Royal Cartographer: Restore the Map

A jigsaw where you can't connect two adjacent pieces on their own.... I was so excited to have little piles of different colors, matching them up, then bringing them to the big board... but you literally just have to put down pieces one by one? And the "magic" skills just ruin the fun. I honestly was disappointed to see any kind of reference, as the "cartography" aspect sounded mysterious and unique. Being able to see the map on the board for a couple seconds at a time with a skill just ruined any kind of challenge and turned into a waiting game. Would have been so much cooler to use the environment to maybe make it a tower where you survey the land and use that as a reference to build the map out, or something. This is just crippled jigsaw and it's unsatisfying. Super sad as I love clean up/satisfying games.

Seemed like it would be a good mix of sortslop and jigsaw, but it doesn't really satisfy either end. The game is buggy and drops frames randomly, the controllers are stiff and uncomfortable, and the design of both the level and the map you're putting together are bare and somewhat uninteresting. It's impossible to place pieces properly at the top of the "map due to lack of reach, which according to one message in the discussion forums becomes possible eventually just by continuing to sort pieces at the bottom (you might get a skill to jump or float or just reach further, I wouldn't know). These sort of sorting games usually gate some movement behind some item you can find on the map, and this one does that for running and increasing carry capacity, so I wonder why not follow that pattern for whatever skill you need to reach the top of the map? After all, a lot of jigsaws can be most easily started by doing the outer frame first, and this choice in gameplay flow makes it so you can't do that. You can only lump pieces together somewhere nearby and wait until you can actually place them. All in all, even when a sortslop is subpar I can usually find myself playing it for 3+ hours. This game, I barely could stick to over an hour, and a lot of that time was not satisfying, I stuck to it due to stubbornness. Sadly cannot recommend in its current state.

Being on Steam Deck and trying to make the controls work is painful

Its far to hard to complete the top of the picture as the pieces wont reach to fit into place. Other than that I was enjoying the game just a shame its impossible to place all the pieces.

With the current state of the game, I can't give it a good review despite how much I like the concept and similar games. The action for placing a piece was very confusing to figure out and had stumped me for a full few minutes. But the big thing for me was that you are basically unable to reach the topmost row of the map. I was told that apparently there was an ability that would later help with this, but it instantly put a halt to my enjoyment. Because of these things and the fact that there hasn't been an update or word from the developer, I refunded.

Interesting idea, but the controls are awful. It took ages just to put two pieces in place. I'm going to request a refund, as I'm finding this unplayable at the moment. Shame, I'd looked forward to it.