G.I.R.L.S. will be Girls

G.I.R.L.S. will be Girls drops five android women into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, fighting to survive on a grid one tile at a time. It's a free, solo-developed labor of love, built by developer Amozm0905 explicitly as a tribute to K-pop group ITZY and their songs "Girls Will Be Girls" and "Imaginary Friend," released 18 March 2026. It is not an official ITZY or label production, and this review treats it as the independent, unpaid fan work it presents itself as. This review draws on all 68 reviews the game has accumulated, alongside its achievement data and developer patch history.

An extraordinary amount of hand-drawn art for one developer

This sample's single most consistent, cross-language point of praise is the sheer density and quality of its illustration work. One detailed Simplified Chinese-language reviewer specifically notes that nearly every line of dialogue is paired with its own custom illustration rather than reused stock portraits, calling the production values unbelievable for a solo fan project. A separate English-language reviewer, admitting they found the game through curiosity rather than fandom, writes they "would honestly play this just for the visuals alone." Several reviewers explicitly credit the character designs for translating ITZY's real members into distinct android personalities while keeping each face and outfit clearly readable at a glance, down to small interactive touches like a bird that reacts to clicks on the main menu.

A story that pulls in outsiders, not just fans

This sample repeatedly credits the writing and worldbuilding as more substantial than a typical fan project, and notably, that praise doesn't come only from ITZY fans. Multiple reviewers explicitly describe themselves as outsiders to the group's fandom and say the post-apocalyptic android premise, and the game's use of each ITZY album as a named in-game system, pulled them in on the story's own terms. One English-language reviewer who says they aren't usually a tower-defense player calls the whole experience "compoundingly compelling," while a detailed Chinese-language reviewer describes piecing together a fragmented flashback structure across multiple short character-focused levels, calling the resulting picture worth the effort once it clicked into place.

Real tactical bite underneath the fan service

Set against its presentation, this sample repeatedly confirms the tactics underneath are not an afterthought. One English-language reviewer, going in expecting "a casual game with cute androids," instead found "a seriously punishing tactical grid battler" where "one bad placement in the arena and your run is dead." A separate Chinese-language reviewer describes a genuine, rewarding loop of planning out tile placements, second-guessing the plan, and reworking it to find a cleaner solution, and specifically praises later side levels for pushing further into mechanical variety than the main story levels attempt. A Russian-language reviewer independently confirms this, describing careful positioning and reactive use of freeze and knockback effects, plus randomized upgrades between fights that force fresh adaptation each run.

Onboarding that satisfies almost nobody equally

This sample's clearest, most repeated criticism targets how the game introduces its own systems, and notably the complaints pull in opposite directions. Several Chinese-language reviewers ask for clearer beginner guidance, describing an early sense of confusion about basic mechanics, and this review's sample includes one negative English-language review reporting being killed by an unexplained turret mechanic with no functional onboarding at all, quitting in frustration shortly after. A separate English-language reviewer reports the opposite problem, writing that "the game spends a lost of time on tutorial," still receiving tutorial prompts 18 missions and two hours into a playthrough, and asking for more trust placed in the player. This review checked the developer's partner-events feed directly and found the very first post-launch patch, issued 30 March 2026, explicitly added a dedicated practice-level tutorial in direct response to onboarding feedback, a fast turnaround that the ongoing split in this sample suggests still hasn't fully landed for either audience.

A story this review confirms is still being built out

This sample repeatedly describes the narrative as feeling unfinished rather than concluded, with one detailed Chinese-language reviewer writing plainly that the game "seems unfinished" and its ending arrives "a bit abruptly," while still praising what's there enough to say they're looking forward to a genuine follow-up. This review checked the game's global achievement data directly and found all four tracked achievements, each tied to collecting a piece of story content, sitting between just 4.0 and 9.4 percent completion, a strikingly low spread consistent with a story still being assembled chapter by chapter rather than delivered whole at launch. That reading is directly confirmed by the developer's own patch history: this review checked the partner-events feed and found three separate content patches between April and June 2026, each explicitly adding new levels and "new past stories for players to uncover," on top of the March launch content.

Small frictions in an otherwise thoughtful design

Beyond onboarding, this sample surfaces a handful of smaller, specific complaints. One detailed Chinese-language reviewer describes losing an entire carefully planned tile setup to a single misplaced piece, because the level's reset function only undoes the single most recent action rather than resetting the board fully. A separate reviewer notes that returning to a previously skipped level through the level-select screen only lets you jump to a broad chapter grouping rather than the specific level itself, forcing extra navigation to get back to a level worth replaying. Neither complaint is severe on its own, but both point to a solo developer still refining basic quality-of-life systems around an otherwise well-considered core.

Accessibility is uneven but not neglected

This review checked the store's accessibility feature-flag block directly and found six of nineteen tracked flags true, the strongest showing of any game covered by this lane so far this cycle: subtitles, background volume controls, a mouse-only control option, save-anytime, no forced quicktime events, and play at your own pace. Set against that, there are no difficulty levels, no colorblind or contrast controls, and no option to play the game without relying on vision at all, gaps that will matter more to some players than others given the genre's heavy reliance on reading grid state at a glance.

Verdict

G.I.R.L.S. will be Girls is a genuinely impressive amount of art, writing, music and tactical design for one unpaid developer to produce, and its Very Positive reception holds up under scrutiny even setting the fandom goodwill aside. Its rough, contradictory onboarding and an admittedly unfinished story are real weaknesses this review's own sample confirms repeatedly, but a developer who's already shipped four content patches in three months suggests both are actively being worked on rather than abandoned. For a free download, it's an easy recommendation to anyone curious about illustrated tactics games, ITZY fan or not.