Spoilers Ahead
Wandering the woods one night you find yourself transported to the world of the Titanium Court: an abstract realm bobbing along an infinite and impossible sea, where faeries wage war by day, then at night the kingdom collapses and is rebuilt anew. This day/night structure is the game’s core loop, although what the ‘game’ part would be is harder to define. Titanium Court is a melange of genres, mixing an addictive just-one-more-go match-3 game, light resource management, strategy and visual novel, then wrapping them all up in a striking 2-bit teal and pink presentation.
Coerced into being the placeholder Queen in this jumbled facsimile of modern and medieval court life, you being to unpick the mystery of where you are and why, via a colourful (literally) cast of characters and fantastic writing that is in turns hilarious, introspective and sometimes existentially horrifying. This is aided by rudimentary graphics and a gonzo animation style that is more reminiscent of Windows 95 Solitaire than anything else.
It’s consistently charming and includes a suite of subtle tools to usher the player through the match-3 and strategy sections and progress the story even when a run seems to be an abject failure.
But the game’s genius is its metatextual contribution: the faeries are painfully aware of the limits of their digital fiefdom. Despite being a game that leans heavily on gameplay loop and replayability, the extended cast wax lyrical about the finite nature of the medium, and the inevitable ‘staleness’ that will come when the last unique animation is played and the last line of bespoke dialogue uttered. If you choose to continue playing and exhaust all available content, you’ll eventually inhabit a wasteland of sprites regurgitating their last living thoughts ad nausium. Its your court now: are you the Queen or the jester?