I always dread this time of year in the gaming world. The time when all those quick slap-em-together holiday games start popping up with their festive theming and seductive covers, pulling on my already sugar coated heart strings in an attempt to get me to hit that download button.
Maybe, they whisper to me, maybe this time, this holiday themed game will be decent. Maybe... just maybe, I won't want to stab myself with an icepick after playing it.
At least that's what I tell myself anyhow. So, when I downloaded my first Halloween game this season, I decided to go with something a little on the safe side... Holiday Jigsaw: Halloween.
Usually, the jigsaw puzzles are pretty transparent. No surprises here. Just a simple jigsaw game that tries to mimic one of my favorite past times as best it can.
And that's exactly what Holiday Jigsaw: Halloween was.
There are no frills or fancy title screens for this game. It doesn't pretend to be more than it is, and for that, it earns my respect. From the moment, you launch the game, you're presented with a bunch of different puzzles to choose from. And, while I didn't really see how some of them were Halloween themed (there were Christmas colored candy corn), they did have a nice selection of what I'll call fall-based themes.
I cut my teeth on a simple puzzle, the 12-piece pumpkin puzzle, just to get a chance to learn the mechanics of the game. It seemed simple enough, click and drop a piece to move it into position, right click it to rotate it. Easy peasy.
Of course, you have a few options available to you. You can choose how easy or difficult a puzzle is. How many pieces the puzzle has, how many cuts each piece has, and whether you want to rotate each piece, or just have them start out right side up.
There's also a little box in the upper left hand corner that you can store excess pieces in. This feature comes in handy when you're dealing with a ton of pieces.
After I made quick work of the pumpkin, I was ready for something a bit more my speed. So I pulled up a beautiful red barn puzzle (oh, how I love barns), maxed out the number of cuts and pieces, allowed for rotation, and hit play.
As usual with a digital jigsaw puzzle, it is much more awkward moving each little piece around than it would be if you just laid it out on your kitchen table, especially when you've got a full board to contend with. But the game did allow you to highlight a few pieces by dragging your mouse around a selection, and then moving them to the box. On the flip side of that, you won't ever lose a piece or have the cat chew it beyond repair.
There was also a ghost image feature that projected your image on the puzzle screen. Kind of the equivalent of positioning the puzzle cover somewhere that you can see it on the table, except much, much better.
I enjoyed this feature immensely because it allowed me to see exactly where the border pieces needed to go so I could position the puzzle correctly from the start.
Speaking of border pieces, one of the most laborious parts of doing a puzzle is finding all those pesky border pieces. Holiday Jigsaw Halloween, however, had a handy little feature called border that singled out all the border pieces so you didn't have to sort through everything if you didn't want to.
Overall, while Holiday Jigsaw: Halloween certainly can't contend with the beauty and skillwork that goes into a hidden object game, it was a decent little diversion. Although, if you don't enjoy jigsaw puzzles, it's best if you leave this one alone and get your trick or treats in a different Halloween game.