Every so often you will see a certain criticism levelled at games critics: that they have written a review that is not “objective”, and have therefore somehow failed at their job of offering honest, useful advice to their audience. Invariably these accusations come about for the simple reason that the commentator finds him or herself to be at odds with the opinion expressed by the reviewer, and interprets this as meaning that the reviewer is at fault.

Of course, the good news for reviewers is that the moment anybody criticises them for writing a subjective review is the moment they can safely disregard anything else the commentator in question has to say, as the simple fact is that it is impossible to write an objective review of a computer game, any more than it is possible to write an objective review of a book, or of a film, or of a painting. Certain aspects can be objectively commented upon: whether the game actually works, if it has any obvious bugs, how much it costs, and so on. But the meat of a review has to be about the subjective quality of the game – how enjoyable and compelling an experience it is, whether the reviewer enjoyed, and thinks other people will enjoy, it. An objective review would be nothing more than a list of the game’s various attributes, without any actual commentary – undeniably a useful resource (and a valid way to review a less subjective object – a washing machine, perhaps), but not a review in any meaningful sense.

Why this preamble on the nature of reviews? Because on this occasion – this single occasion – I will be doing exactly what I said a games reviewer should, and could, not: writing a purely objective review. Why so? Because Pic Puzzler, despite the name, is not so much a game as an application designed to fit a specific function; a utility with a single purpose. To review it on any merits beyond its stated purpose would be both pointless and unfair. With all that in mind, prepare to read my first, and possibly last, truly objective review.

Pic Puzzler is an application for turning your pictures into puzzles. It is able to access any photographs on your phone, as well as giving you access to a small online gallery of images. From these, it is able to create puzzles of four, eight, sixteen or thirty-two tiles, which it then shuffles and asks you to rearrange into the form of the original image. During and after rearranging said tiles, it informs you of the amount of time it took you to reform the image. It also gives you the option to share your image – which actually means that it stores the photo on your phone with the outline of the tiles overlaid, alongside your initials and time spent.

There is no way to share actual puzzles, however, and no online leaderboards for the online images, meaning any competition is left to the player to organise. The puzzles, meanwhile, are never complex – with a thirty-two piece maximum, the largest puzzles are equivalent to those sold and marketed towards young children. And no attempt is made to have the tiles imitate the shape or form of actual jigsaw pieces, with each being a simple square; not only this, but orientation is not an issue, with each piece having the right facing, and being pre-snapped to a simple grid: moving one tile into position simply has the obstructing tile switch positions with it, thus removing even the challenge of having to rotate and consider the alignment of the tiles.

In summary, this is a simple application which allows the user to take images from their collection, or from a small, online selection, and have them turned into a extremely simple puzzles to solve. Nothing more, nothing less. It costs 99p.

Pic Puzzler Gameplay Video

Pic Puzzler Screenshots

Version Under Review : 1.5.0.0

There is NO trial version available and the full version is available for $1.29, we are not sure what the limitations of the trial version are.

Our Rating for Pic Puzzler

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