Titanium Court Review
Introduction:
I had a realization the other day that I haven’t been really keeping up with very many 2026 games. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like to pressure myself into playing anything, but I do like to keep a healthy balance between old and new. Been obscure and mainstream. I know this comes off as a bit pretentious; but many of the big cultural successes within gaming have failed to capture my heart the same way they have for countless gamers. Games like Alan Wake 2 or Tears of the Kingdom don’t linger in my mind like they do for most. I was starting to fall down the path that many obnoxious content creators who shout that “games today suck” do. I needed something different. I needed something weird and unique.
I needed Titanium Court.
Presentation:
Perhaps the first thing that caught my eye from Titanium Court was its interesting choice of a limited color palette. The game is solely comprised of pinks, blues, and yellows. Looking at lead developer AP Thompson’s previous works; Titanium Court doesn’t seem to be the debut of this limited color palette. His 2018 game, Fortune 499, features the exact same look.
The character portraits fit this style quite well, and oftentimes an energetic moment will be presented by multiple images flying through the screen (like a dog catching a frisbee). You’ll repeatedly hear the patter of a drum during these moments as well.
The sound design is extremely solid. Every little click through your options sounds responsive and sharp. But really- it’s the music I want to praise. Titanium Court often features this slow, dreamy, almost molasses-covered guitar. I’m no music scholar, so it’s hard for me to nail down the exact terminology, but it feels like a middle ground between dream pop, shoegaze, and surf rock. I really love this OST, and feel the need to mention it was also done by the developer AP Thompson.
Gameplay:
Okay this is what we’re actually here to discuss regarding this game. Titanium Court is a middle finger to the very concept of genres. The core gameplay loop revolves around matching three tiles a la Bejeweled. This is during “High Tide.” There’s usually five types of tiles you can work with during High Tide:
Enemy Outpost
Wheat
Stone
Water
Wood
If you match three of any of last four tiles, you will gain one piece of that resource. Alternatively, you can match three enemy outposts in the hope that it will eliminate them from the map. But there’s no guarantee that more enemy outposts won’t fall from the top of the screen- thus making your situation even worse. There’s also money which can be gained by other means and can be spent at many different types of merchants. These merchants can outright sell you resources, new types of soldiers to dispatch, new character classes, items, and various other tools. Before the end of High Tide, the player must dispatch these soldiers and gatherers before confirming the end. After this, the player will enter “Low Tide”.
Low Tide is when you can kick back and see if your preparations were enough to get you through auto-combat against enemy units and dangerous terrain. If you’re skilled enough, you can create a map with no enemies and tons of resources for you to gather. The end of your run will culminate in a boss battle. And again- another middle finger is thrust in the face of video game convention. In my semi-short playthrough of Titanium Court, I won about seven wars. And I only fought a boss about two or three times (if memory serves correctly). With my first encounter of a boss, I was actually able to bribe him with a large amount of bread (which I gathered from wheat). The boss then left me alone for the remainder of the game (kind of).
During another boss encounter, the game actually asked me if I would prefer listening to a song rather than a boss fight. Being amused by the strange offer, I agreed. What followed was a full-length song and video recorded by developer AP Thompson. You can’t skip these songs. So sit back, sip your drink of choice, and relax as the developer sings a song about the mating habits of Pacific Salmon.
After a war, the player is brought back to the titular court. Here you can talk to a myriad of hilarious and weird NPCs. They all try their best to appease and help you, as you take the role of the Faerie Queen. This is where the “visual novel” aspects come in. I hesitate to really call it that, but I’ve seen many people use the term. There’s a lot of reading in the court, but you can skip it for the most part and just keep doing the core gameplay loop, but I wouldn’t recommend that. The game is best enjoyed tenderly and slowly. And even a slow playthrough of Titanium Court is only about 9-10 hours, which is quite short by modern gaming conventions.
Story:
Titanium Court is a game I recommend for the strong writing, but not necessarily the story. Now to be fair, I didn’t do everything in the game. In fact, I ended the game right after I hit the lowest metric for completion. I plan to go back to Titanium Court for a fuller and longer playthrough in the near future. The general premise is as follows:
You get whisked away and wake up in the titular Titanium Court. The people around you notify you that you are the Faerie Queen. But your knowledge and memories seem to ring true of our modern world- not the world of fairies. You know of things like automobiles and traffic signs, things that faeries can’t quite seem to grasp. There is a mysterious blue door with many key holes, but only four keys are required to open the door. Do you go back home as soon as possible? Or do you try to find the truth of everything going on?
Overall:
There’s been a lot of doom and gloom within the games space lately. The end of physical media, the common consumer becoming outpriced, the greed of shareholders affecting our favorite studios, etc. There’s a lot to be upset about.
However, one praise I don’t see sung enough about the modern games space is how beautifully weird games are getting. The medium is becoming more elastic and constantly morphing before our very eyes. I love that a strange game like Titanium Court found its audience. I love that Ap Thompson felt comfortable enough to make something like this instead of another by-the-books conventional game.
Overall, I can’t stop thinking about Titanium Court
(In an effort to move away from traditional numerical scores, I will use the following metric: Hated, Disliked, Felt Neutral, Liked, Loved, Can’t Stop Thinking About)
