Square Valley

Last updated on May 30th, 2023 at 11:35 pm

Square Valley

title

Square Valley is one of the best $1.99 to play game in the App Store.
Developed by Ryan Becijos, Square Valley is a Puzzle game with a content rating of 4+.
It was released on 21st April 2022 with the latest update 13th February 2023

Whether you are a fan of Puzzle, Board, games, you will find this game interesting and will absolutely like it.

Rating

78 people have rated 1.0.9

You can download the game Square Valley from APP STORE.

Description

You play as the Spirit of the Valley, tasked with creating unique lands that meet the needs of the citizens. To achieve this, you will need to place tiles such as houses, trees, farms, animals, and much more! Each tile you position is unique in its characteristics and will be scored accordingly. You’ll also create roads, rivers, fences, and more to connect all your tiles together in a meaningful way.

However, your task is not as simple as it sounds. You have limited control over which tiles you can place where. Each round will feel like a new challenge, so you’ll have to plan ahead to succeed.

You’ll play in three different chapters with a total of 45 levels. With each level you advance, you’ll be offered more tiles and have more difficult obstacles to overcome. The journey starts with setting up fences and walls and then moves on to building plateaus, lakes, and even islands! It’s no easy task, but we think you’ll rise to the challenge! Once you’ve completed the levels, you can play them again to improve your score and compete in the leaderboards.

With the puzzles randomly generated, it’s fun to replay each level. Whenever you finish a challenge, you will have created a unique little world to be proud of. If you are interested in even more random experiences, take a look at the sandbox mode, in which you’ll be given a unique level depending on your preferred game settings.
Good luck, Spirit of the Valley – go forth and build spectacular little worlds!

Updated on 13th February 2023

Daily Challenge is now unlimited plays per day.
Fixed various tile scoring bugs.
Fixed Private Castle scoring bug.
Eased scoring for Jewelry Shop and Sanctuary

Square Valley Reviews

Our new obsession! Id love more chapter challenges and to be able to play the daily challenge more than once. Other than that it is the perfect game.


This takes skill and a little luck. Just beat all 3 stages. Willing to buy an expansion pack w/ larger or more complex maps.


Absolutely love the puzzles in this game. They are engaging, with every single one adding some new twist, and the perfect length of time for a relaxing break, running around 10 minutes. Not to mention the charming artwork and music!


Pros: Just the right level of challenging strategy and relaxing pace. The interface is user friendly and intuitive. Easy to pick back up after putting down. High replay value because every map is randomly generated at the start of a round. Each new level has some new tile element that adds to the freshness and fun of the puzzles. (The sandbox mode allows some selection of these elements, but it isnt always good at putting them together in a logical way). Cons: Because of the randomizer, sometimes daily challenges are near impossible to complete and there is no way to reset. Also, even though the random map gen means you can replay levels, it would be nice to have more than 45 levels (15 per chapter) because reaching the end is kinda sad when youre loving a game! Suggestion: Please add more chapters and levels! Also, perhaps maybe add the option of a larger map (more tiles) for sandbox and more ways to customize the sandbox puzzles. Speaking of that, can you add to the glossary an explanation what each tile element means and does?


Absolutely adore this game. We love figuring out our strategies for each set of tiles and tiles, and cant help but go back to try to improve our score in ever single level. Every single tile has little ways you can squeeze every last point out of it, and when you manage to get a high score with an aesthetically pleasing map, the feeling is wonderful. As frustrating as it was adjusting to plateaus and islands, it was even more satisfying when we finally got it down. Only possible complaints aside from wanting more levels are that the randomness of the tile options and spaces can sometimes just give you the finger. Part of it is not drawing out the levels for too long, sure. The more tiles you have placed the more likely youll be blocked. But sometimes the game just gives you a dozen occupied spaces, a singular open space, and a pair of tiles that will only penalize your points. But its part of the game, and we just kind of learned to roll with it. Sometimes your attempt just doesnt play out. But seriously. More levels. They dont even need to be new content. Just mix and match and cookie-cutter with the old tile sets you already have, and give us more levels to get high scores in. So many of the cool concepts are only used once, and both sandbox and the daily challenge feel so unsatisfying in comparison to seeing your high score recorded permanently.


Love this game, really thoughtfully done. Creative and satisfying puzzle. Initially we were going to suggest some type of real time scoring, with values going up or down with each placement, but after thinking it through that would just make each turn a boring round of trial and error. What would be nice for replay is a record of your personal stats on each level. We find myself wanting to try a level again to see if we can improve, but by the time our new score rolls around we forget what our last score was. Would be fun to have refer to personal stats for each level like: Attempt 1: score, highest value placement, lowest value placement, most used tile Attempt 2: score, etc Id also be interested in a board game version of this. Would need to be able to use your phone to calculate the scores (scoring Carcassonne is hard enough we cant imagine this), but would be pretty great if you could figure it out. Itd be a fun programming challenge we think.


Loved playing through this game. If you like euro board games with solitaire modes, this beautifully replicates the feel. Great example of a game that doesn’t need to be flashy to be good. Every map has a unique challenge to keep things fresh.


This is a two-star game for us. The game works well, and it looks good. So Im rating it four stars out of respect for the developer. We will probably delete this game because: 1. Tile scoring is too complicated. A tile might be worth 5 points if its 3 or more spaces from a wall. Otherwise its worth 1 point unless its adjacent to a river. That sort of thing. For us it became work, not fun, to find the best place to put a tile. Many people like such complexity. Many dont. Im mentioning it so people know what to expect. 2. We couldnt tell what our score was during a game. So we had no way of knowing how we were doing until the game ended. The game really should display a players turn-by-turn score.


Good game, just theres very little knowledge of where you are going to be allowed to place the next tile, and it seems random.


Very reminiscent of Islanders or any game like that. Also similar to some Roll and Write board games. Our biggest issue is what in tarnation is an area? Game uses the term constantly and never explains it at all. Theres even an article written about the game complaining about the same thing when we tried to look it up. Please help, dev.


We wanted to like this based on positive reviews, and suggestions we saw on social media. But it suffers from usability and feedback problems, i.e. Its not very clear what youre supposed to do, or what the implication is. Ultimately, the tutorial was a bit too mindless, and the other levels seem like theyre just going to be a super complicated version of minesweeper.


Really unique game, felt like a mix between sudoku and city-building games. It was satisfying to succeed and we never felt too frustrated even when we would lose a close one. One of our issues is that in some of the later challenges the placement of the unique pieces on the map would vary wildly and that would lead to either easy games or near impossible ones. We found myself just quitting and restarting on turn 1 until we got placements that felt doable. Also, it feels kinda short. Maybe because we wasnt expecting it to end and seeing the new unique pieces for each challenge was a big part of the motivation, but its still only 30 or so levels and that does seem a bit low.


Im really enjoying playing this, surprisingly deep puzzle game. Its almost perfect in its simplicity. However sometimes the tile descriptions are unclear, and there isnt much in the way of feedback for when and how each tile is being scored. For instance the fir grove description implies it needs to be as far as possible from residences, but then we get zero from each fir grove regardless of their placement. And the game gives no feedback for why. Im not sure if it needs real-time score feedback for each tile placed like the game Islanders (the closest game in style we can think of) or if it just needs some more breakdowns at the end of each level. Mostly though, it could just do with some more visual feedback for scoring and tile interactions so the player isnt having to check the written descriptions so much. All that said, thanks for the great game!


We love how every puzzle give the player a randomly generated map with a target score and it’s own set of tiles. So every time you replay that same puzzle, the order the tiles show up and exactly where on the map you can place them will be different, the special parameters of that unique puzzle will feel somewhat familiar. We also like while it’s easy to see it as something akin to Solo Carcassonne, that isn’t quite accurate. Unlike Carcassonne there really is no equivalent to completing a road or a castle wall, it’s more that every different tile in this game has its own scoring rules (like, "… It needs to connect to a road but no other tile of its same type can be in the same column…") and you’re tasked with trying to place every tile so they all score as much as possible.


Such a refreshing game to find. No timers. No ads. No lottery draws. Just strategic maps that each feel fresh and challenging. Well worth buying.


To our surprise, we got many hours of interesting and enjoyable gameplay out of Square Valley. Dev was responsive and fixed a couple of issues along the way. Goal descriptions are occasionally fuzzy or not clear and could use some standardization, but that doesnt stop this from being a great experience. Would love more options to play past the main campaign and we cant wait for more!


This game is an excellent mix of skill and chance. There is a bit of a learning curve and sometimes the tile descriptions can be a bit confusing, but overall it is extremely addicting and challenging.


We love this game and enjoy the same things as what other reviews have already expressed. We think there is a bug in the tutorial however. If you select a house tile and try to place it inside of the fenced in area, it changes the tile to rocks, even though only sheep and house are available to select. It was VERY confusing to experience that in the tutorial on our first play. After completing the level, we replayed it and the same effect is still there. We think its a bug!


The tutorial is the worst we’ve ever seen. Ridiculously difficult to learn how to play. We just spent 20 minutes with the tutorials and still have no clue why the highlighted blocks change, or how to place a road or river, or how you make any changes. Maybe this is a fun game, but Im not spending any more time on a tutorial this bad.


This game is both relaxing and exciting at the same time. We will start it up for a chill moment to listen to the music and ambiance, and then get pulled in right away with the struggle of the puzzle. The latest update with the undo and skip buttons takes this game from a 4star to a 5 star . There were plenty of times we accidentally put down a building and wished for an undo. And the skip chefs kiss what an awesome addition to the whole puzzle. Youll be constantly wondering which turn would be the best use. The challenges will keep you coming back to see what new buildings and scoring scenarios are in store. If you love puzzle games, we highly recommend this one. Thanks devs for making such a great little game!


So they earned a perfect score from us, if you read this you should play the game.


Fun to play and pass the time.. Definitely will be playing during downtime!


We rarely write reviews but this game is exactly what we needed! Its fun and calming for our anxiety but still makes us think enough so we dont get bored. We appreciate that its a one time purchase instead of a subscription or in app purchase. Keep up the great work, if a sequel ever comes out Id definitely buy it :)


This is a beautiful and relaxing game with just the right level of challenge. Im increasing our review from 4 stars to 5 because of great customer service. The developer responded to a question very quickly and fixed some initial scoring glitches promptly. Well worth its purchase price. Im so glad it doesnt have ads.


We are having a relaxing imaginative time playing this. We can already tell this is going to be one that stays on our phone. Its such a challenge placing all the edges and other units! We think this would be an excellent board game. You get five stars for this gem and because theres no ads. Ads would have made us play 75% less. Thank you for not collecting our data too. Youre a role model for all games!


It’s rare for a developer’s first release to truly impress us. This game cleared that lofty bar! We’re not even through Chapter 1 and we already enjoy the heck out of playing… Surely that’s a good sign!


TL:DR: plenty of potential to be a rewarding and relaxing puzzle game that you can play over and over again. But certain aspects like tile requirements and gameplay choices leave this title a bit lacking/frustrating in its current state. Whats good: – art is nice – nice music – enjoyable idea/premise: (dynamic tile placement according to their needs and requirements to score points) – plenty of replay potential since levels are randomized each time Whats definitely holding it back: – Tile rules/requirements can be a bit confusing based on how theyre written. And certain requirements are not listed (ex: a number of tiles cant be place within the limit of walls but that is never mentioned and then you receive -20 point penalty at the end. Frustrating Whats questionable: – while the random factor is nice for replay-ability, sometimes it leaves you with terrible scenarios, that even when trying to plan ahead cannot be avoided. And this mostly comes down to the mechanic of not only receiving random tiles each turn, but also randomized squares that are available to be placed upon. There was a game on steam called Islanders that we liked playing that was similar. Youd get to choose between randomized building packs which all had tile elements with point requirements. But these elements could be placed anywhere on the island so it really did allow you to strategize and plan ahead once you understood the nature of each tile. But the addition of randomized placement restrictions really hinders how much planning ahead you can really do. Personally we liked Islanders approach to this kind of game a lot better, but Im open to this added degree of difficulty. We just wish there was some degree of randomness eliminated based on whats already been placed. Its not fun to try your best to city plan and then just get completely screwed over in the late game by RNG – point totals are completely hidden until the round is over. While we get that the overall points of a tile will depend on the final placement of the board, the lack of real time feedback per turn exasperates some of the confusion with how the tile requirements are described and also makes each turn less satisfying than it could be. Going back to Islanders which is a similar concept, that game provides real time point +s and -s as you moved tiles around the board determine where to place them. And then when you did place the time the points were added to your score. This not only helped to clear up any questions regarding pointing descriptions but it also added an element of instant gratification and dopamine release per turn that made the game play fun. Something like this would do wonders for this game.


Very solid, relaxing but challenging puzzle game with solid art and music. The developer stated Carcassonne was an inspiration but we think the logic/gameplay is more similar to a deck builder with roguelike elements where the deck is the 9×9 board. Goal is to look for synergies and handle randomness best way you can. We agree with the other review(s) that stated tiles need more definition. We too had no idea Cherry Orchard would be a -20 enclosed. Even the glossary, which uses pictures to define things, could be a bit more detailed with some of the games other terms like connected, etc. This would not stop us from giving such a good game like this 5 stars.


Atmospheric, calming and yet a deceptively challenging puzzler. Would get 5 stars but some tiles need more info, for instance the cherry orchard just says: for each edge touch+4 – touching what? And after playing the round you find out you lose 20 if the cherry blossom is enclosed. Dont get us wrong, this is a solid game, it just needs some tweaking to be great.

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