Reviewer: Sara E.
Developer/Publisher: Lightwood Games
Category: Puzzle, Strategy
Release Date: 01.03.2019
Buy Pic-a-Pix Pieces from the Nintendo eShop here.
No more monochromatic nonographs
In the grand tradition of mobile puzzle games, Pic-a-Pix Pieces is addictive and very difficult to put down. A seemingly simple concept of counting blocks and adding colors until a picture forms simply sucks hours and hours of my day before I realize any time has passed at all. Pic-a-Pix Pieces presents a series of logic-paint-by-number puzzles called nonographs, where the picture is presented as a blank grid with numbered blocks along the axes to give the solver clues on where to place marks in the grid to create an image. Pic-a-Pix Pieces takes the traditional monochromatic nonograph and adds two more layers of difficulty: multiple colors (sometimes as many as 7-10 colors in a single puzzle) and multiple puzzles per picture. The signature of the PPic-a-Pix Pieces entry into the genre is the fact that the final images are broken down into anywhere from 6 to 18+ smaller puzzles that only reveal a portion of the greater image.
Over 350 puzzles in total make up dozens of images to solve in Pic-a-Pix Pieces, ensuring a solid time suck until all puzzles are solved, and the developer promises future content to be made available as downloadable expansion material for the base game. All in all, Pic-a-Pix Pieces is a solid investment for the number of gameplay hours it provides.
Controls
Button controls are intuitive, with simple button pushes to input, delete, or mark a space blank, and simple shoulder button scrolls through the available colors make laying down the blocks fast and efficient – a feature that comes in handy if you are the type of gamer who likes to see how quickly you can solve a particular puzzle set. Personally, I did not much care to utilize the touchscreen controls, simply because in some puzzles the grid spaces are so small that I found scrolling with the D-pad or joystick to be much more efficient.
Gameplay
Along with the vast library of puzzles included in the base game, Pic-a-Pix Pieces adds a few features to ice the puzzle cake. The game times each puzzle solve, as well as counting accumulated time to solve entire pictures, and even rewards you with a badge if you get through a whole puzzle without using the “hint” feature (which tells you if the puzzle contains errors and even erases them for you with another button press). The title screen also includes a detailed explanation on how to play and solve nonographs, and any gamer completely new to the concept should only need to peruse this helpful manual before diving in to the puzzle solving fun.
Set your alarm before starting!
If you decide to go ahead and plunge into Pic-a-Pix Pieces, the game is available for download on the Nintendo Switch now. You can get a taste of the game by downloading the Holiday-themed demo (which I discuss in a previous review here), but make sure to set an alarm, because if you are playing you might not stop for several hours without some kind of reminder that time is still passing in the real world. Altogether a wonderful puzzle game that does exactly what a puzzle game should: allows you to just play and forget the world.
Final Score: 9/10
Buy Pic-a-Pix Pieces from the Nintendo eShop here.
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*Review Code Provided By Lightwood Games
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