Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch (reviewed), Android, iOS
Sometimes I need a game to act as a palette cleanser. I just recently spent nearly 75 hours playing through Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and I haven’t been ready to jump into another big, story-driven game just yet. So I’ve been looking for more relaxing and bite-sized gaming experiences. The puzzle game Estiman has not only done a great job filling that role, but it has also turned out to be one of the biggest surprises of 2019 for me.
Estiman is super simple in concept. The screen fills with a variety of objects and based on their shape and/or color you remove the one that has highest number until the screen is clear. It’s that simple, but the gameplay hook that will keep you coming back is trying to acquire the highest score possible. The faster you remove items the higher your multiplier will go. While you can take as much time as you want to figure out what your next move will be (until your multiplier completely runs out resulting in a game over), speed is key to keeping your multiplier high and seeing your scores increase. This is where the skill of estimation will come into play (and where the game gets its name), as most of the time you’ll be making educated guesses as you find yourself in more and more of a trance as you get deeper into each run. You’ll be doing this while soothing sound effects and mellow tunes play in the background, leading to a rather cathartic experience.
Another aspect of Estiman that will keep you playing is the pursuit of credits that are used to unlock a variety of extras. These range from power-ups that allow you to pause the multiplier timer for a few seconds or make the next correct move for you to new screen backgrounds that can alter the aesthetic to your taste. You can also use credits to continue without losing your score once per game.
Where you’ll be spending most of your credits though, will be in unlocking what are essentially new skins for the objects used in the game. These range from simple shapes to bubbles to snowflakes. There are only a handful of these different skins and they don’t change the core gameplay, but there’s something about each one that makes your brain react in different ways creating what feels like unique experiences. Being able to switch between these is something that really helped keep the gameplay fresh.
No game is without its issues, and while Estiman’s are minor, there are still a few. Perhaps the most glaring for me is that there is only one music track. It’s a fine track and is mellow and unassuming enough that it never wears out its welcome, but having a unique track for each skin or a few that you could unlock with credits would have been a worthwhile addition. Another minor gripe I have is that you can only see your single highest score. It would have been nice to have a leaderboard that shows all your top scores (or even online leaderboards) and even better would have been having unique leaderboards for each of the seven skins as they do feel like different experiences.
Estiman can also suffer from a completely different set of issues depending on whether you decide to play in docked or handheld mode on the Switch. Handheld mode is where the game truly shines as you’ll be able to use the touchscreen and the smaller screen allows you to focus on the gameplay in a way that you don’t get from a large TV. Playing in docked mode isn’t broken by any means, but it does have some frustrating quirks that you don’t get in handheld. There are times when using the controller that the cursor doesn’t move to the piece that it logically seems like it should. Another issue with the cursor is that sometimes when you’re really focused in on the gameplay you will think that it is on a specific piece but it turns out what you’re seeing is the “credit” symbol (meaning you’ll get a bit of credits for removing that particular piece from the screen). Both of these issues could easily be avoided by taking a few extra seconds, but when you’re trying to keep your speed up they can lead to picking the wrong object and result in a game over.
Estiman is the perfect game to play between other games or when you need to wind down and just want to kill a little time. It is far more satisfying, fun, and addicting than it has any right to be and I see myself coming back to it often to chase high scores and unlock all the extras. I’d highly recommend checking it out as it’s probably the best 20 cents (normally $2) I’ve ever spent.
