What if Tetris and Terra Nil had a baby in the shape of a 3D globe? That’s the question Planetiles inadvertently answers with its a fascinating strategic tile based terraforming puzzle game. This is a game that has been badged as cosy but I think that’s a bit misleading. It undersells just how exacting you have to be with your tactics to be successful. Planetiles looks like it’ll be a warm time in wholesome land but there is power to its bite – and its the better game for it.
The goal with Planetiles is to terraform the playing area which is displayed around most of a 3D planet surface. Its a grid format but often in the playing area is in various shapes. You only have a few limited Tetris shapes blocks to start with though and you won’t have nearly enough to do the job. Instead, you have to earn new blocks by scoring points by creating different biomes of land and completing missions. Everything is environmental themed and it will take luck and judgement to succeed in the game. However, if you lean into the unlockable power ups and understand your biomes – you can stack the odds more in your favour.
There are different types of blocks such as forest, desert and crops and to score well you need to create 3×3 grids of the same tile type to upgrade the land into a biome. Doing so will then allow you access to new abilities such as generating new tiles, shuffling your existing tiles, swapping out missions to score more points or creating one off specific single tiles to fill in gaps neatly. A win in Planetiles means you’ve survived long enough to have less than 10 spaces left in the game so those individual tiles you can create by making 3×3 forest biomes can be very handy. Not all biomes are purely one land type though. Create desert around a single water tile and you create an oasis for example. Since each biome has its own skill attached, you’ll naturally chase certain types to suit your own playstyle.
When you reach certain score thresholds you then get given a dilemma. You can choose to upgrade a certain biome and its skill – but that will come at a cost of a natural disaster. You (usually) have to make a choice but these disasters easily derail your run. An earthquake ripples mountain tiles at random. A volcano can appear randomly on the map and spit lava bombs destroying tiles. A tidal wave can turn edge desert tiles into swap land you can’t use. Meteors will punch new holes in existing biomes, knocking them out. These are real juicy dilemmas and often I found myself picking the least evil disaster over what biome upgrade would benefit me, just so I could survive. It’s this balancing act that also reaffirms my opinion that Planetiles isn’t a cosy game per se.
If you survive long enough, you’ll win a level by getting to less than 10 spaces remaining where you can no longer fit any new tiles. If you crash out earlier though, you’ll still earn XP which is handy for the overarching technologies part of the game. The more you play, you’ll start to level up and unlock new technologies to help you get better at the game. They are divided into favourite structure tech which boosts the impact of certain biomes and their skills, or planet protectors which reduce or remove certain disasters from happening. Over time you can have up to three of each of these active and cumulatively, they really help – especially when on later levels you’ll need to hop between different areas and sometimes you’ll need a volcano or earthquake to spew new land out to do that.
Each level has online leaderboards and the final unlocked level is an endless planet mode which is where you can test out all kinds of wacky tactics. A photo mode lets you drop the camera into the 3D graphics which are vibrant and colourful and have a knitted texture to them. As you are often viewing the game from orbit, sometimes you don’t appreciate the graphics during gameplay so taking a camera tour of your planet after is a nice touch.
If I were to be picky, I would say that some runs feel a little doomed early on. Luck does play a part in Planetiles too, which may put a few off. Yes, you can swap out missions and use tech and skills to stack the odds more in your favour but sometimes you’ll just get a few nearly awkwardly placed disasters that will ruin all your hard work. I’d also have liked a few more level layouts too, with only 10 in total available. At least each one has its own leaderboard, which will be a great draw for score attack fans.
Despite those occurrences, I headed straight back into Planetiles for another run. It is quite addictive – especially as you uncover all the tech and build out a playstyle for yourself. Just don’t come into it thinking it’ll be cosy and easy – this is not that kind of game. It’ll challenge you and its a better game for taking some harsh approaches with you at times.
Review copy provided by developer. Out now on Steam.
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