A Real Fixer-Upper
Bring your family’s sprawling resort back from the brink of ruin in Vineyard Valley from Jam City and Netflix Games. Complete levels to earn stars and coins used to upgrade the resort’s facilities in this tile-matching puzzle simulation game. Flex your puzzle-solving skills over the course of the game’s story chapters to unearth secrets, find romance and cook up lots of tasty dishes. Check in and get ready for the renovation of a lifetime.
Vineyard Valley begins with Simone, the game’s protagonist, on a taxi ride home, reflecting on her father’s death. She dreams of taking up her father’s mantle as head chef of the Tangled Vines, their family’s resort. However, upon her arrival, she’s shocked to find that it has fallen into extreme disrepair in her absence.
Margaret, her father’s best friend, struggled to maintain the property during her own recent illness after their competitor, Foxx Industries, poached all of her employees. To make matters worse, Violet Foxx, heir to Foxx Industries is due to inspect the property at any moment. With Margaret’s instruction and Simone’s culinary prowess, they must fix up the property and attract visitors before Violet succeeds in squashing the vineyard once and for all.
Check-in and Deck Out
Vineyard Valley’s gameplay feels pretty standard for the tile-matching puzzle genre—players clear two or more adjoining tiles of the same color by tapping them. Matching larger swaths of tiles creates power-ups that players can use to destroy larger areas of tiles and obstacles, like frozen blocks, tea cups and sculptures. These power-ups include bottle rockets, barrel bombs and rainbow tokens.
Create bottle rockets by tapping clusters of six blocks. These eliminate whole columns or rows of tiles after activation. Barrel bombs destroy large chunks of nearby tiles on the board and require seven tiles to form. You can create rainbow tokens, which eliminate all tiles of the token’s corresponding color, by matching nine tiles.
In addition to power-ups, the game offers four different culinary-themed boosters that can aid players in clearing levels—whisks, spoons, pizza cutters and spatulas. Players can reshuffle their board’s tiles by using the whisk or destroy a singular tile using the spoon. Additionally, pizza cutters clear entire rows, while spatulas remove columns. You’ll receive a few boosters early on as they’re introduced, but as you progress throughout the game, these resources will grow scarcer.
Like other games in the genre, Vineyard Valley requires players to meet a set of goals within a certain number of moves to clear levels. For completing each level, players will receive a star, which unlocks the next story chapter and puzzle level. Spending stars allow players to either choose an item to purchase for renovations or choose a special ingredient to complete a recipe, depending on the chapter’s story requirement. After their selection, players will encounter a brief dialogue-driven cutscene that furthers the plot. At the middle and end of each chapter, you’ll also earn gifts, which contain power-ups, boosters or coins.
Cask of Catastrophe
While the plot of Vineyard Valley often felt akin to a Hallmark movie, there were moments where I found myself genuinely shocked and entertained. Most of the time, the story revolves around deciding between renovations, cooking meals, making friends and interacting with love interests. However, while renovating the grounds, you’ll sometimes make surprising discoveries that hint at the location’s seedy past.
On one occasion, after a lighthearted moment between Simone and Margaret, you’ll pull bloody clothes from the floorboards. Another such instance features the discovery of a gun that had been tucked away behind the boards. These sudden tonal shifts work to breathe life into what would otherwise be a saccharine decorating and dating sim.
While I was beguiled by the story and increasingly challenging gameplay, my experience was often interrupted by slight hiccups. Starting around the midway point of my playthrough, Vineyard Valley’s puzzles took a few more seconds to boot. However, after a brief period of waiting, the app resumed its functionality, and I dismissed the issue.
At level 170, I opened a present and was rewarded with a game-breaking glitch. My account froze indefinitely after unwrapping a reward of a single coin and bottle rocket. Waiting had no effect this time. Neither did uninstalling and then reinstalling the game. Unfortunately, my stay at Tangled Vines would end prematurely.
Despite this disheartening end, I had a fantastic time with Vineyard Valley when it worked. The puzzles felt well-balanced in terms of difficulty and design, and I looked forward to discovering the game’s next challenge and renovations. The developers also did an excellent job of providing ample opportunities to earn boosters and power-ups.
While I wish there had been more than three style options available, the addition of a decorating element allowed me to customize the resort to my taste. Watching the grounds slowly transform fostered a sense of accomplishment that might’ve otherwise been missing by simply solving puzzles. However, much like Margaret, I watched helplessly as my progress withered on the vine.
