ASTRAWARES PIXELUS REVIEW

Astraware Pixelus

Overview
There are a lot of puzzle games being released for the palm os and pocket pc so it takes a really good puzzle game to make it a hit. ASTRAWARES PIXELUS is set on the mythical island of Pixelus and the aim of the game is to help Claudius (your character) recreate the mosaics of the gods that live on the island by filling in the missing tiles. Each temple has a larger amount of mosaics then the last and they get more challenging the further you progress into the game. PIXELUS has a lot of great features like native vga support, an easy to understand tutorial mode, and a progressive level of difficulty.

Graphics
I played PIXELUS on a vga device and a non vga device and on both accounts the graphics where bright and cheerful. The company has put a lot of effort in to the look of the game as you can see by the detail they have put in to the main island where there are lots of moving animations like the lightning striking against Jupiter’s temple and the gas escaping from the volcano. When you enter a section of the island you are met with a moving image of the God in that section and a scroll down list of all the puzzles in that particular section.

Sound
The sounds in PIXELUS match the graphics perfectly they are all bright and cheerful tunes and there is a wide variety of tunes in the game for every section of the island you visit. When you put a tile into place you get a dull thud which isn’t particularly exiting and I think it is something they need to work on in later versions.

Gameplay
The gameplay in PIXELUS is very innovative and original it is hard to explain exactly how it works but the tutorial is very well done and you will have learned to play it in less than five minutes. There are two hundred unique puzzles in the game I certainly have not found any that are at all similar to the others in shape. The game is played by adding floor tiles to the spots where tiles are missing to build the mosaics you do this by sliding tiles in to place but you must make sure it is being supported by another tile because otherwise you can not place the tile there . The way to get around this is to place temporary tiles which are red in a position so that they will support the regular tiles, then the temporary tile has to be removed because you only have a certain amount of tiles you can use so you need to think strategically and move a lot of the tiles around. The other problem is that you need a clear path to be able to remove the temporary tile and this also is cause for a great deal of manoeuvring. There are a lot of temples in the game all building up to the final temple which is Jupiter’s as you move through the game the levels become more difficult and it can take a lot of time to figure out even the first move.

If you get stuck there is always the hint function which shows a picture of an orb and the option to either show you one move or all the moves this function can be very helpful and is a nice addition to the game. All the temples have original puzzles which coincide with the Gods theme like for Cupid the puzzles are in the shape of hearts and for Flora the puzzles are in the shape of flowers. For replay value they have added in a medal system where you can get a gold medal or a silver medal depending on the amount of moves you make.

Pros
-Lots of puzzles
-Nice soundtrack
-Innovative gameplay
-Native vga support
-A easy to understand tutorial

Cons
-Sometimes too hard
-The noise when you slot a tile into place is a dull thud

Conclusion
It is hard to find fault with the game there is a wide variety of puzzles all of which are innovative and original. It has excellent graphics especially on a vga screen where there is lots of attention to detail. The sound is bright and jolly. So I give the game
8.5/10


Device: axim x50v
Gapi tweak : active
No today plugins
Processor speed : max (624)

The game can be bought from here