Art Games

Art Puzzle is like other art games because each level depicts a different piece of art. The levels highlight all sorts of various artistic styles. Honestly, all the art is spectacular—top-quality art pieces with many different styles. My favorite are tableaus with unique perspectives that look in at a scene in a way that makes the viewer think. Every art puzzle I’ve completed could be on the wall in a museum somewhere. But I think the company works with artists who submit their artwork for the game.

Puzzle Games

Art Puzzle is similar to other puzzle games because the player is piecing together a puzzle. It’s not a jigsaw puzzle, though. Instead, each piece makes up part of the tableau. Maybe it’s the ocean in the background or tiny islands dotted with farmland and sheep. Maybe the picture depicts a castle’s spire or a stairway winding down a crowded urban street. Each little piece of the puzzle has its place.

As the level starts, all a player sees are tiny hints of where the shapes go. In the example image below, the player starts the level tasked with finding the parts of the staircase. Sometimes the parts are obvious, but other times it can be an obscure part of the puzzle or just a subtle hint of the shape of the piece. For example, in the picture below, there is also a plant behind the staircase, with only a hint of the leaf being shown.

A puzzle is divided into stages. As players find the different pieces for each stage, the progress bar fills until all the pieces for that stage are placed. After the stage is completed, a new part of the puzzle is revealed. Occasionally, an ad is played after a stage of the puzzle. The ads are usually skippable after just a few seconds. Players progress through the stages until they complete the puzzle in its entirety.

Challenge

If it seems like Art Puzzle would be a breeze to play, don’t be fooled. This mobile puzzle app can be super challenging sometimes, too! Most of the time, a player can pick their way through. However, some levels will put their minds to the test.

Some levels have lots of pieces. Pieces of the puzzle can be tiny or fit in their spot in an obscure way. Sometimes, the perspective of the art piece makes visualizing how the pieces will go together challenging.

Be prepared for a challenge is all I am saying. You can watch a short advertisement for a hint. I definitely needed hints on several levels!

Advertisements

Speaking of mobile game ads, I’ll pause here to take a moment to laude Easybrain, the company behind Art Puzzle. Watching ads is how free players “pay” to play a game. Companies are trying to generate revenue, after all.

Other games: Advertisement HELL

But if I were to ask you to name a game whose heavy-handed advertisements kill all the enjoyment, I bet you could name a lot of games. I’ve uninstalled numerous mobile games because they had too many obtrusive ads. If the mobile game itself is enjoyable, but the number of advertisements simply makes the game unplayable or not fun, you’re doing it wrong.

Art Puzzle: Ideal Advertisement Placement

Art Puzzle is NOT like that. Advertisements in Art Puzzle are unobtrusive and well-integrated into the gameplay. Ads will play after some stages within a level. After every few levels, another ad will show. But ads are not shown after every stage or level at all. Sometimes, five stages will go in between ads. You are not forced to watch the entire ad, either. Ads are generally skippable after a very short time. But there isn’t an ad after every single level, something I appreciate so, so much. You can also watch a full advert to gain a much-needed hint if you get stuck!

Storyline

The initial levels of Art Puzzle follow a storyline. According to company feedback on Art Puzzle’s Google Play page, the game does this to introduce players to the gameplay and how levels progress.

Easybrain says:

Hi! The initial storylines you mentioned are designed to introduce players to the game, but the full narrative may not always be presented in a continuous way. After a certain point, the game shifts to more random levels.

While I appreciated the introduction and enjoyed the storyline levels, I prefer random puzzles with various art pieces to a continuous storyline. Once I finished the storyline levels, I started enjoying the game more. Random is better because there is such a wide variety in the art styles that staying with one limits the game’s potential too much.

As it is now, the introductory storyline levels in Art Puzzle end abruptly, with no clear message that lets players know they’ve reached the end of the story. I think a bit of fanfare would help clarify things for players. The developers could eliminate confusion by including something that marks “The End” of the storyline levels.

Delineation

Some sort of announcement would clarify things for players who were unclear about how the game is structured. It wouldn’t have to be much; it could be something as simple as a message congratulating players for completing the introductory levels. Then, the developers could clearly communicate to players that they have completed the storyline section of the game, and from now on, the levels they’ll play will feature random art puzzles.

Beautiful Art

Art Puzzle is full of breathtaking art that players get to put together as puzzles. I especially love levels where the background of the piece is completed first. Then, as the player completes the puzzle, the foreground covers the background. It helps me envision the piece as a fully 3D landscape, like it’s real instead of a 2D tableau. I like imagining things just around the corner of a building in the foreground as if they exist and are not just in a painting.

Events and Daily Challenges

Art Puzzle features daily challenges and events. Each day of the month, there are daily challenge levels. Completing all of these levels for the month nets players a trophy. The game features regular events, where players complete themed and special levels to fill up a punch card type thing. The art for these special levels are themed for whatever the holiday is: St. Patrick’s Day had lots of green and leprechauns, the Easter event has Easter related things, and so on.

Secret Levels

Each level that players complete contributes to an overall daily goal. Completing all the daily goals unlocks secret levels. The goals vary: Some days, one goal is to use a hint to complete a level. On other days, the goal is to not use a hint. Some days require a certain number of puzzle pieces or completing a certain number of levels. Secret levels can be challenging to access; there are many days I don’t complete all the required things before time runs out.

Where to Download Art Puzzle

Art Puzzle is available on iOS and Android. Download the app from the marketplace for those respective operating systems.

Other Art Games Like Art Puzzle

From the video promo on the Google Play store the mobile game Art Story by Hyper Cats Studio seems like a clone of Art Puzzle. But reading the reviews makes me think it’s not exactly like Art Puzzle. This mobile game seems to be focused on stories, and you put together tableaus that depict scenes from various classical stories. Reviews are mixed on this game, and I have not played it, so I may update this section once I check it out.

Art of Puzzles by ZiMad combines art, hidden pictures, and sticker book games to create a unique puzzle experience. This game seems interesting. The art style appears more computer graphics-focused and cartoony than Art Puzzle. But this game has some of the same elements as Art Puzzle.

Other Puzzle Games like Art Puzzle

If you seek a more traditional jigsaw puzzle mobile gaming experience, perhaps a game like Jigsawscapes might appeal. This game boasts over 30k jigsaw puzzles to solve.

You might also like a nonogram-type puzzle mobile game. The art style in the nonogram puzzle game Two Eyes is so pretty.

Other Gaming Posts

I’m fae and I write about games that I enjoy playing. I play video games on PS5, Switch, and I also enjoy playing mobile games. Check out my other posts and stick around for a while!

The post Art Puzzle by Easybrain: A Positive Review appeared first on Fae’s Journal.

Officially Annoyed

I downloaded the Bus Out game after I saw it advertised on one of my other mobile games. It sounded like a fun, time-wasting sort of game. I like puzzles like this. But I’m officially annoyed with it.

Why Annoyed, You Ask?

The game is made so users are forced to watch videos to beat levels.

What Happens?

The passenger queue will be moving and buses will be filling up. The player has to be strategic to free the buses when they are needed. Then, a single passenger of a new color will be in the queue. And in order to proceed, the game prompts the player to watch a video to unlock an extra parking space for that color bus. I’ve tried levels repeatedly to avoid having to watch a long, annoying advertisement, but continuously encounter a place where it’s necessary. I’m convinced that the levels are designed specifically so the player has to watch the ads or spend real money in order to beat them.

So, it’s not really a game.

Question: Game developer, is the Bus Out game an advertising platform or a mobile game? Hmmm?

So while Bus Out’s gameplay is entertaining, it is an advertising platform disguised as a game.

Annoying Ads

What’s worse, the ads run on Bus Out are the quintessential annoying mobile app ads that show gameplay from a game that is completely different when you actually download the game, the game is nothing like the ad.

Gossip Harbor and Seaside Escape = Same Game?

Two different games ads currently run on Bus Out’s ad rotation that are clones of each other. The games are blatantly running the same ads for differently named games. This is so annoying!

How do I know the game is nothing like the ads? I played one of the games, Seaside Escape, for a while before I got bored with it.

And there’s nothing in Seaside Escape like the ads where the players rescue some lady from an abusive boyfriend and fix up her shack saving her and her homeless kid from the freezing streets. Seaside Escape has a tropical setting for Pete’s sake, where’s all that snow supposed to be coming from?

Gossip Harbor DOES feature the characters from the game ads, but both Seaside Escape ads and Gossip Harbor ads run with the same game characters and misleading gameplay.

Both Games are Merge Games, BTW

Can’t Skip Ads After 10 Seconds

Many other mobile games I play allow users to bypass ads after watching the ad for a certain number of seconds. I don’t mind that sort of situation as much. I understand that mobile game companies need to make revenue to stay afloat. But ugh, people, let us skip the ads after a shorter amount of time.

When You Press the X…

Another gripe I have with mobile games is how when you finally get the >> or X button to get back to your game, it often starts a cycle where you press the button but the game download screen comes up repeatedly. Do they really think that annoying people with their ads is the way to get people to download them? Spoiler alert: It’s not!

Bus Out Gives No Rewards

Another thing Bus Out does not do is award the power-ups that allow players to shuffle the board. I’m actually not sure how to buy them because nothing happens when I click on them. It takes me to the page where you can purchase coins but I don’t see an interface where you can exchange coins with the tools. So again, the game is funneling users into watching the ads in order to get past points in levels where they will otherwise fail the level.

Update!! Critical Security Issue

Update as of February 2025. I’ve kept playing this game, even though many of the issues I mentioned in this post stand. But a new and more troubling issue has popped up, literally, in the last few days.

What happens is that while playing a level, a popup will force-open and navigate to a highly suspicious-looking website that seems like a malware scan but it’s not. This highly suspect site tells you to buy their software because your phone is infected with a virus. But my phone is not infected. It’s an iPhone. So this knocks Bus Out way, way down in my books. Like, off the page down.

I’m officially not playing it until they fix this issue. This pop-up to a scam website is a critical security issue. Even if it’s happening through their advertising network integration, the popup advert is a deal-breaker.

I cannot continue to play this game with this current issue. It is too suspicious. And I cannot recommend you play it either.

So.. Bus Out is a FAIL

That’s just shady business, as far as I am concerned. So as much as I enjoy playing a game like Bus Out, I love the puzzle aspect of Bus Out, I cannot recommend this game. If they were to address some of these issues and make the game less of an obvious marketing platform/money grab I might reconsider.

You can download Bus Out on the Apple App Store and on Google Play Store. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Gaming

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