game, you won’t have many problems remembering where things go. You’ll learn quickly that you get bonuses from building and making combos near some landmarks and not others. Certain tile sets will actually gain or lose additional points if differing pairs are crafted nearby, so you get a better strategic mindset for how to progress and make the game larger. It’s got enough forethought that it’s not just “slam down chunks of game and hope for the best.”

But it’s also not completely unique enough to not muddy the waters after a beat. There’s regular cabins, and there’s also snow cabins, which are differentiated by having small, snow covered trees around the tile. Problem is, there’s also tiles on the board that are snowy areas with the same kind of trees on them, and putting a cabin on these board marks (whether they came with trees or not) just makes them all blend in. The AI certainly remembers the difference, even if you don’t, and you really never shake the frustration of stacking all these woodsy homes together but not having them fuse together to make a lodge or a chalet or whatever they evolve into.

In that same vein, Match Village doesn’t seem to put a lot of effort into giving the player a unique perspective into the game to enhance further growth beyond a certain limit. Sure, being easy to pick up and play is important, and thus not burying folks in gameplay techniques or tutorials is wonderful. But not having a legend or some kind of easy to check chart that lets you know the upward motion of combinations means a lot of guesswork and trying not to get lost in your own progress. Nothing worse than thinking the next match will be a triple combo only to realize that you missed a step and now you’ve blocked things off.

Yet once you get it, you get it: Match Village has nothing more than meets the eye. Some online leaderboards for your own amusement, the ability to get screenshots (brilliant, I know) and just a bunch of procedurally generated islands where you can put down fields, cabins and buildings all day long until you reach the natural end of the run. There’s some mild ambient music that’s wholly forgettable, some pleasant but needless sound effects here and there, and a game that’s cheaper than a value meal and should stay with you for significantly longer. There’s not much more to be said other than those basic things.

Oh, wait, controls: why are there not touch controls? If you’re going to put a casual game to while away the time on the Switch, especially one that’s just a match three variant, allow me to use a stylus or my finger to carelessly toss down pieces here and there. It’s silly to have a game profess itself to be this unbothered and relaxed, but still insist you use a joystick and button combination. I’m no developer, but I think it would behoove Rising Moon Games to add that little extra bit in.

When it comes to Match Village, here’s what I can say: it’s here, it’s cheap, it’s decent enough as an engagement piece and you can suggest it to anyone without the risk of offending them. Looking for something else to occupy your thumbs while you and a friend/loved one/forced roommate move through the latest season of Survivor? Then come make some cozy pairings with Match Village, and see how far you can move your island along before you decide to get up and move on from it.

 

Graphics: 6.0 Islands all look the same. Tiles are mostly dissimilar but a couple items are slightly identical. Nothing about this made me sit up and pay attention, but that goes in both positive and negative directions.	Gameplay: 5.5 Set down tiles, combine them, combine those with other tiles, continue until combining no longer is possible. Arcade casual puzzling at it’s finest, but lacks the teeth to really be addictive or compelling in the face of many stronger foes.
Sound: 5.5 Pleasant enough, you hear the sound effects far more than the music even with the options properly balanced. It purposely feels like this was scored with “listen to TV in the background” in mind.	Fun Factor: 5.0 When I was playing it, it was okay, but never anything that drove me to keep going. Finishing a level I would only do another to find out if the next one was very similar to the initial one. It just doesn’t put hooks into players: it’s TOO casual.
Final Verdict: 5.5

Match Village is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC and Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Match Village was provided by the publisher.