Review: World Mosaics for iPhone

I’m a HUGE HUGE picross fan.  I know its been called other things, like nongram, picture suduko (which I find questionable).  Either way, I love it.  I found out that Fugazo has a mobile app, for picross, which they call World Mosaic.  Needless to say I had to try it out.

If you don’t know what picross is, here is a brief rundown.  Picross is a picture puzzle game, similar to Suduko.  There is a grid with a top row and a left row with numbers, the numbers indicate how much of the grid is colored in.  The puzzles get progressively harder, some have just one number per line of the grid, where others have multiple numbers per line.

Previously World Mosaics franchise was just a PC game, but now you can play World Mosaics on your iPhone. Your associate, Dr. Remington, unearthing relics of the mysterious and elusive Pelasgians, or “Sea People.” In order to unravel the mysteries of a civilization that disappeared over a thousand years ago, you must solve the puzzles they left behind to safeguard their history. You start in Greece, in the very shadow of the Majestic Parthenon, here the puzzles are super easy (10 x 10 grids).

The game boasts about 10 hours of gameplay, but if you’re a pro at picross style games it might be a bit less. I blew through the first section in less than a couple of minutes. I had some issues with the game, like most picross games, you are penalized for messing up the puzzle. I was fine with that, but when I didn’t actually do it, because my finger hit more than one box at a time, got me a bit pissed. I guess its because the iPhone’s screen is a bit small and got confused, either way it was a bit annoying to get penalized when it wasn’t my fault.

You can get the full version of World Mosaics on iTunes now for $1.99.