Critic reviews roguelike match-three game Titanium Court for Nintendo Switch 2

Nintendo Life published a review of Titanium Court for Nintendo Switch 2 on Nov. 6, 2026.

Titanium Court launched on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 on Oct. 29, 2026. AP Thomson, based in New York, created the game after making Consume Me and Fortune-499. The review calls the game driven by a singular vision, noting that only the developer’s mind threads through its disparate ideas, so the miscellaneous compilation feels personal rather than random.

At the IGF Awards, Titanium Court took the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and the Excellence in Design award. No developer had won the Seumas McNally award in back-to-back years until AP Thomson did so with Consume Me in 2025 and Titanium Court in 2026. Jenny Jiao Hsia co-developed Consume Me, and consecutive wins make this a history-making achievement for a solo developer.

The game reached Windows PC in April, earning 85 on Metacritic and becoming a financial success for indie publisher Fellow Traveller. Polygon’s April review called the game an inventive comedy and a joy to outwit, noted Shakespearean undertones, and described it as a mix of roguelike (a run-based game that starts each attempt fresh), tower defense, match-three, and old school PC adventure styles.

You can play Titanium Court on Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Android, iOS, and Steam. The console and mobile releases came via an announcement from Fellow Traveller and AP Thomson, putting the game on televisions, commutes, and home setups instead of only PC.

The review casts the game as a theatre production, with the player taking the role of faerie queen ruling a royal court. The player enters as an understudy pushed onstage when the lead actress cannot perform, with no idea what to do. Titanium Court mixes game genres, musical styles, and images, ranging from sports and snappy tailoring to the Highway Code. The review notes that the match-three element appears as surprised by its own presence as the player is.

On the royal court’s terrain, the player swaps adjacent tiles to form rows of three. When tiles match, they vanish, tiles above fall down, and new tiles arrive from the top until a depleting bar freezes the board. Each match yields food, stone, wood, or water. The match-three (a tile puzzle where players line up three identical items) is called high tide, and when its timer runs out low tide arrives and the court goes to war.

When low tide arrives, the terrain the player designed becomes a battlefield featuring enemy fortifications. The player spends resources to train troops or workers, or to build defences against those fortifications.

Between runs, icons in a top-down view of the royal residence open the dining hall, a conversation with an aide, or a shower. These interludes sit between rounds of a larger campaign, and the player should save resources for later rounds.

The script remains unfinished, and the MC says the writers are racing the player toward the finish. The review questions whether the player’s confusion belongs to the role, or whether other characters act from the script or from improvisation. Even the tooltip speaks to the player as a character in dialogue. The effect is bizarrely coherent, and the theatre framing means nothing can technically be out of place despite the jumble of concepts.

Strategy deepens the longer the player plays, and goals grow clearer, though they sit beyond the luck of tile matching. The review finds the balance of skill and luck about right, aided by the court segments between rounds. Winning feels like the player’s own achievement, while losing offers a chance to relax and explore odd corners.

The review describes the writing as thoughtful, funny, and adventurous without tipping into preachiness, reliance on jokes, or loss of its absurdist edge. Repetitive sections may wear out their welcome, but the meta game offers an out, and the controlled story holds a view on how and when it should end.

The visuals work well on a dark screen despite a tight colour palette, with whimsical pictures that hop, fly, or slide across the window. Eye-catching images pop up and move with the action, including a pixel-art touchdown set to battle music, an image the review calls perfect.

IGN calls the game a surreal tactical RPG, mixing roguelike play with match-3 and tower defense. The outlet also calls it a surreal strategy game for clowns and criminals.