Kami

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Kami is a Puzzle game first released on mobile devices in 2013, ported to PC in 2014, and then brought to Nintendo 3DS in 2015. The title is potentially a play on words, as Kami is the Japanese word for paper, but it is also the Japanese word for “god” or “spirit”, and this game is both clearly one about paper, but also has an elegance to it that could be intended as divine.

The gameplay in Kami is extremely simple, and comparable to the Color Zen franchise. Players are presented with a screen with various shapes in different colors, and they must transform the entire screen into any one color by using the touchscreen to transform any field into a different color, with the goal being to complete this task in as few moves as possible. This gameplay is fairly straightforward, yet provides plenty of challenge as players must think through the best order to go through each puzzle.

The presentation here is similarly simple, but elegant. Players are given a simple view of the puzzle on the bottom screen, and the top screen depicts that same puzzle with more detailed textures, and changing a color results in a nice animation where the paper making up the puzzle folds and shifts to the new color. These moves have satisfying paper noises to accompany them, and the entire game overall has a simple, calm acoustic string instrument in a traditional Japanese style playing in the background, adding to this overall sense of elegance the game has.

As elegant as Kami is, it doesn’t change the fact that this is a very simple game, and one that does little to push the genre forward. However, for $3 it doesn’t really have to be anything particularly revolutionary. As a simple Puzzle game and a time-waster, it works just fine. This is definitely not a must-have game, but if you own a Nintendo 3DS and enjoy Puzzle games, you’ll find this a decent addition to your collection that’s worth the low price.

tl;dr – Kami is a simple Puzzle game with an elegant presentation and simple gameplay involving changing the color of shapes to make everything the same color in as few moves as possible. It’s nothing that will revolutionize the genre, but it’s a nice time-waster and the $3 price tag makes it worth adding to your Nintendo 3DS game library.

Grade: C+

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