Pixel Puzzles: Japan

Pixel Puzzles: Japan
N/A
Metacritic
81
Steam
78.028
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$0.99
Release date
17 April 2014
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
81 (2 571 votes)

Pixel Puzzles: Japan combines traditional jigsaw puzzle style gameplay with light video-game interactivity.

Show detailed description

Pixel Puzzles: Japan system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP
  • Processor: Core 2 Duo
  • Memory: 1 GB RAM
  • Graphics: DirectX 9.0 Compatible
  • Storage: 85 MB available space
  • Sound Card: Generic Sound Device
Updated
App type
Steam APP ID
284950
Platforms
Windows PC
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Starlight PMS
Starlight PMS

Simple, relaxing Jigsaw Puzzle game. The only flaw is you cannot save the puzzles halfway through. Get it on sale or in a bundle.

Cobalt Nova
Cobalt Nova

PUZZLE, nothing more i can describe. Each level become more difficult because the puzzle's piece shape become more difficult to be played than normal puzzle piece. The puzzle's picture are and also a good backgorund music to enjoy solving the puzzle.

Has trading cards, easy 100% achievement. REALLY RECOMMENDED!!

TokyoLuvr
TokyoLuvr

I really enjoy this game. I love puzzles and I love the pictures of Japan, its so pretty! I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys jig-saw puzzles and pictures of Japan. There is a couple flaws to the game though that you should know before you purchase it.
1. Sometimes when you click on a puzzle piece that happens to be surrounded by other pieces, it may take you 50 tried before actually picking up the piece you want.
2. There is NO SAVING OPTIONS. And this can be a big issue when you need to take a break while in the middle of a puzzle, once you close out of it you can never go back to that progress you made.
They really should fix that.

purplepenguinjen
purplepenguinjen

Nice jigsaw puzzle game with beautiful art. Beginning levels are easy, but each level gets increasingly difficult. Great game for those who enjoy jigsaws.

Phyrewall
Phyrewall

Honestly, I like this game. It's very piece-ful (get it?), and the puzzles are of decent challenge. The hardest part and my biggest complaint is the way you pick up the pieces. Floating around is nice, but the game hardly ever picks up the piece you are clicking on, and if you drop the piece you didn't want back in the water, it often resets the position of the pieces underneath it, making you lose track of the piece you were originally looking for. (Whew! That was a bit of a run on...)

I'd give the game an 6/10.

Pros:

- Puzzles are decently pieced to provide a challenge.
- Graphics are decent for a casual game.

Cons:

- Music track is repetative and has a loud noise in it that gets annoying. (I mute while playing.)
- Cursor tracking during piece pick up.
- No saving! You close the game before finishing a puzzle, all progress is lost.

rickzeN
rickzeN

Quite a boring game. Easy achievments though, almost all of them from just completing all the puzzels. Guide has a nice trick to complete them even easier. 4/10

SinRopa
SinRopa

More issues than zombie version.

Does whats advertised. If you like jigsaw, go nuts. FYI, I put in 7 hours today, if my current playtime is still bugged to a few minutes.

Easy achievement game but currently only ranked at 17pt perfect game.

zakk_tell
zakk_tell

The hit boxes for the moving puzzle pieces are a shame.I once ragequit the game because i could get the piece i wanted even for the tenth time.The pieces are moving around in a random fashion and you have to grab them but it is waaay to hard because of the random movement and the bad hitboxes.
I would be a very good game in fact if they would repair the hitboxes or the pieces weren't moving around above and below each other in a random fashion.
Most of my time in this game i hunt for the pieces so i could finish it faster if it weren't for the idiotic hitboxes and movments.

UPDATE:
Wooow i could only get the one piece i wanted for the 67th time....I followed it with the curosor but when i click it always grabbed the piece below it...Just WTF?Why can't grab the uppermost piece?Why do i always grab the lowest piece?Just why?This is stupid...Please fix this please i beg you!

So if you don't have patience just don't buy it you will rage like hell when you just can't fish out the piece you want.
So i don't recomend it!

Excadaba
Excadaba

Edit: Thank you Steam for finally letting me remove this tub of clunk from my library. This Pixel Puzzles trash is the only thing that I've ejected. Why? Well it sucks.

I dig on some jigsaws, so I figure I'll give this a try. Helping the waterhead who dumped all the puzzle pieces in the pond. Should be a good time right? That's what I thought.

The pieces floating around in the pond are a test of patience and ultimately end up being extremely frustrating. Not the kind of thing one expects from a little jigsaw game. Oh but why is it frustrating? This is where the game fails. Say you see this nifty little piece, you know exactly where it goes. The piece is floating right on top even! :happy click: Nope, you didn't get the piece you wanted to pick up, the one your mouse was over. Okay, no big deal, lets try again. :click: Nope, once again you've managed to pick up some other piece you weren't hovering the mouse over. Hey one more time, why not? :click: Yes, the trend continues, picking up any piece but the one you actually wanted.

That's the game in a nutshell. Trying like hell to pick up the one piece you'd like to select, the piece logic says you should select, the piece you'd like to place. Only to find, you pick up any piece but the one you're hovering over.

This is one of those sadistic games that you think will be cool, spend a few minutes playing and relaxing. Only to have it end up being a frustrating experience of head meets wall every time you try to select a piece.

On the plus side of things, you can pick up the fish no problem any time you want and watch it flop around. Even with that bit of playing sadist back to the game, it's not worth it and the fish doesn't have it coming.

Sidewalk Songbird
Sidewalk Songbird

There are only 21 puzzles making the replay value quite low. The challenge seems to be how far you can get before you rage quit trying to get the piece you want from the shifting pool. The issue gets worse the further you get.

Finding the game on sale for a buck or less would be the right time to buy, value wise, if you are interested, otherwise don’t bother.

DryRot
DryRot

The puzzles are great. The idea of having the pieces floating in the river is great. The IDEA of plucking the pieces out of the river like fish is great. Actually trying to grab a piece out of the river is ridiculous. You can click (literally) dozens of times on the piece you want and pick up instead some other piece every time. In fact, the piece you actually get is usually no where near the piece you're clicking on. Its a mess on higher level puzzles with more pieces. It's maddening. I can only imagine what a nightmare the last puzzle is going to be but I want to finish them all so ... :(

Todd Marshall
Todd Marshall

"Pixel Puzzles: Japan" is what you would expect from a puzzle game, except for some mismatches in the programming neclecting to some extend the variety of reality puzzles and score lines such as time tables as well as Multiplayer competition.
To start with statistics, they simply do not exist, though it would be wishful to see at least your best time and perhaps a score line corresponding to weight functions of the puzzle parts.
Another missing is Multiplayer Mode, and of course, one can easily imagine how attractive this gane could become with such an institution installed in accordance to the standards.
The reality comparision may not be totally appropriate, but it's noteworthy to recognize that you cannot rotate the puzzle parts, i.e. they are always preset to insert. An additional rotation (the function of the right mouse button is not in use in this game), perhaps combined with an additional difficulty level (there is only one level explicitly given), would surely make this game more interesting.
So, then, after explaining the need of some expansion pack to justify the price (at the moment 70% off would do), what is positive about this game? Answer: It's the shaping of the puzzle parts combined with the variety of motifs, which evoke different strategies of solvation. Thereby, strategies can be chosen according to the color (motif) and the shape of the puzzle parts, especially orientated towards the border parts of the puzzle. Together with the number of puzzle parts, these three ingredients, as functions of the motif, determine a certain level of difficulty. For example, a temple of 112 parts with clear shaped lines and strict color changes could be said to be of an easier handling than a picture of a Sakura branch of 250 parts, where you are left alone with the almost one colored Sakura blossoms. Therefore, the need of concentration in solving a puzzle applying some sorts of strategy makes it clear that this game can be of some interest, generally speaking.

Nobuyuki Sanada
Nobuyuki Sanada

Finally done.

This is an old-fashioned puzzle game with Japanese themes. For me, the gameplay is fun. But, it makes me bored sometime because there are so many floating part of puzzles. You will face many different shape of puzzles (from small to large size). It's very difficult at first time. However, there is a traditional Japanese music (please, tell me if I am wrong) so I can relax a while I am solving the puzzle. You will know the structure of puzzles at the end.

By the way, I don't understand why there is a Koi fish in the pond. We should put it somewhere to stop the water flowing from bamboo pipe. If you know, tell me.

Should I recommend this game?

Yes, I should. If you are a puzzle lover, I would recommend to grab this game. The price of game is cheap.

I love Japan. I like the beautiful scenery of Japan. I like the historical building of Japan.

Thanks to the Monk, I am your follower now.

Trash Panda ʕ◔ᴥ◔ʔ
Trash Panda ʕ◔ᴥ◔ʔ

This game interface is bad, some piecies shapes are just awful and the way pieces that match together don't stick to one another is pretty anoying but I was still able to have fun.

UthersonL
UthersonL

A proper no-nonsesne jigsaw puzzle game - no other types of puzzles, no minigames, only a slow increase in challenge. Steam could use more games like this. Still, there are some things I'd rather were done differently, like being able to look up the full image at any point rather than having to "earn" an opportunity to do so.

FlabbyBawls
FlabbyBawls

A competent and beautiful looking little jigsaw puzzle game that never climbs into very high difficulty levels.

+Beautiful looking puzzles with a japanese theme
+Fairly small puzzles makes it easy to jump in for short sessions
+Very simple meta game gives a small sense of progression
+Moving pieces makes it more difficult to choose and analyse the what piece you need
+Snapping mechanic when a piece is in the right spot is a quality of life improvement
+The patterns between pieces vary in a handful of different pattern and gives a great sense of variation

-Bug makes it hard to choose the correct pieces
-Does not save your puzzles, so unless you complete a puzzle, the progress is not saved
-Some may find even the largest puzzles to be too small for their taste

If you want to jump in for a short session of jigsaw puzzling, this game is quite nice. With the good looking pictures, and change of piece patterns, the game never manages to feel old or stale to me. I enjoyed it from start to finish.

However, if you think the bug making pieces hard to pick will break the game for you, or you are on the lookout for huge jigsaw puzzles that you can sink hours and hours into before they are done, perhaps this is not the optimal puzzler for you.

Nifty
Nifty

Nice and relaxing puzzle game. Sometimes it goes more annoying than relaxing though, when you can't pick up the puzzle pieces properly. But I enjoyed it none the less.

Tabascofanatikerin
Tabascofanatikerin

"Pixel Puzzles: Japan" is a fine timewaster.
Do you like puzzles? Excellent. Do you like Japanese culture? It's certainly not necessary but if you like it it's even better.
There are 21 puzzles in total to finish with photorealistic motifs mostly of Japanese buildings and gardens. First, of course, the puzzles are very easy. But don't underestimate the last ones. They can really steal the time as their puzzle pieces become smaller, more and more special in shape, the motifs also seem to be unclearer to see. But all in all they're good to solve.
So the gameplay is just dragging pieces to certain places until they automatically snap in. But it can be a pain in the a... to grab a very certain piece you want because they all float into each other (like on water) and it also turns into a "catch me if you can" game. Just to prepare you for possible little moments of frustration.
The graphics are not especially beautiful but okay. When it comes to music there's only one Japanese instrumental song played. It's nice but soon you won't wanna listen to the same song over and over again. So either mute the music or do so and hold your own (Japanese) background music on standby.

I recommend this game for relaxing puzzle sessions (I, for example, enjoyed this a lot after work) and would like to try out the other puzzle games by Decaying Logic someday.

Digikomori
Digikomori

A jigsaw puzzle game consists of essentially two things: picking peices up, and setting them down. Some how this game manages to screw up both.

The snap to grid is ridiculously loose, and does not require *any* adjacent peices, making it a common occurrence to set a piece down and have it magically jump into a position you had not yet identified. Brute forcing tricky areas by picking-up-dropping-picking-up-dropping until it snaps is way to easy to do... trains you quickly to play by trial-and-error not analysis.

If that was all, I'd still give this game a thumbs up. Sadly, the peice-selection interface is broken beyond hope. You spot a peice, you mouse directly over it, you click, and... you get randomly one of the thirty closest peices. On the latter puzzles it is virtually impossible to pick up a specific peice without 10-20 attempts. I can't express how frustrating this is. Completely game breaking. Clearly this was not play tested.

tl;dr game with real potential sadly broken by unusable interface.

diotialate
diotialate

jigsaw puzzles with no steam cloud saves. There's no saving. This game is not worth more than 10 bucks. I got this game in a huge bundle so I paid like 50 cents for this game, so I'm rating it up because it's an easy way to get a "Perfect game" (100 percent achievements accomplished in a game.) Can't wait for the next game in the series, Pixel Puzzles Anime.

Mirianda
Mirianda

A very pretty, well done puzzle game with a few quirks.

quirk one: you have to litterally "fish" your puzzle peices out of the moat around the board. Yes, you can catch the fish. No, you cannot catch the lily pads. Yes, you can put the fish into the water feature in the bottom left corner of the screen.

quirk 2: This one did bother me a bit. There is no "save" feature. If you do not finish a puzzle, but close it, you will have to start that puzzle all over again. This was not an issue on the smaller puzzles at the beginning, but the later ones take a while. I ended up leaving the game up and running errands and then picking it back up when I came home.....

This is still a recommended game and it was a very nice change of pace.

Issysia
Issysia

- lovely pics
- new and interesting puzzle cuts
- okay music, could do with variety
- interesting puzzle pool concept, but may need new ideas for bigger puzzles, as pieces tend to overlap, making them hard to catch
- no save feature.
- NO. SAVE. FEATURE.

6/10
for no save feature.

Azghouls
Azghouls

Computer puzzle games have been around for a long while – well as far as I can remember. My earliest knowledge is called ‘European Scene Jigsaw Puzzles Vol. 1’ by Thorn EMI UK way back in 1981. A nice game with crisp graphics amid the moderate choice of colours, it served its purpose. Fast forward to April 2014, another puzzle game caught my attention which happens to be in the form of this review – Pixel Puzzles: Japan. What attracted me to this game is the theme (Japan) that plays upon the ‘traditional’ puzzle gameplay. Well, once I have knocked out all the puzzles, this puzzle game leaves a lot to be desired.

So let’s start off with the good points first. This puzzle game certainly does have a traditional Japanese feel with the puzzle borders filled with water and floating Lilly pads – that is the Koi Pond. Also there’s a carp swimming about where you can actually can catch it. Place the carp on the puzzle board and he’ll fishtail back (excuse the pun) to the pond. There are other things you can do to the carp however I let you discover it (and no, you cannot eat it).

There are nineteen puzzles to choose from and the pieces range from sixty to the granddaddy three hundred and fifty. I guess the puzzle purists won’t considering three hundred and fifty large however, in this game, it’s the largest. The puzzle pieces are not your ‘traditional’ piece as most have weird shapes to them. In addition to this, you cannot refer to the puzzle picture at all as there’s an additional ‘feature’ where you need to unlock - the ‘Power of the I-Ching’.

The way this works is that there’s a golden ‘Yin Yang’ piece randomly placed in the puzzle. Once you place the piece on the random placement, you unlock one part of the I-Ching. Do this eight times you can use its power. The power is the reveal the actual picture for a short moment or two and that’s about it. Talking about a buzz killer aye. I guess the developers needs something ‘authentic’ to enhance this game.

And now here comes the unpleasant parts. First thing is this I-Ching concept – personally it’s just a waste of feature as the puzzles are all quite easy to do. Granted some are a little difficult however for me, the I-Ching is just a gimmick that can do without. Secondly, you can go crazily clicking on every part of the canvas until the piece slots in as there’s no penalty to do so. Also, because the game forces the pieces to slot in nicely, it takes away the fun of building ‘mini canvases’ all over the board.

Third, you cannot rotate the pieces so every piece is the right way up so it’s making this easy puzzle game even easier to play. Fourth, there’s no save feature so you cannot park the puzzle to take a little rest and fifth, there’s a bug where, when you try to grab a puzzle piece from the pond, there’s a good chance that you will select another piece close to it instead of the one you have chosen. I think the reason behind this is the puzzle's algorithm. It’s designed that, if there’s a couple of pieces bunched up together, the algorithm selects the piece that represents the north western corner of the picture first and finally, south eastern corner last.

Yet there’s two more that really grips me the most. The first being the quality of all the pictures. I presume they are the developer's photos however, all the pictures are extremely low quality. This is an absolute no-no as, being a puzzle game, its primary objective is to provide the user high quality pictures. The second is the abysmal sounds – the background music is nothing more than a short musical scores that loops over and over again. Also the sound quality, just like the photos are abysmal – very low quality; so low you can even hear the hissing sound. At least they could have bought a decent microphone or maybe remove the hissing sound from the original recording.

Other than completing the puzzles, there’s an extra feature where you can view the gallery and see who made this game (without the dart board). There’s also two additional puzzles to complete at any time as, I believe are the free DLC for this game – another words, you don’t have to unlock them. So being a ‘traditional’ puzzle game is nothing more than a farce. With so many negatives, it’s a wonder why I completed all the puzzles. Actually the main reason why I did is because of the achievements. If there wasn’t any, this puzzle game will be ditched straight into the bin, figuratively speaking.

3 / 10

Vic=HKC=
Vic=HKC=

Weirdly enough, I was convinced to have reviewed the game on Steam. Well, it seems that only my website got the privilege. I'm repairing the error now.

Pixel Puzzles: Japan is a game where you have to rebuild an image which is a Japanese landscape. Each time the puzzle is completed, you unlock new ones, with more pieces (it can go over 300!). The pieces are floating in the pond, with a koi wandering around. Some of them hide a bonus that, once completed, can be used though I don't remember what it's doing - if I have it used at all. I was more focused on rebuilding a castle or a monastery or a park than worrying about it.

Each puzzle shape are special: you can have arrows for example. As you don't know what's the image looks like (I suppose that the bonus is about showing for a few seconds the whole picture), you have to relay on the nuances of the color.

As it's the first game in the series, there are negative points: taking the pieces isn't easy. Indeed, you want to take one but you're ending up with the one that was passing under it or around it. It lacks also of a saving feature: if you have to interrupt your game, you will have to redo the puzzle from the beginning. And as some can take hours to finish, you bet that it would be nice to save it and come back later.

The game is still a very good, with beautiful landscapes and with a good challenge provided.

Vienticus Prime
Vienticus Prime

First off, I love jigsaw puzzles, so it always interests me when there's a jigsaw puzzle title so I can see what kind of gimmicks they put into the software. In this one, you have all the pieces floating around randomly in the water and when you put enough specific pieces in place, you can get a brief preview of what the finished image is supposed to be.

For most of the puzzles, this is all fine and dandy. However, when you get to the last few puzzles that are over 200 pieces, trying to find that piece that you're looking for floating in that mess is quite annoying. And then, I don't know how, but somehow the computer knows what piece you're going after and gives you every other piece BUT the one you're going after. It'll even give you a piece that's not where you're clicking, only near it.

Another thing that I didn't care for in this title is the method that the pieces snap into place. On this one, the pieces snap to the board. I much prefer that the pieces snap to each other since it makes it easier to see if you got any pieces laying around on the board when you're wondering what the hell you did with the last few pieces.

One thing I really did like about this was the interesting ways the pieces were cut. It made the puzzles seem more unique and fun.

It took me about 13 hours to go through all of this. My overall rating lands just on the not recommended side.

SuperDre
SuperDre

I think it's the first pixel puzzle, and it shows, It's easier than the later ones.
The pieces are already in the correct position so you don't need to rotate them.
The pictures are nice, but sometimes a bit blurry.

The biggest culprit, the 220 puzzles are a nightmare to do, you try to pick a piece from the pond (when there are still a lot of pieces) and it's always the wrong piece.. Reading the forums, this has been a bug for a long time and has never been fixed (that's really bad as it should have never even be this crap)... But as another user says, the easiest is with these 220 puzzles, to not drive you insane, is to just put the wrong piece on a pile on the edge of the board and dump them later back into the pond..
Mind you this only seems to happen with the 220 puzzles, all the others don't really seem to have this problem.

Another minor point is the two extra 220 puzzles above and below the 350 one, if you finished them, they stay greyed out..

I bought this when it was on sale for 1.40 euro, and I think that's a good price, but I can't recommend it full price due to the annoying bug (and the fact the developers haven't fixed it even though they have released a couple of other pixel puzzles after that one).

Miss Luny
Miss Luny

Pixel Puzzles: Japan is a fun puzzle game with motives from Japan. In my opinion they have choosen really good pictures for their puzzles.
Before this game, I played Pixel Puzzles 2: Anime and really enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to this game.
And I wasn't disappointed. But still, there are a few things, I disliked.
But since this game was released BEFORE -Pixel Puzzles 2: Anime- I can forgive the missing features.
The two things that I really missed were:
1. The Puzzle Pieces were in the right direction all the time, so you don’t have to spin them, to see where they can fit. (Not that tragic)
2. You can’t save while doing a puzzle.
In Pixel Puzzles 2: Anime the games saves by itself, you can start with a puzzle, close the game and progress further with it when you got time. This feature is completely missing here.
If you start with a Puzzle, you have to finish it. If you close the game, you have to start over with the current puzzle. Kind of annoying at the later Puzzles.

Still, I recommend the game.
The motives are nice, The Puzzles are fun. Every Puzzle has its own unique pieces. So you have to look for something else in every game.

If you’re looking for a good, fun and relaxing Puzzle game, you will not regret buying it.
Still, if you only want one puzzle game and like anime-style puzzles, I would go for Pixel Puzzles 2: Anime, alone for the comfortable save option.

Moshi
Moshi

After 9.1 hours I finally did all of the puzzles!
Honestly what can you expect from a puzzle game.
Music is relaxing
Pieces floating around can get kind of annoying
Fast and easy achievements
Don't have to clean up all the dang pieces like you do in real life
Saving your progress is kind of iffy

At least you are not trying to jam pieces where they dont belong

6.5/10

johnny_m_j
johnny_m_j

Too easy and way too few puzzles. By doing each puzzle once, you get all the achievements (except 1, which is VERY easy to figure out), which is the only reason I bothered finishing it. Grab it on some sale if you like jigsaws, else don't bother - not expensive at full price, but too expensive for what you get.

Btw, there's one big problem with this one:
There's a small area where all your pieces moves around constantly. When there's a lot of pieces there, you'll rarely be able to get the one you're pointing at, without removing most others first. That gets extremely annoying very fast.

Lacy
Lacy

Nice puzzle game. My 3 year old son that the koi was hilarious, especially when it swims across the screen if you take it out of the water. The graphics were nice. However, there is no saving, auto or manual. So, expect to sit down and either complete it in one go or have it running in the background while you do other things. If you exit before you completed all the puzzles, you'll have to restart in your Achievement quest.

I would recommend this game, although I have been told the other Pixel Puzzles are better. I'd try to catch this one on sale since the nonexistant saving gets REALLY frustrating (especially when you want to take a break and play a different game!)

Magick_Lady 🐱💕
Magick_Lady 🐱💕

great game for those loving jigsaw puzzles . Also easy enough the get all achievements and make your perfect game rate higher on your profile LOL

Robun
Robun

This game is pretty decent, it can be nice and relaxing but whoever programmed the piece-grabbing shat the bed. You can literally spend minutes fighting with the game trying to grab the right piece because they float around in a pond. It is a nightmare.

joan4003
joan4003

Pixel Puzzle franchise. Recommended for those who literally like to put puzzles together, and I do mean piece by piece.

Pixel Puzzles: Japan

Help the monk reach enlightenment by doing the 5 levels of puzzles - 21 puzzles total. (Poor thing by the end looks like his enlightment made him forget to take a bath. Just made me chuckle, that is all.)

Level 1: 6 puzzles - 60 pieces. Level 2: 5 puzzles - 112 pieces. Level 3: 4 puzzles - 153 pieces. Level 4: 3 puzzles - 220 pieces. Level 5: 1 puzzle - 350 pieces, plus 2 bonus puzzles of 350+ pieces. Extra feature - picture gallery of all puzzles.

Each puzzle level becomes progressively "harder" 1) due to the amount of pieces and 2) due to the piece shape.

Since there is really no place to sort pieces some creative stacking is required along the puzzle border or on the puzzle board itself. Fortunately once a piece is placed, it stays in place even if by serendipious chance it ends up in the middle of the puzzle board.

For me the truest difficultly lie not so much the oddly shaped pieces in some puzzles but fishing the MOVING pieces out of the koi pond. On two sides of each puzzle board is the koi pond where the pieces float and move along with water lillies and a swimming koi carp fish. One can be aiming for a certain piece and miss getting that piece repeatedly. Ah well, creative stacking. One can even "play" with the koi fish. The fish can be picked up and dropped on the puzzle board. The fish will then squiggle back to the pond.

The puzzles are iconic pictures from Japan: cherry blossoms, temple gardens, temples, castles, bridges, dragon dog, and even a dragon. The picture gallery shows all the puzzle pictures. The music is also iconic traditional Japanese music predominately played in temples.

PerksHunter
PerksHunter

First of all, the major thing about this game is the horrible controls and UI. As hard as ruining a casual zen game is, the managed it. Props!

The hardest part about this game is actually catching your needed piece, even when you see it. Your mouse will get anything BUT what you need.

Cons:
Moving free pieces that make you fight for the right to pick them up, and not in a good way.
Bad ui choices make you looking for the play button, and you click to find out what the other ones do, they dont make sense visually.
Puzzles reset when you leave

Pros:
At least the pieces don't rotate
Piles you make tend to disperse pieces in order of puzzle placing, which is a boon

Amehana Arashiryuu
Amehana Arashiryuu

This game is addicting if you are a puzzle lover. I enjoy how you take the monk through different levels and the puzzles get increasingly more difficult. Some of these would have been difficult already, but I saw ways of cutting the puzzle pieces that I would have never thought of. The soundtrack is very soothing, and the sub game with the fish got a chuckle out of me.

That cherry blossom one would have been hard no matter how the pieces were cut. I would have put that one later in the lineup, personally.

stian.rodland
stian.rodland

Not as sophisticated as the games in the ''Pixel Puzzle 2'' series (no puzzle piece rotation and fewer puzzles), but still a great game ...

herwryness
herwryness

The only thing about this game that I do not like is the lack of a save function. I understand more recent games in this series have this function. The music can be a little repetitve as well but that's a minor issue.

Meatshield
Meatshield

This is a decent puzzle game. I found it to be a bit challenging since you have no option of looking at the box to figure out what the puzzle might look like, until you build up the power meter and then you are only given a brief glance of the puzzle for 5 or so seconds.

Some of the things it lacks are the fact there is no save feature. (so you can go back to your puzzle if you are getting tired, or just run out of time) You have to play through the puzzle all the way or lose your progress.

Picking up pieces can be troublesome as well. It will tend to not let you pick up that edge piece unless it is the only piece with an inch of space around it, and even then, it may select another piece instead.

I did finish all the puzzles in this game and even though it did not unlock the last two puzzles I had done; I was ok with that. A good time waster, but not really much replay value.

Leedzie
Leedzie

If you're the sort of person that always spent visits at your grandparents' house doing puzzles with your granddad, then this game is for you. It's literally just putting together tabletop puzzles, complete with the old man to keep you company.

That said, I will offer one tidbit of advice: Try to only take pieces from the top of the pool, not the side. Nothing awaits you in the side pool but frustration and regret, and in this scenario you can't even fling the pieces on the floor to vent your indignation.

Max Wilco
Max Wilco

A pretty relaxing jigsaw puzzle game.

The music is mellow and doesn't really get repetitive, but it's pretty forgettable. The visuals are serviceable, but you may notice that the photos look sort of blurred or blobby-looking, as if they were run through a photo filter. I imagine that this was done to make them easier to piece together.

A lot of the reviews mention issues with inaccuracy selecting pieces from the ponds. Once the piece number increases, it gets harder to parse and track pieces, but it's not immensely frustrating. I do wish there was aa option to clear the board of pieces that haven't been correctly placed, rather than resetting the whole puzzle.

All in all, I'd recommend picking it up when it goes on sale.

Kadngi
Kadngi

Puzzle games. You either love them or you hate them. This game is bit of a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, it's kind of relaxing but at times, it can be rather tedious and a tiny bit frustrating. I guess at times you may end up feeling some sense of accomplishment after spending quite a bit of time which may take probably an hour or so getting all the pieces into place, especially as the the game gets harder and harder. I don't mind a challenge but it does irk me that there's no save function where you can stop playing for a bit and save your progress which is a bit of a problem since if you do close down the game you are forced to start all over again.

I don't think this is a game that's for everyone since it requires a lot of paitence to sometimes spend a long time on one puzzle which you're forced to do if you don't want to lose your progress. But if you're into that, fair enough.

Meezer Gal
Meezer Gal

If you love puzzles or just want a casual game to relax and unwind this one is perfect for you! I always play and replay this game when i'm stressed and it does the job. The music adds a nice touch of Japan and while the puzzles can get tricky you can always go back to the easy ones. Would love them to add more puzzles and maybe more Japanese music :) Would highly Recommend!!

Dementophobia
Dementophobia

It's a simple puzzle game. Nothing more, but also nothing less!

The images are nice and assembling the tiles is just relaxing. Just fire it up when you need to calm down and want to let your mind wander. A minor grievance is that picking up the tiles in the water is sometime not as precise as you want it to be and you end up picking the wrong tile 3 times in a row.

If you are looking for some easy achievements, this game provides 26 of them. Just play through the game and earn all of them without hassle.

Especially on sale it is really worth the price. For the regular price it might be close call, but if you get it on sale (currently 85% off), you can't go wrong!

Space Mage
Space Mage

Game is mostly simple, can have a glitch used to make levels a breeze. Not recommending to others as there is an irritating glitch in one of the larger puzzles where two pieces do NOT fit in where they should.

Nokia 3210
Nokia 3210

Level 19: I tried to select a piece and wanted to test how bad is the click detection of the game, i ended with 22 pieces instead of a blue one. "Have patiencie or learn to play ... " I have almost 150 hours in newest release of this series of game and i ended big and complex puzzles, but this older version is unplayable if you started with the new ones.

If you buy this game, complete the puzzles pixel puzzles ultimate

Mahina
Mahina

This is a very relaxing puzzle game. I haven't enjoyed a puzzle game in a long time.

The sound becomes a bit anoying but there is an option in the setting to mute it. Sometimes it's a bit hard to get the piece you click on, which means it will give you a complete different piece than you have focused on, but if you really like puzzle games, you get used to it after a while.

Also on the hardest difficulty i recommend to change the background colour to see the pieces better.

TwDMrWayne?!
TwDMrWayne?!

This game and its rum floating puzzle pieces make me extremely angry
There is also a bad imprecise mouse control
However, I will play the game to finish
If you want to have a better goal in FPS, play the game with the highest puzzle number!

wrb41977
wrb41977

This is one of the best of the Pixel Puzzle series. Being the first one I acquired, the music is nice, the koi pond an interesting concept, and the art of the puzzles great. While the puzzles do become increasingly more difficult as you progress in the tiers, it is still a beautiful game.

Buying this game automatically unlocks the puzzles from it in the Ultimate edition. Also, buying any of the volumes gives you the Ultimate game automatically (that's how I ended up with it).

Note: If the water drip thing is annoying you, just grab a fish from the pond and stick it in the spigot. Seriously... that actually counts as two achievements, one for grabbing a fish, and the second for sticking it in the pipe...

Kushina
Kushina

Well, it is a nice game, but I cannot recommend it. You would think, it is relaxing, but as other reviews are saying, it is more about ragequiting. I played the game 18 hours just because I am a little bit achievement hunter - and it was quite easy to get the achievements... well... beside the ragequiting. Game itself, pc game for puzzle, is a great idea, but, game mechanics are just terrible.

JD Herrera
JD Herrera

Pixel Puzzles: Japan * 7/10

Disclaimer: I obtained this game in a free public mass giveaway.
Pixel Puzzles: Japan is one of the Pixel Puzzles Collection and, as the title suggests, it's a Japan themed variant.

INTRO/GAMEPLAY. What is Pixel Puzzles: Japan about? How does it work?

Actually there's not much to say as the gameplay obviously consists in a puzzle to complete, so you have your central field where you can place the spare pieces floating on the upper and left side.
Puzzles are divided in 5 difficulty levels with a decreasing number of puzzles each. Difficulty lies in the number of tiles and their dimension as well because the higher difficulty level brings smaller tiles. Besides, each puzzle set has tiles with their own shapes and harder difficulties bring more odd and irregular shapes. A small advise: play this game on the biggest screen you have.

GRAPHIC. Engine And Artistic aspects.

The entire game is animated in 2d so I can't scream "miracle", yet it doesn't look bad anyways, and despite the game's title it doesn't look that pixellous.

SOUNDTRACK. Themes and Accompaniments.

The soundtrack in the game consists of simple sporadic strumming of the Koto (a japanese typical instruments) with the water cane snapping from time to time, so it's mostly an atmosphere sound. I personally like it but some friend of mine just find it irritating for no reason at all... Bah...

LAST NOTES. What doesn't work?

Once again I've noticed the difficulty in catching the floating tiles with your cursor because the cursor itself seems to be programmed to pick up anything but the highest and closest tile you're pointing. I don't understand it but this will cost you lots of time just to catch the desired tile. The same problem is present in the undeadZ variant of the Pixel puzzle collection, and now I'm kind of expecting to find it in other releases as well... Oh And just like in the UndeadZ version this glitch/feature magically diasppear as you're trying to complete the final biggest puzzle.

TL;DR. Pros And Cons

+++PROs+++

    PUZZLE. A simple and relaxing puzzle game. That's it.
    MUSIC. There isn't a real soundtrack playing continuously but there will be random strummings of Koto (A Japanese instrument) to keep the Japanese mood.

---CONs---

    CURSOR. For some odd reason the cursor seems intentionally glitchy as you will struggle to pick up the tile you're aiming while you will attract any other tile nearby. Pretty annoying.
    DIMENSIONS. You should play this game on the biggest screen you have because on higher difficulties tiles will get really small.
    SAVE GAME. There's no way to save the game, meaning you have to complete the puzzle you're working on or you will lose the progress on that puzzle. This is definitely odd as it might result a useless feature to use with the first puzzle but becomes very useful in the latest ones that might take long time to complete (almost two hours for the final one)

I played this game on this machine:
Laptop Lenovo Z50
Intel Core i5-4210U
8Gb RAM DDR3
GeForce 840M/Intel HD Graphics 4400
Windows 10 Home x64

You can follow my reviews through my curator page: Everybody's reviews
You can also join my Steam group: Everybody's reviews
You are welcome to join and post your own reviews, we can support each other!

Occupant
Occupant

This was a surprisingly pleasant pastime. Even as a fan of jigsaw puzzles, I didn't expect much from a digital version. I didn't think that the point-and-click interface would be a good replacement for the tactile exploration and organization of pieces. And while that is true (the game could stand to have a way to make piles of related pieces somewhere other than the solution area, and it could make it easier to pick up a specific piece you want), it was able to do some other things that no traditional physical puzzle could do. The edges could be truly unusual in shape, which provied to be a rather fun twist for many of the puzzles.

Inigo Montoya
Inigo Montoya

Putting together a puzzle, nothing more, nothing less. Great game to undwind with at the end of day.

FapEatNapRepeat
FapEatNapRepeat

If you get easily tilted by games or need a stress reliever, get this.
And no, it's not anime girls, it's scenery of anime creation land.

Most soothing puzzle game.

10/10.

Chane
Chane

Pixel Puzzles Japan is a puzzle game where you have to complete 21 different puzzles. The game starts easy with a low number of pieces and gradually becomes more difficult with more pieces for each new puzzle.

Puzzling as such is fun and well done. However, what's extremely annoying is the fact that the puzzles pieces are flowing in water and are constantly moving. Since sometimes five pieces are flowing over each other at the same position, it's almost impossible to grab the piece you need. You see it, you want it, you grab it but you end up with a different piece. This happens all the time and it sucks.

Unfortunately the game does not have an option to keep the pieces from moving. It would not be possible to implement this anyway, because the most difficult puzzles have so many pieces that the developers would not be able to display all of them at the same time on the screen because the space is insufficient. I assume that's why they decided to make the pieces flow in water.

Pros:
- puzzling in general is fun

Cons:
- extremely annoying because you keep missing the pieces you want
- terrible Japanese music (drives you nuts)
- turning off the music is not permanent. The next time you start the game it's back.
- you can't take screenshots. For some reason F12 does not work.

feastsun - フィストサン
feastsun - フィストサン

I love puzzles, but I stop play this game at 220 pieces. It's ridiculous when I see the piece I want but I can't pick it because 220 pieces moving together and overlap each others. It's very hard to pick the one I want -_-

bork
bork

Annoying music, annoying background, annoying buddha in the corner of the screen. My head hurts from the intense colors and the lack of anti-aliasing.

VodkaStrats
VodkaStrats

Everything's fine, but please, fix the "piece pool" system, it sucks trying to find and take pieces, particularly in the last puzzles, setting a piece priority for the pieces isn't a good solution when you just make the priority left to right and top to bottom instead of corners and edges.

SleepyTaito
SleepyTaito

I liked how the puzzle connectors were differently shaped compared to the standard puzzle piece. I enjoyed the background music and the Koi pond! Very relaxing!

Zathael_H
Zathael_H

A very relaxing game for when you just want to get into "Zen mode" and forget about everything else for a while. The pictures are quite beautiful and the gameplay is solid. If you are a fan of jigsaw puzzles, give this one a try.

MeaMoon.SSS
MeaMoon.SSS

Not a cheap puzzle game. However the Asian aesthetics are cool. Hope, that you'll some day have some spare money and experience this masterpiece yourself

[HRS] Ozz
[HRS] Ozz

Pixel Puzzles: Japan is a very relaxing puzzle game that has zen music in the background and beautiful puzzles. Make sure to catch the Koi fish that is on the screen! Can get all achievements for this game in about 7 to 9 hrs depending on how good you are at solving puzzles. I recommend this game for it's relaxing quality, beautiful puzzles and soothing background music.

Vak
Vak

You cannot save your progress or reliably click to select the right puzzle piece. Horrible experience but I like the pictures.

☮ne✟rue𝓢ax☯n
☮ne✟rue𝓢ax☯n

It's a shame you can't give a more on the fence rating, as I did enjoy it, and got my money's worth. However that said, I can't give it a positive rating for the glaring oversight of having no save option (not an issue early on for the easier puzzles). Sometimes this thing called "real life" takes over, and you have to stop playing, and your only options are to quit, or leave the PC on..... Not cool devs!

customtrimbydan
customtrimbydan

good luck trying to click on the piece you want, you'll get every other piece before you get the one you want, pretty terrible design

S.T.A.R.S Leon S. K.
S.T.A.R.S Leon S. K.

For 150,200 or 300 puzzle pieces you need really strong will to keep up. Maybe some find this relaxing or helping falling in sleep but for me it was just hard to not give up. Its not really funny. Its boring.

But

+++ 100 % achievements
+ Trading Cards (could be a bit less then 12 (5 is perfect, 6 is super, 7 is very good, 12 is okay)

Good for Achievement Hunters & Trading Card Collectors.

Credissimo
Credissimo

This could be good if it wasn't so terribly coded.

As long as you are working on a less complex puzzle, everything is fine. But when there are a lot of pieces, it gets very annoying. The pieces swim around the board overlapping each other and you have almost no chance to pick a specific one unless there is nothing else around. It almost feels like they give you the one you want last on purpose. Pieces get stuck to the cursor even when you released the mouse already. They spawn in the same position every time, creating unnecessary clusters.

You cannot come back to an unfinished puzzle - you have to complete everything in one go! There is only one music track! You can cheat by placing pieces in approximate places until they get magnetized to their correct one. You can't even rotate pieces. For a game that simulates jigsaw puzzles and nothing else to not enable rotating pieces is pretty cheap if you ask me.

I'm not saying you can't have fun with this. But you need to show a lot of good will. A professional programmer can make this engine in an afternoon. The pictures are scattered into pieces proceduraly, which doesn't take effort. This way they can pop out one game after the other. What I'm saying is: This game is cheaply made, so don't pay more for it than it is worth.

yukioro
yukioro

OK puzzle game

What this game is: A simple puzzle game.

How does it work? The game has 19 jigsaw puzzles you have to complete in order to finish the game (and get your 26 achievements), plus 2 bonus ones. You basically have to pick the pieces from a pond surrounding the assembly area. The pieces will be "moving", or floating around as if pushed by a current. Difficulty increases with the puzzle level. The shapes of the pieces will change from picture to picture ensuring a more interesting play.

How does it perform? It works as it should. No bugs, pretty basic play, with relaxing music. Controls are so-so, clicking the pieces seems to suffer from a delay on the bigger puzzles.

The good: the game works as it should. No bugs. Varied pieces shapes from one puzzle to another provide some visual variety. Relaxing music. Takes only 120 MB on your HD, and will run on your toaster.

The bad: Its replay value is very limited. Once you have gone through the proposed pictures, there is nothing more to it. Control of the pieces becomes bad with bigger puzzles. The clicking mechanic in the pond is annoying: whenever you try to pick a specific piece, the game may make you pick the ten around it before you can finally grab the one that interests you.

My take on this: This game is an OK puzzle game, nothing more. It this type of game is your thing, you may get some entertainment out of it. But do not buy it at full price, it is not worth it. Buy when heavily discounted would be my recommendation.

Zerophius
Zerophius

Just another free puzzle game...like i have said before Pixel Puzzles are one of the best puzzle games you can buy or in this case get for free. Relax enjoy and play.

Makikomi
Makikomi

This game comes with a little sub-game. It's called "THAT'S NOT THE FUCKING PIECE I CLICKED ON YOU BASTARDS". The game is decent enough, but my god the mechanics for clicking on a piece tested my patience. The loose pieces are constantly moving and many a time I clicked on a clear and distinct piece only to have the game select another piece that was close by or even underneath the one I wanted. This is the one main frustration for me, and which may deter me from buying any others in the series.

Suggestions for improvement:
1) The ability to filter border pieces from the non-border pieces
2) Improved puzzle piece selection - would make the game simpler, easier and less stressful
3) The option to stop all the loose pieces moving
4) Music and FX settings to be permanent. Fed up with having to turn down the music every time I load the game up.
5) The ability to click two adjacent pieces together even if neither of them are in the right location on the puzzle. (Eg is the puzzle has a red car in it, I'd like to be able to gather all the red bits and make the car even if I'm not sure where the car is located in the puzzle picture.

MrNuts70
MrNuts70

A fun Puzzle Game!

Theme is Japan! If you like traditional Japanese images,
and puzzles well.....this is PERFECT FOR YOU!

I finished all the puzzles and got all the Achievements, it was worth it!
Had lots of fun in the process too!!

I like Japan! I live in Japan!
For me this was fantastic!

Now its Free!!!!!

So nothing to loose but time!