izigame.me

Life, as every other great teacher with sense of humor, mocks you along the way. It's not Life's fault - it's your own.
Being young, inexperienced and lacking knowledge about fundamentals of jigsaw puzzles, I thought putting together small pieces is as interesting as watching paint dry on the wall or slowly and painfully dying with morphine just out of reach. One day, who knows what rendition of digital jigsaw puzzles reintroduced me to concept and voila! here I am, playing and enjoying jigsaw games.
Latest installment in Decaying Logic's Pixel Puzzle series is Pixel Puzzles Ultimate, free-to-play title that doesn't radically differ from other PP titles, although it manages to fix certain problems I've encountered while playing Pixel Puzzles UndeadZ, game that I didn't like at all.
For starters, Pixel Puzzles Ultimate is not limited to certain theme. It allows players to put together different motifs ranging from animals (cats, dogs, reptiles...) to country motifs (Montana, Thailand, Japan, Korea...). Being free to play game, Pixel Puzzle Ultimate employs paid DLC content the expected way: you pay to unlock more themes. Puzzles are organized in theme packs and content varies from pack to pack - from one up to fifteen puzzles per pack. Unlike Microsoft Jigsaw, one of the most polished jigsaw puzzle experiences on PC unfortunately available only to Windows 8 and Windows 10 users, Pixel Puzzles Ultimate will not allow you to earn free puzzles simply by playing. This restricts puzzles behind paywalls and basic users are given three free sets and one complimentary DLC download. This means you will get 13 puzzles ranging from 112 to 1000 pieces which should suffice for several hours. Without paying a cent, you will be able to judge do you want to invest more money in the game.
First time you enter the game, you will be able to accommodate to game controls via short interactive tutorial that also allows you to setup your gaming experience. This includes limiting or turning off annoying floating pieces and customizing rotation and snap to grid options. Snap to grid allows your puzzles to be automatically placed down on board when in correct place and rotated correctly. It is VERY useful if you're running out of patience fast.
You are putting together your puzzles in different themes. Now, themes are pretty interesting concept and can be further customized, depending on a theme. Each consists of different graphic background, sounds and music. Music is definitely a great addition to Pixel Puzzle Ultimate. Each theme consists of several tracks and it's pity you can't mix themes and music - tracks are locked to themes and if you like tracks of one theme and graphic design of another, you will need to decide will you go easy on your eyes or ears.
It's pretty easy to master the PPU's control scheme. You can use mouse/mouse-keyboard combo or controller to move, rotate and place pieces. Pieces can be further categorized with the usage of drawers. Unfortunately, game doesn't allow selecting multiple pieces and moving them at the same time, which makes sorting a grueling task of drag and dropping. It's not that hard when you're working on 112 pieces puzzle, but imagine 1000 pieces. Yes. Drag and drop, all the way.
However, there are few crippling problems that PPU suffers from and these make time spent playing Pixel Puzzle Ultimate less enjoyable.
First of all, Decaying Logic stubbornly insists of strange patterns of puzzle pieces. What's known as traditional puzzle piece design is basically non-existent here and majority of puzzles are made of weird cutouts. This is not the first time Decaying Logic is promoting this contemporary approach to puzzling, it is well known from their other games. I get it, you want to modernize the game, but new isn't always the best, you know? While at one point players can get used to different patterns and use contemporary shapes to easily find missing pieces, players wanting more traditional approach may suffer from lack of enjoyment putting these puzzles together. Also, apparently due to limitations of their engine, puzzles are locked to pieces number. You like Horses DLC's puzzle? Well, get ready to lose your eyesight with 1000 pieces puzzle. No way you can learn about joys of puzzling or maybe introduce your kids to it by working on 50 pieces horses picture. I know, I know, real life puzzles couldn't change number of pieces, but it's 2016 and we're talking digital, and digital should allow us to abolish certain limitations.
Most people know that putting huge puzzles together requires you to (usually) connect bordering pieces, then categorize pieces according to their colors and then build different sections that you later put together. I simply can't understand why PPU doesn't allow players to snap different pieces together outside of main game area. Yes, this means you will not be able to connect pieces that go together and save them for later. This makes sessions so much more exhausting.
Zooming in should help us deal with puzzles more easily. Unfortunately, due to Decaying Logic's implementation of low quality pictures, zooming in only brings another set of problems. If you're working on puzzles with more than 300 pieces, you will need to zoom in to check some details. However, upon zooming in, picture becomes truly blurry. Eyesore causes eyeache and this is the primary reason why I don't recommend anyone with any kind of eye problems and/or headaches caused by straining your eyesight working on anything bigger than 300 pieces and only in session of one hour or so. Puzzle preview can't be zoomed in separately, so using the integrated zoom in question accomplishes nothing.
Low quality pictures aren't the only problem concerning graphics. Beside unintuitive UI that makes puzzle area feel cramped, most packs are bringing boring motifs that don't really get you excited about spending your time hunting for miniature pieces. If you can, try Microsoft Jigsaw and see their packs. Or try mobile jigsaw aps by Kristanix Games and Bandagames and witness the excitement of putting together beautiful photographies. See their cats packs and then come here and see what PPU is offering. PPU' packs seem lazy, lacking quality control and I firmly believe they would make their BEST PACK ever by only asking amateur photographers to submit their photos. Yes, that's how average their packs are.
Here's the first time that I'm aching from the fact we don't have Not Sure recommendation button on Steam. Truth be told, I'm more on red than blue thumb button (no, this is not Trump reference). It seems we only get P2W and badly ported mobile games here on Steam lately and I pray to all the cosmos forces to see Microsoft Jigsaw or similar good mobile game here on Steam. Putting the pieces together should be fun, mind engaging and relaxing experience; however, due to bunch of problems (majority of packs locked behind paywall, low quality photographs, lack of advanced control options and any kind of customization), Pixel Puzzle Ultimate leaves a lot to be desired.
However, due to the fact it's free and it will provide you with few hours of fun with its 13 free (and who knows how many more at some point) puzzles, unless you can't stand weird patterns, I am rating it positively. But if Decaying Logic continues being stuborn and doesn't allow players more freedom, both in controlling options, gameplay experience and free content, the first sign of another puzzle game with different motifs and traditional approach and I'm outta here.
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