1. Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard (PC)(Adventure)2. Revulsion (PC)(FPS)3. Nonogram - Master's Legacy (PC)(Puzzle)4. Sekiro (PC)(Action-Adventure)5. Grim Dawn (PC)(Action RPG)
6. Grim Dawn: Ashes of Malmouth (PC)(Action RPG)
7. Grim Dawn: Forgotten Gods (PC)(Action RPG)8. Viscera Cleanup Detail: Santa's Rampage (PC)(FPS)9. Viscera Cleanup Detail: Shadow Warrior (PC)(FPS)10. Shrine (PC)(FPS)11. Record of Lodoss War - Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (PC)(Adventure)12. Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone (PC)(Action)13. Red Alliance (PC)(FPS)14. The Forest (PC)(Horror)15. Pixel Puzzles: Japan (PC)(Puzzle)I have explained before that sometimes I enjoy simple, meditative games that I can zone out on and enjoy. Pixel Puzzles: Japan is such a game; you put together jigsaw puzzles of increasing complexity as your in-game avatar works his way towards harder puzzles and enlightenment in what I am guessing is some kind of representation of Zen Buddhism. Hey, it was $5, and I found a game my wife might also like, so I feel like a winner here.
In Pixel Puzzles: Japan, you are putting together jigsaw puzzles of images set around beautiful historical sights, natural imagery, or cultural iconography, so your typical castles, bridges, traditional crafts, sculpture, and so on. The puzzles start with relatively few pieces and max out around 330, which may not seem like much until you see how they handle piece distribution.
You see, the pieces aren't just laid out, they're floating in a koi pond and constantly in motion; you may try to snag one only to often grab the wrong piece. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as you can drop a piece on other pieces, and they'll warp to a different section of the pond, thus potentially clearing the way. But you might also hit the piece you're going for, thus sending it off to an area full of puzzle pieces you just moved. You can also set down puzzle pieces on the puzzle to rest, but with a few hundred, that gets both tedious and blocks your view. Sometimes you will get lucky and accidentally set a piece in the right place, thus locking it down, but don't rely on that too much if you're spreading pieces on the board because you may lose track of what's not supposed to be there.
Occasionally, you may also grab the koi out of the pond. This is a bit of levity for entertainment purposes, and you can toss the koi back, drop it on the puzzle and watch it flop back to the pond, or shove it in the bamboo water pipe that slowly fills up and drains over time. You can't actually harm the koi, but at moments of frustration over grabbing the wrong piece a few dozen times, it can be a nice break.
You also only see the picture when selecting the puzzle, and then in only a small frame, so much of the time you are operating relatively blind. As you put together the puzzle, you fill a meter that can then be used to reveal the full picture and where your pieces are in relation to the finished image, but this lasts for only a few seconds before vanishing again. Depending on the puzzle, I didn't always need this image, but for the more complex puzzles, I would prep by pulling a few pieces I thought were related and try to get them in place in the few seconds I had. It did help, especially with the final puzzle, though that was not the most difficult puzzle by far.
The most difficult puzzle is a picture of cherry blossoms over water. Do you know how tough it can be to discern different images of cherry blossoms over blue? It's a pain in the ass. This was the sole instance where the game went from soothing to frustrating on a grand scale; most other instances, the frustration was temporary from grabbing the wrong piece over and over again from the pool.
To help mitigate some of this issues, you don't have to worry about things like piece orientation, as they are always right side up. Also, they vary the connecting points, so while you may start with more traditional puzzle piece shapes, you soon see arrows, straight lines, swooping curves, and some kind of Lovecraftian tentacle shape that makes me think the stars are right for puzzle games. Hey, it's a computer game, it doesn't have to be realistic.
I liked Pixel Puzzles: Japan. I think beyond some frustrations, my wife would like it too, as she enjoys a nice jigsaw puzzle. If you're down for playing a video game based around jigsaw puzzles, you might also enjoy it.