I’m a big Picross fan. I think it’s one of the best logic puzzles. Tents and Trees piqued my interest with a slight variation on that classic formula. While they play exactly the same, they are different enough to radically change the reasoning process. But how is it?
The goal here is to place the tents next to the trees in a grid instead of painting. Each tree should have one tent next to it and no two tents will touch. Like picross, there are numbers on the top and left side of the grid that tell you how many tents you need in each column and row. You can put the tent down, put some grass on it, and mark the square you guessed the tent couldn’t go. Again, like picross, mark a square and cross it out.
Everything is presented in a minimalist fashion, resulting in a very clean and aesthetically pleasing look. It has some very cool and catchy music tracks. Over the past few days, he’s had one song stuck in his head, but most songs are only unlocked by completing a certain amount of puzzles. There are also some themes that can only be unlocked by completing a certain number of puzzles. Unfortunately, these amounts are quite high. I completed 185 puzzles while playing, but only one additional song of his was unlocked, no new themes.
As with any good puzzle, there is a lot of strategy involved. As I played around, I found a more logical way to figure out which squares could have tents and which couldn’t. If I didn’t find a way forward, it simply meant I wasn’t thinking enough. First, you will be notified of any incorrectly marked squares. However, it will show you where the tent or grass should be placed and why it should be moved there. I personally don’t like using hints in games, but I went back to some puzzles I had already solved and basically had the hint system re-solve them. It really helped me sharpen my skills and showed me some new ideas I never thought of. Huge props to the devs for not just handing out tiles, but having the hint system walk you through the process.
With over 500 puzzles (!) and an additional 18 daily puzzles (!!), you’ll never run out of puzzles. They are categorized by grid size and difficulty, and some have some numbers hidden next to the grid (again, you can use your wits to solve these without having to guess). My only real complaint here is that the non-daily puzzles only go as far as his 14×14 grid and the max 20×20 puzzles only come in the daily packs. These gigantic puzzles are my favorite in the game (although they’re so large in handheld mode that they’re certainly difficult to decipher). We’re happy to have at least a few available each day, but it would have been nice to have a few more to add to our main selection.
Overall, Tents and Trees is a great puzzle game that exceeded my expectations. It’s just as fun as picross for me (it even gave me the “Tetris effect” of seeing puzzles in my head when I’m not playing, so it must be good). I will be back again and again for the goodness of the puzzles. There is also a free mobile app version, but I was strongly attracted to this Switch version because it lacks mobile app stuff (ads, in-game currency) and simply allows you to use a controller. At $9.99 on the eShop, this is 100% worth the purchase for puzzle fans. pick it up!
