Despite the title, Timberdoku doesn’t have much to do with Sudoku, other than the playing field being the same.  I imagine the ‘timber’ part of the title refers to the wooden brown color scheme this game adopts.  It really plays more like a cross between Tetris and those tanogram puzzles.

Gameplay is simple.  Pick from three pieces at the bottom of the screen with the button, and then move them around with the control stick and place them on the field with the same button.  If you make a line go from one side of the field to another, that line will disappear and give you more room.  You can also clear out 3×3 squares, but I’m not sure exactly how that works.  It happened sometimes, but other times it did not.  But the game is over when you can’t place any more pieces on the field.  I wish you could rotate the pieces, but I guess that’s part of the challenge.

There are two modes of play.  Endless lets you play as long as you can until you can’t fit any more pieces, and you try to get a high score.  Adventure has stages, and some require you to make a certain number of lines to fill a meter, and other levels have you clearing out certain colored jewels in lines.

I really didn’t have any problems with this game.  Sometimes it was hard to lay pieces, but that’s only because the Switch’s JoyCon controllers suck.  There’s only one song, which is fine, but the slow sultry saxophone piece sounds like it should be in a movie I shouldn’t be watching instead.  Otherwise this is a pretty decent simple little puzzler.

Kid Factor:

Nothing violent or objectionable here.  Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, but not necessary just to play.  The game could be considered somewhat educational as it requires logic, thinking, and spatial skills.  Timberdoku is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews