Jixo 3: Hidden Horizons Collector's Edition

With several country-based themes, Jixo 3 is a charming puzzle game. Perfect for hopping in and having a chill moment whenever you want, at least if you opt for a casual look. If you would like a bit more of a challenge, you can also opt for normal or extreme mode instead. Under these various themes, there are several different game modes, which I find pretty neat since they keep things fresh and prevent the game from feeling repetitive. You can complete them however you like. If you want to do your favourites or non-favourites first, why not? You can! Or if you’re feeling bold, there’s even a ‘surprise me’ option that gives you a random puzzle. So, nothing is stopping or holding you back behind locked stuff. Well, almost nothing… The only thing that is locked is the bonus games, which you can unlock over time by earning coins by playing the main game. On that note, I must admit that I sometimes had trouble seeing the coins drop in certain levels. Thankfully, you always get coins at the end of the level, too. Since it wasn’t very clear if my in-game achievement of having 10k coins still counts if I bought a bonus game aka spending some of them coins, I decided to saved them up to be sure. Slowly making my way through the game. However, in the end, it became clear that going through everything wasn’t enough to reach 10k, and I had to do some extra work to achieve it. I, being me and feeling a bit lazy, just redid the same jigsaw puzzle I thought was pretty on easy. It took a bit, but it got the job done. But let's back up a little, back to the different puzzle modes, since I find that to be the star of the game, and I would love to tell you which ones these are. *~[b]Hidden object scenes:[/b] You get a beautiful scene to your display, and you hunt the prompt below them. I did find that some of the prompts were a little too cryptic for me at times, or I tended to take them too literally. One example was ‘’something that holds a boat down’’, For my life, I didn’t catch on that they meant an anchor, and I kept looking for those wooden things where they keep the glass-bottled boats. Yeah, I know. I facepalmed hard, too. Thankfully, using the hint button, after 15 minutes of poking my eye against the screen, helped me along the way, telling me it was the anchors I needed… And I must admit, this happened more than once so far. Maybe because my native language isn’t English? But I digress, besides that, they’re still very fun to do regardless, and they most certainly kept me busy for a while. *~[b]Torn Pieces:[/b] You get torn pieces, and you must place them in the correct position to uncover the image, little by little and piece by piece. Very lovely. *~[b]Jigsaw Puzzles:[/b] I think most of us know what a jigsaw puzzle is. This one is no different. You can choose the size you wish to complete and find some additional coins. However, this brings me to my point: sometimes I struggle to see them drop. *~[b]Switch Puzzle:[/b] I had to go back in to see if I didn’t have the name wrong, but nope, it’s switch puzzle. Huh. It’s essentially a swap tile puzzle. I believe this concept is also familiar to most people. You take a tile and swap it out with another one until everything is in the correct place to finish the puzzle. I did feel like there were fewer of these present, which I found a bit of a shame since they’re fun to do. And just like with the jigsaw puzzles, you can choose the size you want to complete, and we’re back to the point where I didn’t always see the coins drop, leading to missing out on some. Listen, I’m a greedy little goblin ok, I like my coins! Lol. *~[b]Sliding Shapes:[/b] This one was new to me, I think? I genuinely don’t remember if I played one like this before or not. You have nodes on your screen, and some shapes you can slide around to those nodes. But sometimes they can clash or not pass each other, so that’s where the puzzle is. Some were challenging and took me a bit of time to complete. But in the end, I skipped some as well. This one was a bit of a mixed bag for me as I was fond of the idea but not so much of them being a bit too much of a struggle for me. *~[b]Stamp Match:[/b] You have several stamps, scrambled over the field, and you pair them up. Simple concept, but fun. And familiar! Also… coins. The coins… Yup! *~[b]Locked Box:[/b] And last but not least, at least for the main game, Locked box. Dear lord, this one had me grind my teeth sometimes and far more than the sliding shapes one too! It is a super fun puzzle where you have little blocks scattered on a board. They all have a direction assigned to them, and so you know they’ll move in that direction, and your goal is to clear the whole board—Buuuutttttt, but but, hehe butt, but… There is no undo button. At all. That means if you are near the end and almost have everything cleared, and you make (or have made in the past) one mistake, you’ll have to redo it from the start. Which, sometimes, was a little bit frustrating, tbh. With my brain, which is the size of a flea, I genuinely sometimes forget how I arrived at specific points and made mistakes earlier or differently. Eh, at least the coins were easy to spot here, which was nice. And in the bonus content you’ll find, along with the locked boxes one, these two back too: *~[b]Tile Matching:[/b] You’ll have to match up all the mahjong tiles you see on the field with one of the five on the bottom of your screen and clear the whole board that way. *~[b]CrossShapes:[/b] Where you get shapes (all have their own colour) and you must place them in the grid, but in such a way that they aren’t in the same line. Bizarrely, it reminded me a little of Sudoku, while it doesn’t look like it at all. But yeah, this was a cool puzzle, in my opinion. I hope this was a little insightful for you, giving you an idea of what to expect when considering this one. The concept isn’t unique; there are similar series around, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable to have another one added to the collection. And I genuinely think it’s one of those black and white type of games: you either are into them or you’re not. There’s no in-between grey area. For me, it’s a thumbs up, since I really enjoy playing these from time to time. One of the ‘thorn pieces’ levels VS slowly filling up my in-game cheevo & collectors' cabinet. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3563911911 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3563912242 [hr] I would be super grateful if you could consider following me over at the following places for more first looks, reviews, recommendations, etc: [list] [*]|[url= https://www.youtube.com/@Tchii] My first looks [/url]| ~My YouTube channel. [*]|[url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/TchiiMadeYaLook/curation] Tchii made ya look [/url]| ~My curator [*]|[url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Indie_Gems/curation] IndieGems [/url]| ~Wonderful Indie curator [*]|[url=https://www.youtube.com/@IndieGems2] IndieGems Gameplay [/url]| ~IndieGem's YouTube channel. [*]|[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/26279617/] Calm [/url]| ~Curator for the Dutch-speaking folks out here. [*]|[url=https://www.youtube.com/@yoshiruless] Calm's first looks [/url]| ~Calm's YouTube channel. [/list] Thank you! [hr]

I'm really impressed with this game developer. Every time they produce a new game they are some new improvements made or a totally new puzzle introduced. I already love the locked box puzzle, I'm struggling with the new puzzle, sliding shapes, still doable but I'm slowly warming up to it. All the puzzles are doable it's game play is something to while your stress away. The fact that you can switch and play in another language is an added bonus. I've played in both English & Dutch (Netherlands). The artwork illustration renderings are beautiful and especially for the hidden object games the attention to details are superb. They have put a lot of thought in the game. Also like the subtle 2D movement effect when you've completed a hidden object puzzle. I hope they will continue producing these games for every season of the year.

I have all four of the Jixo games. They are a great mix of captivating genre, colours are vibrant and scenes are superb. I look forward to the next selection of entertaining games.

First off this is one of the prettiest hidden object game that i have seen. each country has hidden object and mini games to do. the mini games are unique, not your everyday mini games. the music is really nice too. i hope they make some more like this with new countries to go to.

A good mix of the different types of games MixoGames offers in their catalog. Swap-2 slider puzzle variant, jigsaws, reassemble the image by matching up fragments, hidden object scenes, remove all the arrow block slider puzzles, and pick-2 clutter games. A new variant of slider puzzle is introduced in some chapters of the "slide pieces along the lines" variety. There are 10 "chapters" each comprising 6 different levels, where it's a random assortment of the different game types per chapter. The gold coins earned and/or picked up while playing the levels are used to unlock the CE bonus games: mahjong, more arrow block puzzles, and what appears to be an endless game of putting colored shapes into a crossword-type grid such that no row/column has any duplicates. The difficulty is easier than in other MixoGames releases, except for maybe the new "slide items along the lines" puzzles as a couple of those were tricky. There is no storyline. Pretty graphics and a relaxing soundtrack. It's a good introduction to this developer's catalog if you want a chillax game without a bunch of dialog interruptions. If you want more of a challenge plus a story, try any of the other series of games.

Ein ganz ganz tolles Spiel zum Entspannen. Sehr schöne Puzzlespiele, wunderschön gestaltete Bilder, es ist einfach eine Wonne für die Augen. Ganz toll auch, dass man bei den Puzzles aussuchen kann, ob man mit mehr oder wenigen Teilen spielen möchte. Das sorgt mitunter auch für eine tolle Spielzeit. Die Spiele selbst sind sehr geistreich und abwechslungsreich gestaltet. Für mich ist die Jixo Serie mit keinem anderen der Wimmelbildspiele vergleichbar. Die Präsentation ist SEHR edel und unglaublich ästhetisch. Werde mir alle Spiele dieser Reihe kaufen.....sofern sie eine deutsche Übersetzung haben:-) Absolute Kaufempfehlung für alle Freunde dieser Art von Spielen