Paver: Tidy Up Together Review (PC)

I’m glad Paver: Tidy Up Together isn’t set in the UK, because if it were, then it would be mostly comprised of potholes and loose paving slabs with half-complete roadworks sprawled out along the sidewalk. A plaza in the front of a majestic castle, on the other hand, is a fitting place to frame a game like Paver. Because if it were anywhere else, then I’d probably quit the job before taking home the first paycheck. It might not be Rome, but it’s a heck of a lot easier on the eyes than an industrial park in the center of Digbeth.

In any case I’d say that you don’t need a good setting to flesh out a chore core simulator. With a game that quite literally builds its core around the act of slotting pavers into a plaza, however, location is everything. And for the record, Paver does make a good effort to give you something to mindlessly gawp at; the magical castle frames the world nicely, as does it complement an otherwise dull gameplay experience. Because let’s be real — nobody wants to spend several hours laying down paving stones in a plaza. With a stunning view to keep your eyes distracted, though, it is a job that can keep you from dozing off to the sound of a passing ball of tumbleweed.

It’s easier to think of Paver as one enormous jigsaw puzzle, only with more trapezoids and hexagons than traditional mosaic pieces. It’s the same basic concept, though: you receive upwards of four thousand jigsaw pieces (or paving tiles, in this case) and an image of the complete project. With your two bare hands, you must locate the correct location for each piece and, through a whole lot of trial and error, snap all of the slabs into the correct position to create a bustling plaza of fluctuating patterns and colors.

Sure enough, it sounds like an easy project, and one that you could quite easily switch off to for an hour or two. To an extent, it is rather straightforward, mainly because it harbors several upgrades for you to unlock and take advantage of, some of which give you the power to automatically locate the correct spot, others that allow you to hold more of the same slab, and so on and so forth. With that, you have a familiar job that feels reminiscent of your usual Librarian imitation. It might feature an alternate universe and more complex jigsaw pieces, but the idea remains the same. And so, say what you will, but the fact is, Paver really isn’t all that different from your average organizing sim.

Thankfully, Paver does at least make an effort to alter the formula ever so slightly. Rather than dropping four thousand square paving slabs in front of you, it instead chooses to take full advantage of all sorts of different shapes to make your job a little harder. Oh, it still holds on to the usual square pieces, but it also finds enough room in its bag to fill its worth with a wide range of octagons, triangles, hexagons, and, well, you get the idea. The point is, it isn’t just “another” forgettable puzzle; it’s an intricate pattern that often requires you to think outside of the box and to slowly learn the shapes and the color combinations. Is it a quick and relatively painless exercise? Eh, it is and it isn’t.

With there being over four thousand slabs to allocate, you can sadly expect to bump into your fair share of teething issues here. As a lot of the slabs require you to manually install them in layers, it isn’t all that uncommon for several slabs to phase in or out of the environment or, in a worst case scenario, disappear altogether. It isn’t a major problem, as you can, at least in most cases, alter your position or helplessly click the floor until the tile in question miraculously sprouts up from beneath the rubble. Still, there are a couple of graphical bugs here that often disrupt the experience. It isn’t the worst I’ve ever seen, but I’d be lying if I said that it’s a complete walk in the park. Plaza, sorry.

Bugs aside, Paver delivers a surprisingly good tidying up simulator. While its upgrades are in short supply, it does make a good effort to compensate for its lack of depth with a variety of modes. For example, there’s an option for you to play the game as intended, with all of the usual progression-locked skill trees. There’s also an option for you to enter the Sandbox Mode, where you can access all of the skills right from the get-go, and a third option that allows you to remove all skills and to tackle the plaza with little more than a single hand and a map. Add the online co-op mode to the equation, and you have a good amount here to keep you and a friend busy for a handful of hours.

It goes without saying at this point, but if you are a fan  of organizing sims that pay homage to Librarian and other incremental puzzlers, then you’re sure to find enough here to scratch that itch for a while. As niche and as predictable as it is, Paver is still a good game that blends the coziness of a classic jigsaw with the satisfying nature of completing a puzzle one piece at a time. Therefore, if you have the time to spare and the patience to work your fingers to the bone, then you’ll probably enjoy bulking out this plaza.

Verdict

Paver: Tidy Up Together builds its plaza out of the same paving slabs as your average Librarian clone to create a familiar yet equally pleasant creative space that, while still largely lacking in depth and engaging skill trees, is a lot of fun to explore. Technical bugs aside, it delivers everything it needs in order to stand out as a thoroughly enjoyable organizing experience. Is it the best of its kind? No. Does it still make for a deeply satisfying graft? Absolutely.