Mark Ffrench is back with another mosaic game, and this one features a lot of improvements and changes since the 2024 Retrospective.
This isn’t actually the only other game. The same person has made 3 other mosaic maps, Mosaic of the Pharoes, Proverbs, and Mega Mosaic, all of which share the same core gameplay. As a refresher, that gameplay loop is relatively simple. The number indicates the amount of light cells in the 3×3 box centered on the number. So 9s become all light, 0s become all dark, and you have to work through the board using existing known cells to fill in new ones.
Where this game sets itself apart from the series though, is that instead of having one large board that can be solved in any order, the game is split into 5 different boards, where puzzles are revealed as you work through the story, and the puzzles are integrated into the background rather than forming an entire large image.
You play as a pair of FBI agents investigating a murder. The subject died in the forest, their head stripped of all flesh, and their neck cauterized. What the fuck could cause this kind of damage to a person, time to start investigating. Look for clues in the treehouse and the victim’s house, and interview the useful contacts in the town at the doctors office, museum, and parlour. Every puzzle solved revealing an information file on some paranormal event that happened in our world, with the occasional one advancing the in-game case too. You can usually tell these two apart, though there is a bleed through, such as perhaps a case file on Area 51 giving you a note about perhaps alien involvement??
This game’s other big change is difficulty levels. Instead of spreading various puzzle difficulties around the board, you can select the difficulty and every puzzle gets changed to reflect it. At normal, you’ll experience a similar sort of level to the other games in the series, where for the most part you can start at a 0 or 9 (or edge 6/corner 4) and then just go from there filling in one number at a time. You can raise the difficulty though and it starts introducing more multi-number logic to decipher, such as 6-3 pairs, or filling in the non-overlapping sections of two numbers. There is a help page in game that talks about advanced logic and gives you some ideas where to get started. At the highest level, the logic is brutal, and hints are limited.
The game does pull two last tricks towards it’s zenith, but I’m going to leave those for you to discover 😉
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3444650 £10.99 (Demo available)
His other games: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/divide-the-plunder
Leave a Reply