As a child, I was absolutely obsessed with Postman Pat. To this day, I have a small Postman Pat mailvan on my collectables shelf from my childhood that has survived. According to my mother, I used to point at every Royal Mail van and lorry, declaring them “Pat’s Van!”, so when Ringo’s Roundup was offered to me — my inner child jumped at the chance.
Ringo’s Roundup has us playing as adorable mail bunny Ringo, driving his mail car around grid based levels with the goal of collecting all the letters that are scattered around, before making our way to the postbox — our goal — to finish each level.
As someone who usually suffers when playing puzzle games — such as when I played Nico Saves The State — Ringo’s Roundup puts you under no time constraints, and does not lock you into only one solution per level. There is usually a short route and a long route the game has in mind, but there are always multiple routes to take.
We move Ringo around the grid with a selection of one use tiles, which changes his direction and can help him jump over gaps. We can choose the direction Ringo faces, but once he’s set off, we have no control. However, there is no penalty for failure, so we’re encouraged to trial and error different ideas and experiment with the level until we find our solution.
We are given hints, should you get stuck; These hunts manifest as the game putting down a tile for you on a square, essentially saying hey, this one definitely goes here, work out the rest. I won’t lie, there were a few levels I found myself doing this, but some levels were easier to solve without the hints. Sometimes the hints would throw me off and confuse me more!
Ringo’s Roundup boasts over a hundred levels, and even though I did not complete them all, they always remained approachable in difficulty, even as they progressed and got harder and harder. The art style is cutesy and relaxing – it’s truly a pleasant little world to lose yourself in. Plus it keeps you nice and calm when the puzzles start to confuse you.
For a puzzle game — and how famously I struggle with them — Ringo’s Roundup ended up leaving quite an impression on me. Its simplistic approach to its puzzle mechanics is refreshing, balancing that with its tile based mechanics, makes this one worth the play. If you’re a puzzle fan, and enjoy a calm atmosphere combined with a gorgeous art style, look no further than here.
Ringo’s Roundup is available now for PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Xbox and PC.