Posted on: December 30, 2023
clarry
Verified ownerGames: Reviews: 2
Barebones jigsaw puzzle game with AI art
Mechanically, this game is very simple: drag a piece and release it at the right spot for it to snap and stick to place (this allows you to brute-force solutions by quickly dragging and releasing a piece around the general area where you think it belongs). You can't zoom in or out or pan around; you can't connect matching pieces before you drag them to their final resting position. Hit detection is not pixel-perfect; when pieces overlap, you can't reliably pick the one you want. You can hilight piece edges (to make them stand out better), but this also hilights the pieces that have already been placed -- it can be hard to tell that there is a loose piece on the image. There's a timer which I guess serves as your score. But that really is all there is to it. No story, no dialogue, no achievements or challenges, no animations.. the soundtrack is short, unremarkable, and quickly gets repetitive. There's a lot one could do to add depth to a game like this, but nothing of that sort has been done here -- this is pretty much the bare minimum effort one could spend making a jigsaw puzzle game in Unity. That said, a mechanically simple jigsaw puzzle with no bells and whistles can be enjoyable enough if you like the art and bring your own music. The problem here is that the art appears to be AI generated (most obviously evidenced by characters with four or six fingers and/or otherwise bizarre finger shapes and poses). This really puts the minimum in "minimum effort," unfortunately. If the art were drawn by a skilled artist who gets compensated for their talent and hard work when you buy the game, I'd easily hand out three stars (if not more). As it is, I see AI generated art as borderline copyright infringement and it is very difficult to endorse buying such a game. While the art looks better than in older NAISU jigsaw puzzles here on GOG, in other departments this title is a step back. I guess even the Linux build would've been too much effort for this dev...
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