D-topia Review – D-lightful

D-topia is a surprisingly relaxing puzzle game that thoughtfully tackles themes like the greater good and AI without compromising its cozy aesthetic. I have a couple of minor quibbles with the mechanics, but this has been one of the most laid-back and pleasant games I’ve played this year.

I previewed D-topia just last month, though the demo I played only covered the very beginning of the game. It hooked me enough to check out the full thing, so I signed on to review it with fairly high expectations. As I’ve had a busy personal life of late, I was especially drawn to having a more relaxing game on the docket, and for the most part, D-topia filled that niche wonderfully across the board.

The premise of D-topia hinges on how seemingly sentient AI could be used to produce a utopian sort of happiness for the most possible people. The title walks a fine line between showing the potential benefits of a mathematically calculated utopia for humanity and the clear problems that would arise alongside those benefits, giving both perspectives ample room for the player to chew on. As a writer, it’s not hard to guess that I’m quite critical of AI in its current form, but D-topia holds little bias when showing how a technically “ideal” society made by the theoretical pinnacle of AI for the benefit of humans would run, so I was able to see the ups and downs of this hypothetical utopia.

As you befriend different individuals in this far-off future, you’re able to choose how their stories go based on your interactions with them. Given you’ve been assigned the role of Facilitator, whose job is to help others in the colony, you can assist them and influence their choices through conversation. The gameplay of thinking through these situations is interesting, as it has you run through a flowchart while choosing where you stand on each issue. It’s a novel way to do the “choose a path” sort of game, though a couple of the prompts are just the slightest bit unclear.

I appreciated how much side lore could be gathered from speaking to random citizens of the titular colony, as I learned plenty of intriguing little details from my daily chats with each random NPC. None of it was essential to the plot, so I don’t mind it being optional dialogue, but it helped to fill out the game’s world in ways I didn’t anticipate. Hearing more information about the other colonies, the sort of person that could qualify for “deep freezing,” and other tertiary things went a long way in making the setting more robust, so I advise you to speak to everybody as the game goes on.

Puzzles are the main gameplay loop of D-topia, as solving different number and block puzzles counts as your “work” for each day. There are a few different types of puzzles, but they’re all satisfying to solve and strike a solid balance of challenging without being frustrating or too repetitive. They start with simple sliding block puzzles that use numbers for a bit of added depth, then progress to using a set number of checkmarks and rotating number blocks to fill out grids. They’re admittedly a bit hard to explain in words, but I never got tired of them throughout the six hours I spent playing through the game.

D-topia lets you deck out your own space.

Using currency earned from your work, you’re able to purchase food for yourself and your cat, as well as a variety of decorations for your apartment unit. I’m a sucker for customizable home areas in games, so being able to deck out my unit with paintings, figures, instruments, and the like felt wonderfully rewarding. Your friends will also give you special items with which to decorate once you’ve gotten close enough to them, further incentivizing you to get closer to them. In a way, everything feeds into making your living space as comfy as possible, which complements the cozy vibes well.

I have a couple of tiny issues with D-topia, which boil down to specific mechanics. The other comes from the ending. Without spoiling things, you can speak to each of your friends just before the ending, but for whatever reason, you can only choose one of them to spend the finale with. It’s just a short scene with your favorite friend, but given you have a decent few pals, it’s a bummer that you only get to see one ending.

Much of the coziness of D-topia comes from its presentation, which uses soft colors, a rounded, anime-adjacent art style, and soothing ambient music. At no point throughout the game did I feel any kind of stress, making this an ideal wind-down game for those looking for a bit of a break. The character designs are immediately memorable, and the limited number of locations you frequent stand apart from one another while contributing to the feeling of a somewhat sterile environment. The creepier vibe of the “back end” of the utopia, which only you can see as a Facilitator, is a nice touch too, selling the uncomfortable side of this “ideal” future.