You Must Build A Boat

You Must Build A Boat (2015) is an endless puzzle where you match tiles to construct powerful boats to battle monsters. You expand your boat by matching attack tiles to deal damage to the approaching foes. Efficiently solving these matching puzzles is part of the fun, but the real interest is modifying your boat to maximise the power of your matches.

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Set on a dangerous river filled with enemies and allies, you play an adventurer striving to recruit misfits to help your boat stay afloat. As you start each run, you travel down the river defeating various enemies by solving tile-matching puzzles. To aid your quest you find different travellers along the way, each with unique abilities. From making the sword tiles deal double damage to certain tiles always spawning at the start, there are lots of traveller perks to choose from. However, you can only fit a certain number of fellow travellers on your boat.

Progress is determined by how quickly you can complete the increasingly difficult puzzles. Combining tile matches is key to success, enabling you to multiply the amount of damage. However, the enemies slowly inch towards you requiring you to think quickly before you are defeated. In this way, you must balance powerful attacks with how long it takes to find them.

The result is a game where the fun lies in perfecting your boat with innumerable optimisations and improvements. The satisfaction of making a powerful combo from the limited tiles makes it a rewarding experience.

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Our examiner, Will Oster, first checked You Must Build A Boat 4 weeks ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 4 weeks ago.