The 100 levels in campaign mode are split into 5 areas, each comprising 20 levels and unlocking a part of the story.
You follow along a professor who has created a mysterious piczle-matic 3000 – a camera that turns everything into pixels! The story is lighthearted and fun and doesn’t distract from the main objective – the gameplay.
The main theme song is catchy, sadly though its the only one in the game – it would have been nice to get a bit of variety. You can turn the music and sound effects on and off if you do get a bit sick of the same song.
The main game is colourful, the grids are laid out well and you can zoom in and out easily. The palette chosen works well and as you see the picture come together in the little preview at the top left it does give you a little smile. The levels are done very well and are pleasing on the eye.
The story board sections have a nice comic style to them and the characters are well drawn.
Piczle is a simple concept, you have a grid ranging from small to huge with a bunch of numbers in varying colours with a lot of blank space in between. Your goal is to complete the grid by connecting matching tiles of the same colour and number – once you complete the grid you’re done and you will reveal an image when you zoom out.
You can see this game was inspired by the likes of Sudoku or 2048, but it’s unique and well laid out giving it a middle balance between those tough mental puzzles and classic console puzzle games like Tetris.
The campaign mode is deep with 100 levels which get progressively tougher as the grid gets larger and the possible options less obvious. You need to complete each level to progress to the next.
There is also a puzzle mode which lets you take on any of the mind boggling 220 levels right away. These start out as very small and can be completed in about a minute up to huge beasts that will take you far longer.
The controls are well ported – the analog stick works perfectly and it’s easy to draw lines or delete them in this way, when in handheld mode you can use the touchscreen as per the original mobile version of the game – I found the joycon to be the better choice here.
There is no multiplayer functionality, leaderboard system or any way to interact with your friends which is a shame.
There is only really one mode whether its campaign or puzzle the objective and layout is the same.
At £13.99 this falls right into the middle bracket of indie games on the Nintendo Switch. The cost is not high when you consider the amount of puzzles and hours which can be spent playing the game – unlike the mobile version the developer has confirmed that future puzzle packs will be available at no additional cost.
The only detractor here is variety – there is a lot of content but its all the same type of puzzle and its all single player.
What's Your Reaction?
