You Must Build a Boat

Amidst all the stress and work and god forbid a social life, I find myself unable to find proper time for console games or to actually turn on my PC to play. It is when I've discovered there exists a good amount of games on my mobile phone other than monotonous Two dots or your friendly neighboring Tetris where you stare at it and mindlessly playing it hoping for an hour to pass by at work when only 20 minutes have passed by.

This picture doesn't look very reassuring now that I think about it. Perhaps because it does not have a logo but I assure you that the game we are discussing today made me actively write about it as well as find myself smiling while playing it. This game is called You must Build a Boat. It is a hybrid between a puzzle game where you match tiles and an RPG, sorta like puzzle quest if you've played those before. The reason I got so engaged into it are simply the aesthetics as well as how I found it hard to put my phone down due to its pacing. You are initially put into your boat where you manage your quarters filled with shopkeepers (blacksmith, armorer, wizard...etc.) and the other screen of the game is where you implement your powers in an endless runner/puzzle game with tile matching.

Now here comes the fun part. In this seemingly endless runner, your character runs through the track killing monsters and opening chests for treasure as well as completing the random missions placed to you by quest givers on your boat. The more quests you complete, the more currency you take. I've been told you can actually complete a single run hence proving otherwise that it is an endless runner. However, I have not been so lucky as it got harder and harder the more I progressed. This character is a jack of all trades. Apparently he can hit with a sword, cast a spell with a staff, open treasure chests with keys and throw spell scrolls to affect the whole map with AOE. Oh and he has a limit break if you spend enough time on the map where it activates if your character is on the leftmost area on the map. You just have to match the symbols for the action you want to take depending on what is needed. Some monsters are weak to spells and others are weak to swords. There are other currencies including brawn points and brain points where you use them later to upgrade your stats. So you can imagine there is a lot to do in this game. If you complete all quests in a single area, your boat moves on to the next level with harder monsters and harder treasure to catch. I think by the 7th area I got a little bored and took a break from it but otherwise I can always get back to it and enjoy it.

It's a simple model of a game and is quite entertaining now that I think about it. I am surprised it is available on Steam as well and now I don't mind getting it on there. You can also find it on the appstore on iTunes as well as Google play Store. If you're feeling exhausted from a high maintenance game and want to kill time on something simple and actually have fun, play You Must Build A Boat. Did I mention the music is awesome? See you soon on another review. Hopefully when I play a proper console game.