Mythmatch

Loving this game. The demo hooked me. I love meeting the greek gods and mortals and the tech tree of matching and unlocking stuff is so satisfying. The Olympus mini games so far are also fun to get the heart pumping. I hope more people give the demo a shot and see that this game is clever. Artemis is a fun protagonist! It's perfect for the steam deck.

Love this, cute and clever in equal measure. Great mechanics (3xA -> 1xB, 3xB -> 1xC, etc), progressions, and story. Lots of humour and little fun easter-egg-like references. Some of the 'mini-games' can get quite intense and some might find them difficult, but buffs help there and you aren't required to beat them completely. If you like some cosy grind then there's that too in trying to unlock/complete all the island quests.

crossposted to The Geekly Grind Mythmatch bills itself as an anti-capitalist tale in its Steam description, which it is, but it's not quite what I expected. This is a soft, kind tale about community and interdependence, portrayed through bright colors, and the Greek Gods at their most adorable. And as such, I adored it. Before diving into an exploration of this particular game, I have to go backwards and explain merge games. Merge games are a genre of games mostly found in the mobile game sphere. I'm not sure if this was the first one, but Merge Dragons from Zynga is certainly the most notable. The key mechanic is placing three (or more) of the same objects together will cause it to "merge" into a new item. Then, three of those will merge into yet another new object, and so forth. It's a strangely addictive formula, especially if  resource management and puzzle solving are incorporated. Unfortunately, most mobile examples fail to incorporate those elements. Zynga tends to lean heavily on pay-to-win mechanics to squeeze money out of their players at the cost of any actual depth. Mythmatch’s staunchly anti-capitist theme is fitting in this light, with the plucky underdog indie stepping onto the mobile battlefield ruled by the greedy corporation. I always really enjoyed the mechanics of the merge games, even if they never were utilized to their fullest potential. It always felt like a missed opportunity. That changed when I stumbled upon Mythmatch and its Greek mythology trappings. And just like that opportunity became reality – an addictive loop, immersive world and fantastic writing made for an engaging 20-hour journey. The game opens with Artemis and her twin brother Apollo hanging out on an island in the middle of nowhere with the centaur Charon. Artemis wishes to meet her father Zeus, and ascend to godhood as her birthright allows. Plus she even has a new power. This power is the ability to merge objects into the thing that hunts them. That's at least how the game explains it. For example, merging rats together turns them into a hawk. From there she's able to use said hawk to momentarily catch the attention of Zeus himself, who comes down to Earth. It's all in vain though, as he's far more taken with his son, and doesn't even spare Artemis so much as a glance. Apollo, it should be noted, has done nothing to deserve his father's attention compared to his sister. He seems more in the business of lounging around being waited on hand and foot by Artemis. Zeus immediately takes the twins to Mount Olympus where Apollo is whisked away to become God of the Sun. Artemis then seeks to establish herself as Goddess of the Hunt. Unfortunately Mount Olympus has a bit of a sexism problem. A God has a plethora of roles to choose from, while a Goddess finds her options far more limited. The only one open is that for Goddess of the Moon, where she would reflect Apollo's light. Our main character rejects this, only for Hermes (who's a real slimeball) to cast her down to Ithaca. This is where the game really starts, with Artemis working with the townsfolk to get back to Mount Olympus. From there, the story of Mythmatch is split into two parts — the time spent in Ithaca helping the citizens and building relationships, and then the time spent in the court of Mount Olympus trying to win favor with various gods and goddesses before Hermes casts her back to the human world once again. When Artemis arrives in Ithaca she finds a city with problems. Everyone hates each other, the bridge is out, the king is long gone, and the current queen Penalope has locked herself in her palace. Thankfully Artemis is here to provide some divine intervention! This part of the game functions a lot like an adventure game. Artemis must fetch various items for the townfolk. It’s here her aforementioned powers manifest through the merge mechanics, leading the player to create items and manage materials. As these quests are completed, Artemis grows closer to the…