Author
Cody Sharp
Price: $1.99
Publisher: KIORK
A jigsaw puzzle on an iPhone? Check. A well made jigsaw puzzle game for the iPhone? Check again. Somehow d’ ART combines interesting paintings/drawings with a fantastic interface to make a great jigsaw puzzle game for your iPhone despite the devices lacking screen real estate. In fact, the interface works so well that it almost makes the jigsaw puzzles too easy to solve.
The game ships with 20 hand drawn pictures by Egle Zioma, an talented artist out of Lithuania. The developer promises monthly updates with new puzzles to solve but at $1.99, the well made puzzles are worth the money even without the promise of future updates. For anyone that is a fan of solving puzzles or the website, Deviant Art, you will likely easily get your money’s worth with this game. The puzzle pieces are clearly detailed and relatively easy to place (but not too easy). Another thing that adds to the depth of the game is that you are timed while completing the puzzle.
I would like to see additional challenges incorporated into the game that require you finish the puzzle in a set amount of time. It would also be great to have some type of unlockable achievements via one of the social networks available (OpenFeint, Plus+, etc). That being said, the joy of this game is the simplistic dragging of puzzles pieces to build the entire piece of art. You can release a puzzle piece anywhere over the board. If the piece is close, it will lock into place. If not, it will sit right where you left it. The puzzle pieces stay seated at the bottom of the screen until you are ready to slide them onto the game board.
While you’re placing the jigsaw pieces, you’ll be able to see a fairly transparent outline of what the picture is supposed to look like. I typically started with the outside edges and brought the picture inwards. One thing that will change your strategy is that throughout the game board, stars will intermittently pop up. If you place a puzzle piece while a star is in that area, you collect that star. For each picture you can collect four stars. This gives you yet another reason to play a puzzle again and again. This game is truly well made and deserves more recognition. Take a chance and buy it today. You’ll be happy you did.
Overall Value for it’s $1.99 price point
Overall: 4.0 out of 5.0 stars Graphics: 4.5 out of 5.0 stars Sound: 3.0 out of 5.0 stars Controls: 5.0 out of 5.0 stars