Check out Meshchera, an atmospheric match-three game for Playdate set in a haunted marsh
Key takeaways
- khvoshch I almost don't want to call Meshchera a match-three game because I fear that kind of undersells how captivating it is.
- Grasses become flowers, which become trees, campfires, houses, churches, etc.
- I've spent quite a bit of time playing Meshchera over the last week, but certain things still elude me.
Spiders? Skeletons? Bad omens? My kind of party.
khvoshch I almost don't want to call Meshchera a match-three game because I fear that kind of undersells how captivating it is. But, it is a game you play within a six by six grid, in which you have to group matching tiles in clusters of three or more so they may merge and become other, higher value tiles, so that's the description we're working with. The atmosphere is off the charts, though, which isn't something I'm used to finding in these types of games. It has gorgeously detailed artwork and background music that you can get completely lost in.
In Meshchera, you can choose to go for the high score or pick from several challenges that will dictate how you approach the round, like "kill five monsters" or "keep 10 monsters for 10 turns." The gameboard is a dark marsh that will slowly become overrun with vegetation and creatures, unless you can stay ahead of creep by skillfully matching tiles to condense them into other things. Grasses become flowers, which become trees, campfires, houses, churches, etc. It is a uniquely complex matching game — you're given next to no information about how the items work or how different elements on the board behave and interact, so you have to figure it out along the way and course-correct as you learn.