Game Review: Tents and Trees

By Manuel

Players: 1-4 (Local)
Platforms: Nintendo Switch

Tents and Trees is a puzzle game for the Nintendo Switch that released earlier this year. It's described as a mix between Minesweeper and Sudoku, and offers hundreds of levels for you to enjoy. It's developed and published by Fozax Games and we're going to take a look at it now and see if its chill, laidback gameplay is something you're going to want to try out for yourself.

Even though this game is described as a Minesweeper and Sudoku blend, I found it to be more like Picross/nonograms; without the picture element of course. I know that sounds pretty confusing, and not at all like Picross, but let me explain. You start with a grid of 5x5 squares with a certain amount of trees placed on them. Your job is to fill in each blank square with either grass or a tent. Each tree needs to have a tent attached to it and no two tents can be next to each other, even diagonally. The numbers on the left side and top tell you how many tents will be in each line, and these numbers help you to cross reference the placement of tents so you're not just dropping them randomly. Besides tents, every other space is filled with grass of varying levels of green and a level is completed once all tents have been placed correctly. (Any unfilled grass spaces fill automatically at that point.) It's a fairly simple concept and it's the tent and grass placement, complete with guide numbers, that remind me the most of Picross. I am not familiar enough with Minesweeper to compare the two, but beyond the similar grid-based layout I don't see the Sudoku comparison at all. Either way, this is a very simple concept that I'll admit didn't sound like it would draw me in when I first went through the tutorial. I was wrong.

It takes a bit to get used to.

But the concept is really easy to grasp.

Before I go on about how great this game is, and believe me I'll do that, let me talk a bit more about the puzzles themselves. The 5x5 puzzles are only the intro ones and things quickly ramp up with 6x6 puzzles, 7x7 puzzles, 8x8 puzzles, and so on all the way up to 14x14 puzzles. There are twenty puzzles in grouping of puzzles and these come in three varieties: easy, hard, and a still harder set that has some of the guide numbers missing. You progressively unlock more groupings of puzzles as you complete them, and there are about 500 puzzles in the main game mode to get through if you're into that sort of thing. Now the game concept is pretty simple to lay out and dive into, but things get hard really fast. Puzzle game difficulty is always a bit subjective, but it took me a while to get into the groove of things and start to understand the patterns of tents and trees once a level opens up. If you're ever having trouble you can always bring up a hint, but these are technically counted against you once you complete the puzzle. What I found neat was that if you complete a puzzle and it doesn't end, you're not just left scratching your head as to what you did wrong. In cases of an incorrectly completed puzzle a free hint is given to you to show you at least one big mistake you've made. This is a nice touch and had me going "OH!" out loud more than once, and was a welcome addition.

An easier puzzle.

A harder 10x10 one.

It goes without saying that 500 puzzles is a lot, so I've not had time to get through them all, though this is not due to lack of trying. There are a lot of in-game achievements to get, like beating an 8x8 puzzle in a certain time, clearing a set number of puzzles of a certain type, using no hints, and so on. Besides these achievements there are a lot of unlockables that aren't just more puzzles. I found the music very enjoyable even though I thought the game only featured a few tracks. Those few tracks were fine, and I wouldn't have complained if they were all you're given. I then realized that there were indeed more, you just had to clear a few hundred puzzles to unlock them all. Not a bad reward if I do say so myself. There are also themes to unlock, including a cool dark mode that I wish was the default setting. I wasn't expecting to find unlockables like this so I found that I was completing more and more puzzles just to hit the threshold for them. This is something that you don't often see in puzzle games, which often only feature more and more puzzles to play through by way of rewards. Of course Tents and Trees does that too, but the unlockables hint that there might be more to this game than meets the eye.

I mentioned the Picross/nonogram comparison earlier, and the reason I brought it up is due to the fact that I am a huge fan of any titles that feature them and have fully completed several on the Switch alone. Tents and Trees first drew me in because of the slight similarities I mentioned earlier, but once I got over trying to play it as a more complex Picross game (I mean there's no picture at the end after all.), I grew to love it more for the unique puzzle game it is. I often found myself frustrated by some hard puzzles, and had to restart a few more of them several times, but the feeling of accomplishment once I cleared a puzzle that had been troubling me for 10-15 minutes is just indescribable. It's odd to talk about frustration and challenging gameplay in something that is also described as peaceful and calm, but it just works. The frustration is fleeting and things like the aforementioned hints, the calming music, and the simple visuals really ground you and help you focus on clearing the puzzle before you. I usually play puzzle games in short bursts to help me wind down, and I think I have a new go-to game in Tents and Trees. Until I inevitably complete all the puzzles at least, but there's so many that I don't think I'll hit that goal any time soon.

These hidden number puzzles are hard.

I'm an Enthusiast!

Let's talk about that 100% completion a bit actually. At the time of writing I've put in about 6-7 hours into Tents and Trees. Not nearly done with the game, but I have completed over 200 puzzles so far and I have a firm grasp on what lies ahead. Now I've mentioned there being 500 puzzles and that isn't quite true. When going through the achievements I noticed that there was one for completing 1,000 puzzles, and that intrigued me and made me wonder how one would go about doing that. Then I unlocked the daily packs. Basically new puzzles are added daily and I'm not even sure to what total this brings the available puzzles to. This is an insane amount of content, but in a good way. The developers didn't need to do this and I wonder how long it would've taken me to notice the extra puzzles if I missed the unlock notification. Even my most favorite Picross/nonogram games often only feature 300 or so puzzles before they call it a day. The sheer amount you get here is impressive and I can't repeat that enough. Also, did I mention this game has multiplayer? I was not able to test it out for this review (It's local only too, so I would need to find a ready and willing friend nearby.), but there's just so much replayability here. I'm going to be playing this game for weeks to come, and I'm sure you will too if you pick it up.

Those Daily Packs though.

Early progress check.

Let's wrap this up. Tents and Trees is priced as $9.99 and that's about what I pay for each Picross game that Jupiter puts out. I go through those with 100% completion in about 15-30 hours depending on difficulty. I probably don't have to point it out, but I definitely think this is just as good of, if not better, a deal. Actually, I think it's a steal at that price, and I'm not a bit hesitant to give it the strongest recommendation I can. That rec comes no matter what type of gamer you are. If you're a Picross/nonogram fan like me, or a puzzle gamer in general, you'll probably find the most enjoyment out of this. Everyone else? Well, we can all use a chill game now and then right? Tents and Trees definitely delivers that, so do yourself and pick it up! You can thank me later.

Check out Tents and Trees on The Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/tents-and-trees-switch/

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Story: N/A
Gameplay: A-
Graphics: A
Music/Sound: A
Value: A+

Overall: A

Pros:
+ Gameplay mechanics are easy to learn, but offer enough variety so things never get dull or boring.
+ The music and visuals add to the overall peaceful experience, and more can be unlocked through gameplay.
+ There are at least a 1,000 different puzzles to go through of various difficulties. You get a lot of bang for your buck here.
+ Achievements to unlock, and even multiplayer gameplay, offer a lot of replayability beyond the impressive number of puzzles.
+ A must for puzzle game fans, especially those who like Picross/nonogram games.

Cons:
- Difficulty varies greatly between puzzles and game modes.
- The sheer amount of content can be a bit overwhelming.
- Some puzzle solutions feel like they require a bit of trial and error to sus out.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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