Developer: Stompy Blondie Games
Publisher: Stompy Blondie Games
Platform: itch.io

If you’re a puzzle game fan then chances are you’ve come across a nonogram game or two. The most prevalent series utilizing said logic puzzles is Picross. Basically, you utilize listings of numbers to discern where to color in blocks. With all the blocks completed you have a nice “pixel” image. PixelPics is, as you might guess, a neat nonogram game.

Now, it’s been a while since I dug up Picross DS, but PixelPics seems like  a marvelous package for the price ($11-ish). The game comes with 200 puzzles divided into chunks for various difficulty settings. At first it seemed I was powering through stages as I advanced through beginner, easy, moderate, and tricky… then I realized a ton of difficulties still laid ahead! In any case, puzzles definitely ramp up in difficulty and the grid grows larger.

You’re only allowed a set amount of mistakes before “losing.” Unfortunately, there’s no hint engine built-in for getting out of a bind. Once you’ve over-exerted your brain power you can check out the in-game puzzle designer. Select a difficulty and size, draw in pixels, avoid invalid positioning, and you’re good to go! PixelPics can then send these to an online puzzle bank. Theoretically, you can download tons of user made puzzles as well but unfortunately I was unable to get this to work. Having reached out to the developer, I’m hoping to see this aspect fixed up soon!

PixelPics is an enjoyable way to burn some free time and get some mental gymnastics in at the same time. The massive amount of included puzzles means you can play for at least 10 hours! If downloading user-made puzzles worked right off the bat this would definitely become my go-to puzzle game. In any case, PixelPics is a lovely rendition of a classic logic game on PC.

3 1/2 out of 5 alpacas

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