Mosaic of the Strange

After many hours, I have finally completed the last game in Mark Ffrench's catalogue of games. I think this is my favorite (Or at least in my top 2). A stark departure from their previous games in the fact that it is not a singular giant puzzle, rather, there are multiple locations, where you steadily make progress unlocking more puzzles as you complete key items/decorations scattered around the various settings. The hardest difficulty was a fair challenge. I struggled a lot, but grew to have it feel like second nature. Giving the game a story was a nice change, and the having it themed around the occult is also cool. I'd recommend either downloading the demo, or trying out the other free games in their library to see if this kind of game clicks with you. Overall, I look forward to the next game they make.

Mosaic of the Strange is a great nonogram/picross puzzle game where the light and dark squares are found using Minesweeper rules to fill in a 3x3 grid. The theming is a supernatural-tinged murder mystery. This is a straightforward homage to the X-Files genre, including 1990's era computers. Solving each nonogram gives a neat summary of a real-world supernatural-adjacent case file, occasionally listing whether the central mystery of that case has been successfully debunked, proven, or remains unsolved. The murder mystery unfolds nicely. I really appreciate the smooth way I can zoom into and out of the available puzzles of the scene. Helps keep solving fluid when I can hop easily between difficult puzzles. It's cool that the ending confirms at least one mystery and leaves the truth or falsehood of another ambiguous. Very much in key with the overall genre. I'm glad I was able to get Complete Achievements after beating the default mode without needing to replay on higher difficulties. I very much appreciate being able to load up a completed save file and return to previous scenes in order to review the solved case files. There is a bug where the graffiti you might leave by using the drawing tools on the puzzles may bleed through to other scenes, and a related bug where solving a puzzle with unerased graffiti may make it harder to erase afterwards. I have reported it in the forum, but it may be that my 3840 x 1200 resolution is the root of the problem, so it could take them longer to patch fix it than if it was a more widespread issue.

Probably the most interesting of these that I've done so far. Blended with a cute, basic mystery with a couple interesting twists at the end.

案件一点没看，拼图疯狂爽玩！

想要一个没玩过的脑子

I'm a big fan of these game, however I feel this misses the core appeal of the series, which is solving one big puzzle. I get trying something new with adding a story, but it just didn't work for me, just felt like it slowed down the game and solving induvial puzzles to further the plot, instead of one big puzzle just didn't scratch the same itch. I recommend playing the other Mosaic games over this one.

A variation on Ffrench's usual mosaic games. This one comes with a full storyline. The mosaics are scattered throughout rather than being regions of a giant puzzle.

probablement le puzzle mosaique que j'aime le moins, l'idée est intéressante de mélanger mosaique et enquete mais j'ai honnetement eu la flemme de lire, je voulais juste du puzzle moi, partie pour laquelle je n'ai rien a redire

Fans of Picross and weird happenings should both try this game; Every solved puzzle grants you a file on a related creature or event, things like: Mothman, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Area 51, Polybius... This game gripped me from start to finish that I couldn't really play anything else during my free time. Even staying up all night and day when I first started. It was less the story that pulled me and just the files themselves. I wanted to know what every new puzzle would tell me at its end until there was nothing left to give. I love the combo of minesweeper's number system with picross' focus of filling in blocks, it made it so easy to reach a flow state! While I liked most of the music, there was one track that was super eerie and almost borderline annoying to me. Also tried this on steamdeck and personally I recommend inverting the controls for it. Pretty enjoyable to slide the cursor around and tap the L2 and R2 buttons!

Tan divertido como todos lo que han sacado, muy buena ejecución este estilo de puzzles.