Review InnuendoStudios 3/5 · May 16, 2026
hard one to rate, because
- it's a genius
- there is no part of it I dislike
- there is nothing else like it
but it is not exactly my jam. it is very, very close to my jam, which is why I respect it so, but I am not going to be thinking about it the way it wants me …
hard one to rate, because
- it's a genius
- there is no part of it I dislike
- there is nothing else like it
but it is not exactly my jam. it is very, very close to my jam, which is why I respect it so, but I am not going to be thinking about it the way it wants me to. it is not going it worm its way into my brain. by the endgame, I had gotten rather bored.
I don't even wanna describe the core mechanics to you, because the core mechanics are - by design, I believe - the least interesting thing about it. it's a match-three game that is also tower defense: you enter a "field of battle," move squares around, then, wherever they end up, that is the landscape for a round of tower defense. and it is fine. as a person who does not particularly care for match three and is actively disinterested in tower defense, "fine" is a huge compliment. but, understand: everything good about this game is additional to this loop.
please understand: this is a game where, in the mornings before battle, you learn battle strats in the form of shower thoughts, and the shower thoughts are also a match three game; your leftover resources after a winning around of battle can be stacked in a pile to help a cat get to a high shelf; the bank is a religious institution, and one of your attendants can become a priest, and is renamed "business leland"; there are three different win conditions for every boss, many of which involve kooky little puzzles like collecting eggs or uniting diregoats, but enemies will try to destroy the eggs so you have to protect them, and the diregoats can only be united if you anger each one by one, meaning you have to survive their attacks without killing them, and also the eggs are called footballs; clues for achieving mysterious goals can be acquire by talking to passing-out-drunk guys in bars, or listening to water cooler gossip (i.e. the water cooler itself whispers to you), or reading through your journal (but reading certain entries may turn you into a mobile clockwork monastery that is also a skull and is also the child of a leviathan and one of its win conditions involves baseball).
please, please understand what kind of game you are playing.
this is a very funny, utterly unique experience, and there is a very particular sensibility for whom it is perfect. I know this for a fact because I watched a friend with that exact sensibility fall in love with it. I bought it off his recommendation. and I find my sensibility a compatible but imperfect match. for me, it grew a bit long in the tooth. there are a lot of possible win conditions, and a shitload of mysteries, but when I solved some of the latter and pursued one of the former, it snatched the condition away, and had me keep playing. several times, something of this nature happened: a goal is nearly achieved and then postponed with a new suite of mechanics. and those mechanics are, true to form, wonderful and creative and unique! it is staggering how many unique game loops can be grafted onto the base mechanics, how many games within games can be played using a fairly simple set of elements. but, comes the time, I wanted to be done, and it would not set me free.
okay, another neat thing: this game is a good example of folding metatext into text similarly to how I discussed in my video on abed nadir. npcs running out of unique dialogue is part of the plot. the player and player character being separate entities is part of the plot. the nonsensicality of the titanium court being both a castle and a piece that moves around the board during the match-three phase is part of the plot. everything that seems like a ludic shorthand is, in fact, narratively justified, in a way that both acknowledges the artifice and makes an internally-coherent fiction. the metatext is playful.
it feels like a crime to give this pixelated gesamtkunstwerk fewer than five stars, much less only three. but, again: this game is very specific. it is not aiming for mass appeal, it is aiming to be adored by a specific niche. a niche that nobody knew existed until titanium court located it. and I am next to, but not within, that niche. I'm gonna move on, but I'm detailing so much right here because you, my dear, dear reader, might be of that niche, and, if you are, you must play this game right now.
