D-topia Review: A Cozy, Sci-Fi Puzzle Journey Worth Embarking Upon

1 week ago 12

Published Jul 14, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT

Ethan Krieger is an Editor at DualShockers, where he covers reviews, guides, lists, features, previews, interviews, and gaming news. He began writing professionally in 2017 as a sports writer before moving into games coverage with DualShockers in 2024.

Before joining DualShockers, Ethan wrote for the FanSided Sports Network, including 8 Points, 9 Seconds, where he covered the Indiana Pacers, and Pelican Debrief, where he covered the New Orleans Pelicans. His background in sports writing, editing, and content strategy now informs his approach to gaming coverage, especially around reviews, rankings, guides, and event reporting. Ethan studied English at Arizona State University, with a focus on writing and text editing.

I'm someone that wants to like puzzle games, but can also admit to you that several of the big ones in the genre can end up being a bit too much for me. Once it's time to break out the real life graph paper, it's time for me to move onto something else. I don't need easy answers, but I do want to be able to find a solution that makes me feel smart, but that also gives me all the information on screen to figure something out.

In a way, this is the opposite of how I prefer my sci-fi, perhaps my favorite genre in games, film, TV, and literature. In these cases, I'm usually looking for something that's deep, layered, and leaves me with enough to think about after I walk away from it. If something allows me to engage in interesting conversation with another person after consuming it, odds are, I enjoyed it.

With all of that in mind, D-topia was a game I knew I wanted to check out after demoing it at LVLUP Expo earlier this year. Its puzzles seemed fun yet approachable, and underneath the cozy set-dressing of the game's world, it seemed like there was some intriguing science-fiction lurking below the surface. So how'd this one actually turn out?

A Deceptively Deep Sci-Fi World

D-topia takes place in a sci-fi civilization with the same name, which serves as an attempt by someone called "The Master" to create a utopia for humans. Guided by AI, the ultimate hope of D-topia is to result in a society that fosters as much happiness as possible for the majority of its residents. This has been tried before in other "topias," but D specifically is supposed to be just about there.

Of course, humans are still humans, and even though many here are on emotion regulators and also have the ability to "block" anything unpleasant in their lives from their vision (hello, Black Mirror), nothing is ever perfect. Still, D-topia is close. Every human here has a role and contributes to society. In return, they receive a highly-curated lifestyle full of synthetic meals, pristine living quarters, and even customized weather patterns.

As co-habitants, D-topia is also densely populated with "troids," the name the AI-trained robots go by in this society (because "robot" has since become a derogatory term). In our real-life world currently navigating what our version of an AI/human future might look like, D-topia shows that there's perhaps a friendly partnership to be found someday. Maybe. If we're lucky.

Shiro (or, No. 46 as the troids call him, since all humans are given an identification number once they arrive in D-topia) is our main character, and he's been brought to town to play the role of Facilitator. This job adds a human touch to D-topia, as Shiro is essentially a civil servant, tasked with checking in with the residents of D-topia and making sure everyone is as happy as possible at all times.

It's a thoroughly engaging story setup, and the stark white, clean-as-a-whistle aesthetic of it all reminded me often times of The Island, which I've always considered a wildly underrated Michael Bay flick before he went the way of the Transformer. Additionally, though, D-topia packs in so many cool sci-fi ideas into one, sub-10 hour gaming experience, which was extremely impressive to me.

I won't delve into too much, because some of these sci-fi reveals are pretty surprising along the way. Just know for genre fans, D-topia gives you a ton of cool spins on tropes, all while making sure they always only add to the lore and world-building of the game's setting instead of bogging it down at all.

The backbone of the entire game is that, as Facilitator, Shiro can access the "blocked" alternate side of D-topia, which reveals what the society looks like with every simulated layer of sheen stripped away. Interact with a terminal, and we get to see the true presentation of D-topia, which is cold, lifeless, and even lacks any of the (lovely) background music we get when we're on the other side.

Fun, Engaging, Snappy Puzzles

In addition to checking on the residents of D-topia as Facilitator, Shiro also has to go to work every day at the factory. To simulate this for us as the player, our daily work (and overtime work if you want some more money) is presented in puzzles, of which there are several different types.

These range from line puzzles similar to The Witness (though much more easily digestible), ones that feel like a new spin on Minesweeper, block-shifting grids with Death Squared vibes, and a couple others. As you'd imagine, these all begin easy to manage, but get more complex as you go. The challenge ramps up appropriately though, and consisting makes you feel smart for solving a problem.

After your hard day's work, you'll earn money, which you can use to buy home furnishings at D-topia's shop, or to buy snacks between meals, since the game also has a (very lenient) hunger meter to think about as well.

Really though, your work is just beginning after you clock out for the day at the factory. Traveling back and forth between the D-topia facade and the Block Side, Shiro will fix malfunctioning monitors, decorations, troids, etc. in order to keep resident happiness up. The game then becomes a constant loop of entering a room, entering the Block Side, seeing what you can fix up (via another puzzle), and then moving on before you retire for the night.

Along the way, social interactions will also lead to "Brain Meetings" on occasion, in which you help Shiro navigate an on-screen flowchart to make the best choice of action in sticky situations for D-topia and its inhabitants. Often, these are actually pretty serious, like deciding if someone should be exiled from D-topia entirely for causing some sort of disturbance.

D-topia gives you a ton of cool spins on tropes, all while making sure they always only add to the lore and world-building of the game's setting instead of bogging it down at all.

All of this came together to create an experience which had me frequently wondering, "Am I making the right decision here?" It also becomes a sort of commentary about humanity in general, and how even in a world full of automation and disconnection, we still have the power and ability to retain whatever humanity we're allowed to cling onto, and make our own choices as a result. The game is rife with ethical quandaries. How will you handle them?

Moments like this are genuinely very cool, and I was constantly impressed by the creative ideas developers Marumittu Games came up with in D-topia to implement interesting mechanics and ways to "game-ify" everything Shiro needs to take care of around town. The cycle of "wake up, go to work, talk to NPCs" could've easily become mundane, but D-topia does a wonderful job of making every single day stand out in its own way by bedtime.

Another core pillar of D-topia is the actual interaction with the residents, which feels inspired by Persona social links. There are ten characters in total that Shiro will be able to engage with at this deeper level, and each interaction features dialogue choices to make in order to deepen their bond more quickly.

The character designs and personalities of every NPC are all fun in their own endearing ways, and I really enjoyed getting to know everyone in D-topia. It never felt like a chore to seek them out and raise my connection points with them, and instead became something I looked forward to after each work shift.

As you'd hope, many of these NPC interactions eventually reveal some storylines that really are fascinating, many of which give you more and more tidbits of information about the setting and time period that all tie together to continually flesh out this sci-fi world that truly feels much more well planned than I expected going into the game.

I was constantly impressed by the creative ideas developers Marumittu Games came up with in D-topia to implement interesting mechanics and ways to "game-ify" everything Shiro needs to take care of around town.

There's no dating or anything of the sort in D-topia, as that is probably technically some sort of workplace romance HR nightmare since you're basically always on the job. Still, that doesn't preclude D-topia and its human (and machine) relationships going to some places that you probably wouldn't expect initially.

Most of these NPC storylines are great, but there are a couple here and there that either didn't grab me as much as the others, or simply didn't have the payoff I was expecting for seeing it through to the end. This is definitely not the majority of the social interactions in the game, however, as most are definitely worth your time investment.

Some Ghosts in the Machine

As you'll eventually uncover in the world of D-topia, nothing is ever truly perfect, despite our best efforts. This same philosophy can be applied to the game in a couple of different ways, though to be sure, there aren't enough negatives here that should scare off any interested party.

The cycle of "wake up, go to work, talk to NPCs" could've easily become mundane, but D-topia does a wonderful job of making every single day stand out in its own way by bedtime.

My main pain point was that one puzzle type is crafted in such a way that it can actually have multiple solutions. In two or three instances, however, I'd come up with a legal, correct solution to a puzzle, but the game still wouldn't recognize it as complete, because it wasn't the specific solution the devs programmed into the game as the answer. I had to skip a couple of these puzzles, which felt bad since I'd technically solved them, just not in the way the game wanted me to.

The other thing is that D-topia does feature several instances of you needing to make big, dramatic, game-altering choices, but not every time. I had a couple of story beats where I reloaded and tested out different choices to see how the outcomes differed, and they simply didn't. Typically, they do, and the game even has multiple endings to uncover based on your decisions, which makes these couple "illusion of choice"-type instances stand out as mildly off-putting.

On the Quality of Life front, D-topia has a bit too much backtracking at times, as you're only permitted to investigate the Block Side after interacting with a terminal on one end of a room. This resulted in several cases of "Enter the Block Side, run to the other end of the room, run all the way back, exit Block Side to proceed with the game."

Ultimately, however, I was able to work around all of this, aside from the couple of puzzles I quit out of just because I was getting annoyed my solutions weren't validated, because I didn't want this lovely, cozy, interesting video game to be soured at all.

At the end of the day, I truly had a great experience spending an (in-game) week in D-topia, and I feel confident that it's going to find an audience of fans to talk about the experience with. No, it's not a perfect, utopic video game, but it is one you're going to have a good time experiencing as you ponder what our human/AI society might lead to someday.

D-topia is a game well-worth playing for fans of approachable puzzlers, and gets surprisingly deep with the vast amount of sci-fi ideas it layers into the story and world-building. It's never exceptionally challenging, but still remains engaging throughout regardless. A couple of puzzle solution quirks and the occasional illusion of choice can be a bummer, but it doesn't diminish that, at its core, this game is a lovely time. Take a weekend and unwind with this one.