Game Reviews -- 2024
08/05/2024 -- Pixross
Price: $3.99
In Bundle: Palestinian Aid
When you want Picross, and you want lots of it with little fuss or distractions, Pixross has it for you.
Pixross is a minimalistic collection of both precreated and randomly generated Picross puzzles. Picross, also known as Nonograms, are logic puzzles where you use logic to determine which cells in a grid are colored in.
The puzzles vary in size and difficulty level--most can be solved in a few minutes or less, though your mileage may vary. The game comes with over 170 premade puzzles, of a number of different categories, which add up to an intelligible picture. You can also randomly generate puzzles in a predetermined or random size. Solving puzzles gives you points which you can use to unlock new backgrounds and styles for the puzzles themselves. Finally, you can optionally add challenge rules for yourself, such as not being able to make mistakes or having clues disappear over time.
As I said before, the presentation and gameplay are pretty minimalistic. Just a couple ambient tracks, and most backgrounds are gradients or simple stock images. Pixross lacks a story or a lot of extra unlockables like some mobile Nonogram games I've played, but honestly, I didn't find I missed them.
The sole pain point I had with this game has to do with the unlockables themselves. You see, they function as a gatcha system, with you unlocking a random background or style with each spend of points. You're not guaranteed a new theme every time, but the game will still flash a "New!" notification every time you spin. You have to pay attention to the percentage unlocked in the upper left of the screen to know if you've actually got anything new, and back in and out of the puzzles screen to get rid of the notification.
Minor quibbles aside, Picross is a great package if you want to solve some logic puzzles. The minimalistic theme means fewer distractions, and the premade puzzles alone will keep you occupied for quite a while. For $3.99, I'd say it's definitely worth it.