PCZ is your typical Picross game in terms of puzzles. If you played any Picross game (on the 3DS in my case), then you’ll feel right at home. The game’s charm and adventure part is what makes it stand out and worth playing for fans of the genre.

The adventure part is lighthearted. Don’t expect deep and fleshed out mechanics. You have a small world divided in a few blocks. Each block has a few puzzles that bring objects, people or animals back to life (220+). Most of them won’t have much of a significance to the story but there will be puzzles that do and you will get some items that are either mandatory or to find some of the secrets in the game. For instance, you’ll need a lamp to go through a dark cave. Even if there is no significance, it’s satisfying seeing things come to life and the numbers of your checklist going up. The puzzles themselves are mostly simple-doable and they won’t reach the challenge you can expect from the Picross E games on the 3DS for instance. There are some NPC you can speak with, an inventory menu, world map and an in game trophy (achievement) tracker. Add the charming pixel graphics, catchy music & funny dialogue and you got yourself a good formula. The dialogues are often self aware and I enjoy them but humour is obviously very subjective. I also love the secrets the developer came up with and even how some of them are personal.

In terms of cons, I can mainly think of 2 minor bugs and one design decision. The game allows you to select different themes when you look at the puzzles. I love this! You can also customise a theme manually but the settings for that are never saved unfortunately. Secondly, there are also some shortcuts to return to previous areas more quickly. One shortcut doesn’t work. You’re supposed to interact with it to cut the tree down but the interact button doesn’t work with the keyboard at least. As for the design decision, you have to do a quiz near the end of the game before being allowed to advance to the last area. This is really silly and unnecessary. The community luckily came through by sharing the answers on Steam. This would have been a big problem if that wasn’t the case.

I had a great time overall. I’ve spent 28.8 hours according to Steam and I’ve done this slowly over a long period of time, without making use of the hint system. Definitely give the game a try if you like the combination of Picross with light adventure. I’ve got this on a sale for €2 and 100% think it’s worth that price or even more.