Game Review: HoneyLand

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, XBox, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC (Steam)

From time to time we like to look at smaller indie releases here at A-to-J, and we have a particular soft spot for puzzle games. HoneyLand fits that mold perfectly. Out now on most major platform, we're going to be taking a look at it on the Nintendo Switch today. There isn't a whole lot to the game, so this review will probably wrap itself up rather quickly.

HoneyLand has no story at all to speak of, and only 30 puzzles to clear. Right off the bat there isn't a lot of content, but perhaps it can make up for that in other ways. Your goal in each level is simple, guide the bear to the honey pot that is present on each stage, and move on to the next. You don't get to control the bear directly though, you instead use cards that represent turning and movement. It sort of plays like a board that uses cards instead of dice, but with some added complexity thrown in partway through. A simple button press resets the puzzle if you get stuck, and there's no scoring or timer to worry about. Put together, all that means is that there is no true fail state. Fail state or not, you can run out of moves if you're not careful in using your cards. Also rather annoyingly, you have to stop exactly on the space the honey pot is on to pick it up. Your bear will simply walk right past it if the movement card says that he must. I can't begin to explain how annoying that is in practice. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself though, let's back up and take a look at the gameplay a bit more closely.

Getting the hang of HoneyLand's control scheme can take a couple of tries since there's really no in-game tutorial, but it's not that hard to grasp once you figure out the quirks of spacing and turning. Since each movement card has a direction the bear will move in, you always have to be aware of where future cards will take you. Movement isn't totally free either, as you will stop if there is no further available spaces to move in whatever direction you're going in. You also don't have to use all the cards to reach the honey part. You get no bonus for reaching the end with cards left over, but it's still kind of cool regardless. Even though the core concepts are simple, things get complicated fairly quickly. Some levels require you to waste cards simply to turn your bear around, others will have you circle the honey pot like a dog getting ready to lie down, and others still will require you to jump over gaps using special designated jumping cards. It is admittedly challenging, but there seems to be very little rhyme or reason to the difficulty and puzzle layouts. Most levels feel like they were thrown together at random, and they can all be finished in a minute or two. I got stuck more than once, but I was still able to clear all 30 levels in well under an hour. I wouldn't say that it's a bad puzzle game concept, but it definitely left me feeling like I might've wasted my time playing it.

Things couldn't be more bare bones when it comes to HoneyLand's presentation. There's no pause menu, a barebones title screen, and that's about it. Music consists of what I think is a single track that loops incessantly. If there was more than one piece of music in the game, I didn't notice it. The only positive thing I can say about the music is that it didn't become annoying despite it droning on non-stop. I also have no way to sugarcoat this, but the game looks quite ugly visually. The cover image of the game promises cute cartoon-y graphics, but the game itself seems to be made up of pre-made assets. The stages look like they were thrown together with leftover Minecraft elements, and the bear looks downright weird. I will say that I found the honey eating animation to be rather entertaining, but that's about all I can that isn't bad. If I were told this game was slapped together without much thought over the course of a couple days, I wouldn't doubt it one bit.

Considering that HoneyLand costs just $4.99, I feel a bit bad being so harsh on it. It wasn't the worst gaming experience I had, and it at least flowed competently enough. That said, I really can't recommend it to anyone beyond the most diehard puzzle enthusiasts. There's about an hour or two of gameplay at the very most here, and it's not even all that fun to play through. Sure it's cheap, but that money can be better spent on just about any other game out there. I do hope that the developers give it another go, as there were ideas here that I feel could've been executed far more better if given more time and effort. I guess we'll just have to wait and see on that though. Until then, see you in the next one.

Check Out HoneyLand on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/honeyland-switch/

---

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

Overall: C-

Pros:
+ A cool puzzle game concept that is rather easy to get into.
+ There are some rather entertaining moments found throughout, particularly when the bear actually gets to the honey pot.
+ Picking this one up out of simple curiosity isn't too big a leap considering it only costs $4.99.

Cons:
- The simple concept of moving the bear around using movement cards quickly falls apart when more complex levels are introduced.
- It took me less than an hour to clear the game's 30 stages. I imagine that will be mostly the same across the board.
- Graphics, sound, and overall presentation are fairly lacking. This feels like a lazily put together game.
- There are just so many better puzzle games for the price. Picking up this one over just about anything else makes very little sense to me.

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.

---