It’s quirky and I’m here for it!

When my little sister asked me to help her with Tempopo, I was pleasantly surprised. Being a five-year-old, she decides which games to play solely on how cutesy the aesthetics are, regardless of the gameplay quality. Tempopo certainly has the cuteness down, but unlike Barbie: The Video Game or whatever my sister has been playing lately, Tempopo is surprisingly fun.

SPOILERS! Skip to the last paragraph if you don’t want this game spoiled for you.

Tempopo, developed by Witch Beam and released just last spring, is a cozy, musical puzzle game. Throughout the game, players make their way through rhythm-based puzzles, guiding small creatures called tempopo (get it? Like “tempo”) across various floating islands. The goal is to rescue the musical flowers that somehow got blown away when the main character, Hana, did a horrible job conducting them. Each level consists of an island made of blocks that you, the player, must put instructions on so that the tempopo successfully collect all the flowers and make it to the exit. At the end of the game it’s supposed to be that through completing the levels, Hana has learned how to give better instructions and can now conduct the flowers competently, which is a corny but fitting moral.

Though the levels are quite fun, the game’s pacing is a little… off. The levels do slowly get harder and more complex as you progress, but they all use the same set of mechanics that are introduced in the first few levels. The game splits the levels into seasons, but aside from being aesthetically themed around a different time of the year, the seasons don’t really have anything separating themselves from each other. The developers could have switched around the order of some of the islands and the game’s progression would still work fine. I think it could have been more interesting if they introduced a new type of instruction for the tempopo at the beginning of each season instead of using them all right away. That being said, it’s not that big of a deal if you’re good with the repetitive gameplay and just looking for a way to stretch your brain.

Overall, Tempopo isn’t the most ground-breaking game, but it knows what it wants to be, and I respect that. It has a cute atmosphere, and its simplicity allows you to play it and have fun without too much commitment. Every level is difficult enough that you feel accomplished when you finish it but easy enough that (most of the time) you won’t get frustrated. It kind of reminds me of those single player ThinkFun games that I used to love playing (and still occasionally do play). There are also some extra modes that the game has that are fun to mess around with. Tempopo’s not going to win game of the year, but I really enjoyed playing it. It has its minor flaws, but if you’re like me and into puzzles and cute, musical vibes, then it might just be the game for you.

7/10