[h1][b]Christmas Puzzle[/b][/h1]
[h3][b]Time Played:[/b][/h3]
6.5 Hours
[h3][b]Last Played:[/b][/h3]
13th of December, 2025
[hr][/hr]
Hot on the heels of Christmas Hustle, I delved into this, hoping for a lengthier, possibly even more festive experience.
Unfortunately, this was not the game I was hoping it would be.
[h3][b]Yay:[/b][/h3]
+ I was smiling on just the title screen
+ The volume can be mixed in-options.
+ The “decorate a house” mission of the game was immediately-festive to me, even if I bailed on this one without getting anything for it, preferring to stockpile and spend all-at-once.
+ Music was festive to me.
+ I liked the art.
+ The fact they chose a cartoony slap sound effect for coins reaching the bottom was very much delightful to me.
+ Chain reactions were satisfying to me.
+ Many block types that do things I thought fun, me looking forward to a new one being introduced.
+ Undressed Snowman (3 blobs of snow) was also a delight to me.
[h3][b]Meh:[/b][/h3]
~ You need to click on the episode, and level every time you finish one, which, while quick, would have been less-preferred in-favour of a “next level” button. This doesn't take long to overcome, in spite of how you have to go out of your way to get back to where you should be in 1 click, though.
~ The Iron Block info pane was completely blank, though, I figured out how they work without much issue.
[h3][b]Nay:[/b][/h3]
- The game is rather long, which would ordinarily be a compliment, however, it's lengthy for what I deem to be all the wrong reasons.
- Timers for 3 stars are what I deem to be ridiculously-short, meaning you need to replay levels multiple times in a row if you want all of the achievements.
- Compounding this issue is the fact I thought the level design to be quite poor in multiple instances. I'm reasonably-sure that Episode 1 Level 13 is impossible without hammers, and even with them, on E1 L20, you can blow through 50 of them, and still not make it in the very short time you have to get 3 stars.
- Since these are given when clearing a certain amount of matches, this meant I then had to farm in E1L19 for 31 minutes to get back to 100 of them, and have a chance to beat the final level of the episode...
- Episode 2 had even more levels where 3 stars meant “using over 10 hammers”
- 4 Episodes, each with 20 levels, exist which strikes me as needlessly-bloated, and overly-long. Apparently, one does not even need to beat Episode 4 to get enough coins to decorate everything, making me wonder why 4 exists in the first place.
- Rather than each column being filled in vertically with more blocks, they “flow” like a liquid into empty spaces, sometimes moving horizontally. This was very inconsistent to me, and very much added to the feeling player agency was lacking, and luck was the prime mover in this game.
- Not the best mixing, even with audio sliders.
- Even at lower volumes, the sound effects became very fatiguing, very quickly.
[hr][/hr]
[h3][b]Verdict:[/b][/h3]
While I admittedly feel bad, and sad about giving a Christmas game this low a score, I simply cannot recommend anything this tedious, questionably-designed, and anti-player, even if the aspects outside of gameplay delighted me.
The triple blobs of snow saved this from either of the bottom categories, though.
[h3][b]Placed in:[/b][/h3]
3: Merit Mixed
