Developer: Decaying Logic
Publisher: KISS ltd
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Pixel Puzzles Ultimate – Review
Making puzzles was probably a well-loved pastime for many of us in our childhood, but even something as simple as a puzzle has long found its way to our PCs. Pixel Puzzles are back again with Pixel Puzzles Ultimate, a free puzzle game where you’ll have hours of gameplay to come, without the inconvenience of it taking too much space, as a regular puzzle often tends to do. This game definitely has a lot of puzzle fun in store for us.
Story
There isn’t any storyline at all to be found in this game. All you’ll have to do is pick a puzzle and get started. Honestly, a game such as this doesn’t need a storyline, as you basically just get what you probably expected: a whole load of puzzles. Since there are so many puzzles and themes to choose from, and the only thing for you to do is just piece them together, a storyline would be completely otiose, and thus we didn’t miss one at all.
Graphics
All puzzles are fairly high quality photos or illustrations. Each photo is assigned to a subject, and for each subject there are different shapes to the different pieces. Some shapes are quite ordinary and easy to piece together, while other shapes definitely increase the difficulty level as there is much more detail to them. All of this makes for a fun visual experience.
The backdrops, on the other hand, look much more monotonous and plain. The surface on which you’ll have to place your pieces looks a bit like a paper towel, and while you can change its color and the density of the pattern, it still looks pretty cheap. The pond (yes, literally a pond) from which you’ll have to collect your pieces looks fun enough, with lotus flowers floating around and koi fish swimming in the water. Nonetheless, this too becomes quite monotonous as there is no variation at all between the different puzzles. The only option you have is to have a pond either with or without the flowers and koi fish, but nothing more than that.
Sound
The game is accompanied by a Japanese sounding theme, which is very relaxing and suits the overall theme of the lotus flower ponds just fine. Yet again, however, this becomes rather tedious after a while, but as long as you don’t play too long at a time, you’ll be just fine. In the menu, a more upbeat theme is implemented, but it is mostly the Japanese theme you’ll be hearing as it accompanies every puzzle. Other than that, there are only a few sounds when you place a piece or take a hint, but that’s about it.
Gameplay
Pixel Puzzles Ultimate is, as the title already gives away, a puzzle game in which you will have to make classic jigsaw puzzles on your computer. All pieces float around in the pond, and all that’s left for you to do is put them in the correct spot, rotating the pieces when necessary. The controls are very basic and only require your computer mouse. The game is more about the joy of puzzling, rather than actually completing the puzzles, as you will gain nothing from finishing a puzzle other than your own feeling of fulfillment.
To make your puzzle experience a little more structured, there are several trays next to or below the puzzle platform in which you can sort your pieces. They prove to be quite handy, especially when you want to save your progress, since loose pieces on the board will not be saved, while the pieces in trays will remain in their spot.
Finishing your puzzle can take quite some time, depending on the amount of pieces, as well as the shape of those pieces. There are however, some features that can help you get to your goal. Next to the trays, you can also use several hints. These involve angle correction, a view of the location of your piece, or a ghost image that will appear on your surface for a few seconds. These hints are not freely available though, and thus you’ll have to earn hint tokens, which you can later trade for said hints. These hints are useful, yet won’t save you very much time, as their impact is quite limited. Another useful feature is the highlight feature, with which all loose pieces on the surface will be highlighted, so you don’t forget about them. All of these hints and features have a tab on the side, which makes the game look as if it has very many options. Nonetheless, just one tab with controls and one tab with options would have done the trick, as the current tabs are rather pointless.
If you want to add an extra difficulty, you can choose to hide the little reference photo which you can find with each puzzle. You can also arrange a different floating speed of the pieces in the pond, their rotation times, or how close you have to be for the pieces to actually ‘stick’ to the surface. Also choosing a puzzle with more pieces will obviously increase the difficulty level quite a lot.
Pixel Puzzles Ultimate is a free game on steam. While there are quite a few puzzles you can actually make for free, for most of the puzzles you’ll have to pay, thus you’ll have to see for yourself which ones are most worth it. Nonetheless, we found the free ones quite sufficient for our needs.
A fun little extra, which you can also choose to either have or not have, is that you can take the koi fish out of the water, as well as the puzzle pieces. When you place the fish on the surface, they will crawl back to the water, leaving a wet trail behind.
Conclusion
Pixel Puzzles Ultimate is a fun enough game if you’re into basic puzzle games. The puzzles themselves prove to be quite beautiful pictures and quite a challenge as well, thus it’s only the surroundings that really are the downside to this game. The music and backgrounds sound and look rather cheap and basic, and also the hints are quite limited. Nonetheless, if you fancy a nice puzzle night without having to clean up afterwards, you’ll definitely find a puzzle to your taste in this game.
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