Favorite Genre(s):Brain Teaser, Puzzle, Strategy, Time Management, Word
Fun Factor
5/ 5
Visual/Sound Quality
5/ 5
Level of Challenge
4/ 5
This is very relaxing, as is the music, and also very addicting. A recharging auto-fill feature allows areas of one color to be filled in. The game might have been a bit tedious without it and it sure saved my mouse finger. On the more difficult pictures it would have been impossible for me to see the tiny boxes with numbers, but you can zoom in and out easily.
There are some pictures with only 3 or 4 colors that were very easy and some very detailed using up to 18 shades of similar colors. (I never knew there were so many shades of gray on an elephant.) Most fall somewhere in between and are very colorful. The game does not progressively get more challenging, as levels of difficulty are mixed throughout so you're not doing all the really tough ones at the end. I would have preferred more of the challenging and less of the easy, but they did give the eyes a rest.
I loved the paint-by-numbers as a kid, and I love this one, especially since there's no smelly oil paints.
This series is only for the well-seasoned nanogram player. The grids increase to 30 x 30 with only one color. If you're used to playing the Fantasy-like series, the difference will become evident very early on in the game. Two complaints: 1- the music is very repetitive and annoying. 2- the grid is too small, making it not only difficult to count the squares, but also tiring on the eyes, as well as easy to make mistakes, so I didn't redo any to get an error free score. There is much counting and recounting of these tiny boxes, requiring uninterrupted concentration. I gave up even trying to beat the time limit. Kudos to the developers for creating such complex nanograms that are totally analytical. I won't play a game that requires guessing. While some games drag because of the dialogue, these characters are whimsical and I would have liked more. Superb game for this genre. This is more like a marathon than a stroll in the park.
Finally, a griddler that makes you think. Although I like the others, Fantasy, Rainbow... they became so easy with the different colors, it got boring toward the end. This is one color and goes from 15 grid to 30 grid, which is really hard to see because the squares are so small. That's my only complaint...the grid is too small. Otherwise, I can't wait to try the rest of this series.
The actual grid was small, but doable. However, the numbers around the grid, were not only small, but in very fine lined, white, italics that blended in with the background. I tried to play a few grids, but not being able to make out the numbers in the daylight, I tried at night, with very little improvement. A bigger grid and bold numbers was all it needed.
Could only do 4 of the puzzles, then one required finger dexterity to guide a ball through a maze. Not possible for my old hands. The game required x number of coins to proceed, so I was stuck...end of game for me. Pity, I love brain teasers.
Favorite Genre(s):Brain Teaser, Hidden Object, Puzzle, Strategy, Time Management
Fun Factor
1/ 5
Visual/Sound Quality
1/ 5
Level of Challenge
2/ 5
Storyline
5/ 5
Before this, I would have said I love ALL nanograms, but this was the exception. Some colors are much too close to determine accurately. Though not to my liking, the use of Roman numerals was a change and okay, but the mazes were confusing and I struggled to get through them. Even playing on Casual, the blanks did not always get marked off. It became tedious and just wasn't fun, so I deleted the game mid-2nd maze. Interesting facts about each location is the only thing warranting the 2 star rating.
That said, try it through a Roman numeral and maze puzzle. It just may be to your liking.
The pictures were beautiful when they were finally finished and that's about all I can say that's good. This lost the fun value and soon became very tedious. The pieces were just black shapes until you picked them up and then they rotated. So you never knew what the color was or the position it would be in until you tried to place it. I had to pick each piece up multiple times before I could find where it fit. I deleted this after struggling through four or five puzzles.
I have the rest of the series and the story line always kept me playing to find out more. This one got old quickly. It's May and I'm just now getting back to what I didn't finish in December, and pushing to just get to the end. All the adults overindulge Paige as she is whiny and demanding. I really miss Francois's delightful interaction which brought humor to the story. There is nothing new to the game play, and lacking a fun story, I can't give this more than a 3 star rating. I'll still recommend it only because the developers usually continue the story and you need to know the previous ones to know what's going on. I only hope the developers will build on it with better stories.
These types of games should be based on logic. This one requires using hints way too often to complete. That's a big, big no-no for me. In addition, twice I finished level 1-3 with no hints and no mistakes, but it doesn't show that it was done at all. In the first 5 or 6 puzzles, the grid is not broken down into groups of five squares which is common among mosaics. In subsequent grids they are? Sometimes the rows auto-complete, sometimes they don't. I only got through seven puzzles before getting fed up with these issues. This is one of the worst of the nanograms I have ever played.
I really enjoy these types of puzzles. This one was not tediously over-challenging, had auto-fill, bright multi-colored pictures, and a basic storyline, which could have been much better with a little thought. The same Christmas carol played over and over, and became very annoying. So unless you like humming the same song, be prepared to play with no sound. These puzzles are supposed to be based on logic, not guesswork. Unfortunately, there were more than a dozen that required using a hint to complete; a definite no-no for nanograms in my book. In all, better than most, with a few disappointments that won't keep me from buying the rest in this series.