Note: Despite being developed for Windows, I was unable to get it to work on Windows, but it did on my Steam Deck. Bear this in mind for the technical score.

I wish to thank HH-Games for the review key for this title.

Sometimes, games opt to be escapist. This can take both fantastical and mundane dimensions. Woodville Chronicles opt for the latter with its rustic, back to the forest themed premise.

For those not familiar with Match-3 games, you match up three or more objects on a tile-based board to remove them from play until all the matches you are asked by the game to make are done. As is true of games of this genre, this one should not have surprising twists that have not been explored by many others in this vein. Like many other games by the same developer, options are unlocked after getting a certain number of matches to knock some extra tiles off the board that are otherwise hard to remove in any other way. They range from knocking a single tile to knocking a group of them off the board, with further options unlocked as the story progresses across the included game story campaign map.

This game, however, offers an interesting new way to play. At any time while on the play board, the player can choose from one of three different ways to play. Grouping means you can select matching tiles in a group to clear them from the board. Swapping involves swapping tiles with adjacent match tiles to clear them from the board. Finally, chaining involves selecting a group of matching tiles in a linked sequence to clear them from the board.

The actual story involves helping a bunch of people build a village in a forest. This is done by playing stages and gathering materials to purchase various facilities to flesh out the village.

Graphically, the game has a strong forest theme. The art style has a hand-drawn, colorful cartoon aesthetic that fits the theme well. The sounds and music also fit the forest theme, with a lot of flutes and, appropriately enough, woodwind instrumentation.

This game can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse. I was unable to get this game to run in Windows, but was able to run it on the Steam Deck, and a mouse and keyboard being used on that confirm they work. On the Steam Deck, the game runs pretty well, with the player being able to use the analog sticks and even their fingers on the screen as a mouse.

This title has known problems running on Windows, on which it is intended to run natively. I left the developers a message that their game has grave issues, but they have yet to respond or update this game as of the time of this writing. As mentioned, it does run on Linux via Steam Proton and on the Steam Deck with no problems.

Morally, this game has hardly any concerns. It has no violence, foul language, or sexual content. There are no other notable moral concerns I was able to find.

Overall, this is a good game, but I was very disappointed that it refused to work on Windows. It’s Windows problems aside, it’s technically okay. Morally, it’s fit for practically any age. I regrettably cannot recommend this game due to the fact that it constantly crashes on Windows.