There have been jigsaw puzzles on computers for as long as gaming has existed. However, they’ve always been a bit of a hard sell genre for me. While I love my fair share of puzzle games I’ve never understood why someone would sit at a desk or a television to complete a jigsaw puzzle. I get those who are willing to go out and purchase a hard copy version. My American Mom used to have a puzzle on the go all the time. Ultimately, they would be framed upon completion and another wall in her beautiful Vermont country home would be adorned with her hard work, sweat, and tears.
But to play a jigsaw puzzle game on the computer. Where’s the fun in that? Yet, time and again I’ve been in a position where I’ve had to review them. For starters, EnsenaSoft released a few of them onto Steam last year. I reviewed each of them. There was never anything inherently wrong with the games. There was nothing that I could pinpoint and suggest that the developers went wrong there.
Consequently, it generally boils down to the one facet that is always personal preference. I know what I personally find fun. I know what I don’t. I get told by a fraction of my readers what they find enjoyable and what they do not. It comes down to the fun factor. I’ll let you in on a little secret. In the past, some of my readers have asked me why I’m wasting my time reviewing a jigsaw puzzle game when I could be doing something ‘better.’ Put simply, jigsaw puzzles aren’t normally the cool kids on the block.
[h1]So Why Puzzle Showdown 4K?[/h1]
To put it simply, the team over at Kingdom Games approached me to run a small giveaway for their new game. Now, we’d done the same thing for them last year when we operated under the Steamified banner. Kronus wrote a review for their solid religious-themed Five: Guardians of David. I believe we did this before FIVE: Champions of Canaan was released. It may have been a small part of their marketing campaign.
Now, it wasn’t exactly that simple. To be more professional we have a quality standards policy in mind. Further, I don’t want to run anything that wouldn’t appeal to a portion of our fledgling community. I checked out what this one was all about and I immediately felt as though the devs had put together a game that was different than the other games that I had played.
For starters, a multiplayer score attack jigsaw puzzle game? Who knew that completing jigsaw puzzles could become a competitive sport? That aspect of the game had me intrigued and I thought that it would open the game up to a larger crowd. A crowd who could enjoy the competitive aspect as well as the obvious relaxing side of putting together the puzzles.
[h1]Presentation[/h1]
Arguably, the most important part of a jigsaw puzzle game is the presentation. This obviously includes the artwork and therefore the actual puzzles themselves. The library that Kingdom Games have arranged for the game is rather deep. It’s certainly deeper than most of the jigsaw games that I have played before.
However, I believe that most of the images come from the public domain. They’re also relatively common images. If you’re a regular media watcher then it’s quite likely that you’ve seen most of these images before. For example, there are plenty of images of American cities, of the Aurora Borealis, famous Earth photos from space, etc.
I was more than a little impressed with the lengthy soundtrack. There are over 5 hours of music featured within the game. That means you won’t be alt-tabbing to get to your playlist anytime soon!
In all, aside from my disappointment at the copious amounts of pictures that I’ve already seen before I’m reasonably satisfied with the game’s presentation.
Gameplay Mechanics
Well, it’s a jigsaw game. It should be self-explanatory and for the most part, it is. Everything works as intended.
I had a quick few games of the local multiplayer. Again, it worked and it was fun trying to out quick my opponent. But they, sadly, got bored rather quickly. However, they’re not the type to put real jigsaw puzzles together. Therefore, I wouldn’t put too much weight into it. In multiplayer, points are awarded for accuracy, speed, and strategic placement. A nice feature to the multiplayer is that you can turn off scoring mode and build co-operatively.
The points scoring scheme is continued into the single-player version of the game. You can also play casually. Thankfully, when putting together the larger puzzles a save function comes in handy.
It must be mentioned that you can choose your puzzle board background. You can have the image already there, you can play with an outline or you can have none. I would argue that this can change the difficulty except for one thing.
Now, I never found a way to turn it off and I tried several times, so if you can then I apologize. The single worst thing about the entire game is that the board highlights your piece when you have found the right spot. This is somewhat infuriating. It’s almost like the game has an always on cheat mode built into it. Well, no, that’s what it is like. Now, if there was an option to use it sparingly then I could understand. But it makes the game trivial and almost pointless. One of the greatest joys of putting together a jigsaw puzzle is the challenge. When it’s too easy the game may as well complete the puzzle for you.
Which takes me to Showcase mode. Thankfully, it is there but I wish it unlocked as you completed the puzzles. Reward me for spending time with your game. Yes, I know you have achievements and trading cards (for Steam users) and that’s all well and good but showcase mode could have been the real reward for players completing the game.
[h1]Steamified for those on the PC[/h1]
As mentioned, you have Steam achievements and trading cards. The game takes advantage of those and multiplayer functionality. However, a couple of tips for the developers. Please incorporate cross-platform multiplayer (if possible). Further, incorporate Steam leaderboards so that we can see who has the highest score on individual boards. That’d give your title some longevity and add to its competitive nature.
Something sure to get the ire of the PC Master Race enthusiasts among you, the game’s Steam store page claims that the Steam version of the game is ‘the ultimate screen saver for your console.’
[h1]Puzzle Showdown 4K – The Verdict[/h1]
Jigsaw puzzle video games are always going to fill a specific niche. With relatively simple mechanics most developers can pull them off without too much fuss. However, I do like the potential of the competitive play as it strikes me as being different. The presentation is reasonable but nothing spectacular. The game works as is intended and has quite a lot of available artwork to put together.
However, the downsides to the game must be considered in the final verdict. Although the library of artwork is impressive the fact that there isn’t much content that is actually fresh is a significant downside. Furthermore, the mechanic that highlights where each piece should go when you hover over the spot takes away much of the challenge. That Is the often frustrating but rewarding component of putting together jigsaw puzzles.
Ultimately, Puzzle Showdown 4K is an adept puzzle game that certainly fits a niche but has some drawbacks that frustrate and annoy.
Rating: 7/10
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