Game Review: Block-A-Pix Deluxe!

Note: I originally reviewed this game for LadiesGamers.com back in April of this year. Click here to see the original article! 🙂

Game: Block-A-Pix Deluxe
System: Nintendo Switch
Publisher/Developer: Lightwood Games
Price: $7.99 | £6.49 | €6.99 | $9.99 | $11.99
Age Rating: EU 3+ | USA E
Release Date: March 21, 2019

Review code kindly provided by Lightwood Games.

Lightwood Games has published several good puzzle games, including the Pic-A-Pix titles that have been reviewed on this site by Jonah! Despite being interested in them, Block-A-Pix Deluxe is the very first game I tried. As a fan of Picross, I couldn’t wait to check it out!

Story

Well, this is a puzzle game, and it doesn’t really pretend to be anything else… so there really isn’t a story! Your whole goal is to fill in a grid to make a wide variety of pixelated pictures.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics are just fine for this game! The interfaces are streamlined and look very clean, the puzzle grid is easy to see, and the completed pictures are pixelated in an enjoyable way.

There isn’t really much in the sound department, except for some bleeps and bloops as you are filling in the grid. There is a little tune that plays as you are working on the puzzle, but I turned it off because it got old quickly.

Gameplay

After pressing Play on the title screen, you are ready to jump right into the action. Basically, the puzzle is presented as a tiled grid. In some tiles are colored numbers, which indicate the amount of spaces around the number that are filled in by that color.  This is where the “Block” in the title comes in, as you are essentially creating a picture out of a bunch of different colored (and different sized) blocks.  A smaller picture off to the right will show you how your picture looks. When you have filled in the grid, the completed picture is shown!

There is a timer, but don’t let that worry you! This is only there to tell you how long it took to complete the puzzle- it doesn’t affect whether you complete the puzzle or not.

Fun Factor and Replay Value

This game is very easy to pick up and play. Once you get into the groove of playing, it’s easy to relax and complete a puzzle or two at your leisure. The puzzles get larger, but they never get overly frustrating. You simply take as much time as you need to complete the puzzle. There is even a “fix” option if you messed up and you aren’t sure where you went wrong. If you use that option, you can still complete the puzzle, but you won’t have a snazzy gold medal next to the picture.

With all the praise I am giving this game, one negative is that replay value is questionable. Some people will want to beat their times, but others may only want to play the puzzle once before moving on. I myself don’t really care to beat my original times, but I can still see myself revisiting the puzzles now and then, just because the game is relaxing! Even if you don’t replay the puzzles at all, there are 120 puzzles to play (not counting DLC puzzle packs), which should keep you busy for quite some time.

Closing Remarks

Block-A-Pix Deluxe is a fun addition to the puzzle genre. It’s very easy to pick up and play, and I often found myself playing a puzzle or two just to relax after a long day. I rate this game I Like It A Lot, and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes Picross-type puzzles!

Book Review: Faerie Blood By Ashley McCleo!

Faerie Blood is the second (and final) book in the Fanged Fae series by Ashley McCleo. I enjoyed reading the first book a lot, so I was excited for this one. I wrote my review for this book on Goodreads back in May. Here’s the blurb:

War is brewing between the fae and the vampires.

Even worse, Mauri’s evil mother, Queen Nyssa, is to blame.

Mauri, a vampire-fae hybrid, disagrees with her mother’s dreams of dominating Faerie and the human realm through blood and fear.

To stop Queen Nyssa, Mauri journeys to Faerie to enlist an army. She soon learns, however, that the fae do nothing for free. And their price may be steeper than she’s willing to pay.

When other attempts to form supernatural alliances fail too, Mauri must choose the lesser of all evils to align herself with and do it fast.

Because Queen Nyssa has already thrown her plans into action.

And Mauri is the only one powerful enough to stop her.

Faerie Blood is the final book in the Fanged Fae series. It’s a paranormal thriller with cunning vampires, charming fae, sassy witches, and romance.

And here’s the absolutely gorgeous cover of the book:

Here’s my review!

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review 🙂

Faerie Blood, the second (and final) book in the Fanged Fae series, begins with Mauri getting her vampire essence glamoured before she enters Faerie. Fae are naturally suspicious of vampires and are especially inclined not to trust nosferatu- so for Mauri, it is better to appear as a full Fae!

Mauri and her friends are headed to Faerie to try to convince her grandparents, the King and Queen of Ys, to amass an army to fight her mother, who wants supernaturals to reign supreme over both the human world and Faerie. After all, Mauri’s mother is the one who orchestrated the attack that turned her nosferatu and wishes for them to rule the world together.

While the Queen is quite pleasant, the King is very wary and has more of a haughty demeanor. He agrees to help Mauri, but tries to trick her into exchanging a blood oath, but Mauri will have none of it! She is determined to amass an army on her own. With the help of her friends (including an awesome rogue vampire) she gets an army together.

Mauri’s mother moves fast though, and the battle is a long and tense one. The outcome was a little different than what I expected, which is not necessarily a bad thing!

I really enjoyed this short series! The characters were all well-developed and I enjoyed the way they interacted with each other. I just felt like maybe Mauri needed a little more time to get her act together. I mean, she was turned nosferatu and then a week later she’s fighting her mother? I wish a few more months could’ve gone by so we could see her grow into her powers more. Nevertheless, this was a fun series and I’m sad to see it end already!

I rated this book 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads!

End Game Thoughts: Lily’s Day Off!

Game Title: Lily’s Day Off
Platform: iPhone
Hours Played: about 45 minutes

About The Game

Lily’s Day Off is a visual novel game that was released on Steam in 2017. It has since been released on a few other platforms. I played mine on my iPhone. It was free, though you can pay a small amount ($2.99 maybe?) to get rid of ads. I didn’t find the ads particularly intrusive, so I didn’t pay to remove them!

Anywho, Lily’s Day Off involves you meeting pop idol Lily, who seems to have lost her memory. Your character (who remains unseen) helps her remember who she is. Since this is a visual novel, every action you choose has a consequence, and those choices can lead to some really weird shit! There are 16 different endings in all to find, which is pretty neat.

What I Liked

The fact that this game offers such drastically different paths! The paths range from sweet, to weird, to completely twisted! I can’t say much about them, because I don’t want to spoil the game for anyone who hasn’t played it and might want to… but yeah, this game is a fun little diversion that encourages you to make as many different choices as you can! Because of its short length, each path takes only a few minutes to play through, so it doesn’t become cumbersome.

Also, I appreciate the fact that the choices you have already made are grayed out, so you can keep track of the paths you’ve already taken.

What I Didn’t Like

There wasn’t really anything I didn’t like. Well, except maybe for the fact that there is zero replay value. Once you complete every path and unlock every ending, there really isn’t any reason to play again, because you already know all the possible outcomes. There is some kind of feature to get Lily a couple new outfits, but I didn’t really care to dive into that.

Closing Thoughts

I played through all 16 paths in about 45 minutes. The game is short and sweet and doesn’t demand too much from you. It takes you on a weird, fun and occasionally disturbing journey, and I’m glad I played it!

End Game Thoughts: Shark! Shark!

Game Title: Shark! Shark!
Platform: Intellivision Plug and Play
Hours Played: about 40 minutes

Does anyone else have an Intellivision Plug and Play System? There seem to be a few of them out there, but mine is the 10 in 1 version that I bought many years ago! It’s a fun little system and I’ve always enjoyed playing it from time to time. Anyway, this little End Game Thoughts post is about Shark! Shark!, one of the games on this system!

About The Game

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27741622

Shark! Shark! was originally released for the Mattel Intellivision in 1982. In this game, you start out as a small fish swimming around with a bunch of other fish. You can only eat fish smaller than you, or else you die. Immediately. Eat a bunch of fish smaller than you, and eventually you become bigger and can eat more of the fish! There’s a giant shark that swims around and makes a really rude sounding noise every time he appears, but I don’t know what he does except try to kill you. Maybe eventually you get big enough to eat the shark? I’m not that cool, so I never found out.

What I Liked

This is a fun game that’s easy to pick up and play for a little bit. It doesn’t really require too much thought or explanation, so I enjoyed playing a few rounds just to beat my high score! I thought the bleeps and bloops the game made in lieu of music was cute and made me feel quite nostalgic.

What I Didn’t Like

So, you have 5 lives. Unfortunately, when you die, you go back to being the smallest size fish, so you have to start all over. Your score is the only thing that rolls over from life to life.

Also, the fish is constantly moving, meaning you are always pushing the D-pad to keep it out of danger. A small gripe, sure, but my poor arthritic hands were tired after awhile!

Closing Comments

 

This is a fun, cute game that anyone can play! The difficulty gradually rises but doesn’t ever become unbearable. My hands just got tired after awhile! I played this game for around 40 minutes, and my high score was 29,720. Not too shabby I think! I’d like to go back and play again and see if I can eventually eat the shark… 😉