Pictures of Life Reviews

It's an okish puzzle game where you have to pick an order for a set of pictures in 51 different levels. Most of those puzzles are quite good (and easy) but I felt like some of them didn't make a lot of sense or some orders were strange. But for the price it's ok.

[h1]Description[/h1] [b]Pictures of Life[/b] is a puzzle game where you are handed pictures and must reorder them. If you can't figure out the logic behind said order, after a while, the game will provide you a hint in the shape of another extra picture. Difficulty levels only affect how long it takes for the game to give you hints. The game has a 3D first-person control scheme that will force you to go back and forth between the chest of drawers that provides the pictures, the wall where you must hang and reorder them and the big button on the table that checks your answer. [h1]Pros[/h1] [list] [*] Cute pictures [*] Some levels will make your brain hurt in a good way and give you a great sense of accomplishment when you finally figure them out (piece of advice: don't go too far in your lateral thinking, the solution is often simpler than you'd think) [*] Pretty original concept [/list] [h1]Cons[/h1] [list] [*] Some hyper-frustrating levels that are supposed to tell the protagonist's story and are entirely about trying to think the way the creator does, instead of thinking about things logically or looking up trivia [*] Terrible save system that will force you to redo some levels for some unfathomable reason [*] Pretty useless difficulty levels that, as of writing this review, will force you to play through the game at least three times to get all achievements [*] Some cryptic hints that don't help at all (looking at you,level 43, with your hint being just one of the pictures) [*] Control scheme is a bit annoying and gets more in the way of solving the puzzles than it does immersing you [*] Answer-checking button can only be activated from one side of the table [/list] [h1]Verdict[/h1] I was honestly tempted to mark this game as [i]Not Recommended[/i] because I think it needs to be reworked in fundamental ways. This game dearly needs: [list] [*] Real differences between difficulty levels (or no difficulty levels at all) [*] A sensible save system saving after each level [*] A better control scheme not forcing the player to move back and forth so much [*] More logic-based levels and less story-based ones that are uninteresting and frustrating as hell (especially the one [spoiler]with the condom... I mean, why is it kiss->home->condom->bed and not home->bed->kiss->condom or home->bed->condom->kiss or whatever other order of those things??? UGH[/spoiler]) [*] Actually, I must insist, in my opinion, this game would be much better with no story at all... They don't enhance the experience in any way and logic-based levels are incomparably better (and more of them would be awesome). [/list] But this game was clearly a labor of love and at the price point it sits at (dirt cheap), it's worth your time if you like puzzles and/or original concepts. I hope the developer will consider pushing his gameplay concept further in a new game without story, annoying controls or useless difficulty levels. I'd buy such a game for sure, even at a higher price point than this one.

An amusing puzzle game that really made me think. You have to line up pictures in a way that makes sense and some of the sequences are pretty difficult.

It says it tests your trivia knowledge, with things like "what is the most expensive car" or "what is the tallest building" etc... but then gives you a set of random pictures and you are supposed to put them in order. Fair enough, apparently no real knowledge is needed. Most are things like the colours of the rainbow, or baby, child, man and old man. super straight forward, no skill needed. Then you get a picture of a tree, a lake and a tent. Or a man, a woman and two people on a date.... What order? Did the man come first because he gets to ask for the date? Or did he come first because he has to wait for her to arrive? Did the tree come first so a forest would grow for camping in? Or the lake first for the view? Some make no logical sense to anyone but the dev I guess. Wasn't expecting much, but this was even less than that.

[b]pictures of life[/b] is basically a 1st-person picture-based trivia game. you're in a room, have to take pictures out of a closet, put them on the wall and figure out what connects them, then re-arrange them in the correct order. pressing the big button on the desk verifies your answer and if it's correct, you can move on to the next puzzle. you can guess as many times as you want, except in the annoying final chapter, which drops you back in the menu after every incorrect one. there are [b]50 levels in 16 chapters[/b], and while there is [b]no mid-chapter saving[/b], it's not a huge issue, there are only a few levels in each and progress can be restored quickly if you have to quit midway, but of course it should save after every puzzle. riddles range from the trivial to somewhat obscure and can have anywhere between 3 and 7 pictures. as simple as ordering numbers, seasons, largest animals or planets, to presidents, console generations, tallest buildings, number of movies in a franchise, video games, etc. [b]there is some narrative[/b], also told in pictures (and 2 lines of voiceovers). at the end of every chapter the pictures are about the protagonist's life instead of random trivia, and these can also be tricky to figure out sometimes. [b]trial & error is definitely part of the deal.[/b] there used to be 3 difficulty settings, all they did was make players wait 2, 3 or 5 minutes before a hint appeared automatically on the right wall, so it could be ignored easily if you didn't want to be helped. [b]the hint system isn't that helpful[/b], sometimes too vague or ambiguous to be of any assistance, but pressing 'h' shows the one for the current level now. [b]presentation is a mostly fine[/b]: loved the music and most of the paintings, but the room is a bit bare-bones and the condescending lady congratulating after every right answer was a bit much. controls work fine, though weirdly you can only push the button from the front, despite it being right in the middle of the desk. would've cut down on all the back and forth. the unity launcher is enabled, so resolutions and windowed mode are readily available, master and music volume sliders too, but since it's a 1st-person game, some more relevant settings would've been nice. there's an obnoxious crosshair toggle, but flip x/y axis or fov would've been more handy. [b]I enjoyed most of my time with the game[/b], though had to ask for a bunch of outside help to figure some levels out. I clearly don't share the developer's way of thinking, and that's on top of not being too smart in the first place, but normally it [b]shouldn't take more than a couple hours to complete[/b]. I picked it up on sale, but the full price isn't too bad either.