Game: Dexpition
Genre: Education, Strategy, Puzzle, Lifestyle
System: Nintendo Switch (also on PC)
Developer|Publisher: DevHour Games
Age Rating: ESRB E (Everyone)
Price: US $7.99
Release Date: 28th February 2020
Review code used, but all views are my own!
Do you ever pick up a game with the intent to play just a level or two, then look at your watch and realise you’ve been playing for hours? That’s what Depixtion did to me, and I’m not even mad about it. I absolutely love this game, and can’t recommend it highly enough for any fellow puzzle fans!
Gameplay
Anyone familiar with nonograms or picross puzzles will instantly feel at home with this game. The premise is simple; each puzzle is made up of a grid, with a series of numbers assigned to each row and column. The separation of the numbers denotes filled and empty squares, and once the grid is filled out correctly voila you have a pixelated image.
Depixtion takes this classic formula and plays with it in an interesting new way – not only do you have light and dark squares to correctly place in each grid, but each puzzle is made up of three overlaid grids that must all be completed correctly to display the picture. Each grid is tackled separately, and the game overlaps them as you go with some nice colour play, so you can see what you’re working towards.
No lag or framerate issues were obvious in any mode, which is always nice. My only real complaint is that the control stick navigation feels a bit clunky in handheld mode, but that may be because I’m less used to it – I prefer to play everything I can docked with my Pro controller, so that might be my bias talking! For anyone who’s interested, it plays beautifully on the Pro controller, although I suspect handheld would be my favourite if the game had touch screen controls, which would’ve fitted the style really well.
Graphics and Sound
The graphics are predictably simple, as everything is made up of simple squares, but the bright colours and animated background mean the game never feels boring or dull. The soundtrack has a slightly retro arcade vibe which had me bopping my head while I played and was on a nice loop so no sound breaks could interrupt the concentration.
Depixtion doesn’t try to overdo it with fancy flashing images and constantly changing sounds but rather hits a perfect balance between interesting and non-distracting.
Difficulty
Concentration is a necessity with this game! It’s an easy system to learn, but incredibly difficult to master. Picross have been my favourite puzzles for years, and I still had to focus once I hit the 12×12 grids.
You can check for mistakes but the game doesn’t automatically flag when you place an incorrect block, so unless you purposefully go to the option and do a scan you don’t know whether you’re right or wrong; at least until you’re sat there with numbers that can’t possibly have a matching block, and then realise that you did one square wrong ages ago that’s messed up everything you did since.
It’s frustrating but makes the completion of each grid feel rewarding and like a real accomplishment. Not to mention that you’re timed for each grid, so there’s always that niggling temptation to go back and try to beat your previous time.
Conclusion
A must-have for any fan of logic puzzles, or anyone who wants to develop their logical thinking, Depixtion is what all puzzle games should be; interesting but not overwhelming, easy to understand but challenging, and a genuine pleasure to play. At approximately 8 cents per 3-grid puzzle, I can’t fault the price either.
My only sticking point is that it would have really benefited from touch controls, but I guess you can’t have everything.
Final Verdict: I like it a lot!
