Tens!

Genre: Unlimited Pattern Puzzle

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local)

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Review:

Tens!, released on Nintendo Switch in 2020, is an Unlimited Pattern Puzzle game where players are presented with tiles made up of the six sides of standard dice (as well as blank pieces), which they must place on a 5×5 grid, with the goal being to create lines and columns that add up to exactly ten, clearing that line. Players lose if their grid fills up.

The gameplay is pretty straightforward, and the top and right side of the grid even give the player a convenient sum of everything in the corresponding row or column for easy reference. There are multiple game modes, including a “story” mode that gradually adds new tile types and conditions as you progress through the game, as well as an introduction to multiplayer battles that have you sending junk tiles to your opponent when you clear tiles from your own board. All of this works pretty well, and you can even set up chains and combos to get bonus score modifiers.

When it comes to complaints, it can be a bit difficult to know what the better moves to make are once your board starts to fill up, and the restriction of only getting four pieces to use at a time (and must place all four before you get more) can make it frustrating if you’re holding out for a one or two but don’t know when you’ll randomly get one.

The presentation here is simple but it works well enough, with simple, bright, colorful visuals backed by some nice chill rhythmic music. Overall, this is decent, but nothing exceptional.

In the end, I think Tens! is a solid Puzzle game that feels like it could have been even better with a few gameplay elements tweaked just a bit, but even as is this is still a game well worth picking up if you’re a fan of the genre.

tl;dr – Tens! is an Unlimited Pattern Puzzle game where players are placing down tiles with dice faces on them, trying to make a row or column add up to exactly ten so they can clear it. This is a solid Puzzle game, and while a few game mechanics feel like they’re holding the game back a bit, I think overall fans of the genre will be happy with this.

Grade: B

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