PictoQuest: The Cursed Grids (2019)

NanoPiko Games

Android · Nintendo Switch · PC (Microsoft Windows) · PlayStation 4 · Xbox One · Xbox Series X|S

3.31 from 32 ratings

343 members have it in their collection · 3 playing now · 188 backlogged · 8 wish listed

How long? · with extras 4h · 100% 13h (from 5 logged playthroughs)

Challenge your deductive skills by helping our two young heroes on their quest to bring the legendary paintings of Pictoria back! Look carefully at the numbers on the edges of the grid to stop the sneaky wizard Moonface... - Face plenty of grids and discover some beautifully animated enemies and artefacts! - Fight baddies (even bosses!) on the way. Be … Read more
Challenge your deductive skills by helping our two young heroes on their quest to bring the legendary paintings of Pictoria back! Look carefully at the numbers on the edges of the grid to stop the sneaky wizard Moonface... - Face plenty of grids and discover some beautifully animated enemies and artefacts! - Fight baddies (even bosses!) on the way. Be smart or you could be the target of a critical hit! - Having some issues with a specific puzzle? Head to the shop and spend some gold on powerful magic items. - Try to reach the end of the world map, one puzzle at a time. You'll find villagers giving you special missions, too! PictoQuest is an addictive game for everyone, come save the realm of Pictoria! Read less
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Release dates

  • Aug 08, 2019 (Europe) Nintendo Switch
  • Aug 08, 2019 (North_America) Nintendo Switch
  • Feb 04, 2020 (North_America) PC (Microsoft Windows)
  • Jun 23, 2020 (Worldwide) Android
  • May 02, 2022 (Europe) PlayStation 4
  • May 03, 2022 (North_America) PlayStation 4
  • May 04, 2022 (North_America) Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S

Related

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Rating distribution

5 stars
3
4 stars
9
3 stars
16
2 stars
3
1 star
1
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Community All Reviews Statuses

hay

Review hay 2/5 · Oct 2, 2022

PictoQuest attempts a fusion of traditional Nonogram puzzles (à la Picross) and RPG elements. For me, they were not successful. I finished pretty much all puzzles before the RPG mechanics started to matter.

Puzzles are framed as fights. Enemy monsters slowly charge up an attack meter, and once full, they attack and drain your health bar. You can use items …

Read more

PictoQuest attempts a fusion of traditional Nonogram puzzles (à la Picross) and RPG elements. For me, they were not successful. I finished pretty much all puzzles before the RPG mechanics started to matter.

Puzzles are framed as fights. Enemy monsters slowly charge up an attack meter, and once full, they attack and drain your health bar. You can use items during puzzles to make things easier. For example, you could use a healing item.
There are more intricacies to this, but none of that matters when you are good enough at puzzle solving. In that case, the RPG mechanics remain purely an annoying distraction.

The puzzles themselves are also rather dull. The difficulty only increases by giving you bigger puzzles. Except those aren’t more challenging, they just take longer to solve.

The only exception is the occasional challenge puzzle with some goal for you to fulfil. Common challenges are beating it on a tight timer or not making mistakes. But they were too few and far between to save the experience for me.

I was looking for a game that added some interesting twists to the stale Nonogram formula. But I didn’t get any of that from this game.

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WerqKween

Review WerqKween 3/5 · Aug 11, 2022

This'll be a short one. It's a cute picross game, on the easy side, with some [VERY little] RPG flavors. I beat it over a few days, so unfortunately, also very short. I wish there was a little more to it, but really, having puzzles that aren't total garbage is fun enough in itself.

chaiinchomp

Review chaiinchomp 1/5 · Mar 19, 2022

Doesn't bring anything new to the table, expected more for the price

  • Year played: 2019
  • Playtime: about an hour

I'm a sucker for a good picross/nonogram game, so I picked this up thinking it might be a cool combination of RPG story elements with picross puzzles. But... it wasn't. Just a generic picross game where you progressively get harder puzzles. Nothing special about it, and I've played many that are …

Read more
  • Year played: 2019
  • Playtime: about an hour

I'm a sucker for a good picross/nonogram game, so I picked this up thinking it might be a cool combination of RPG story elements with picross puzzles. But... it wasn't. Just a generic picross game where you progressively get harder puzzles. Nothing special about it, and I've played many that are more polished than this. If nintendo's eshop had better refund policies, I would have returned this one.

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tylerisrandom

Review tylerisrandom 4/5 · Apr 20, 2020

90% Picross / 10% RPG

Protagonist character strikes a victory pose on the game's map, 100% progress displayed in the corner

This is how Picross: Lord of the Nazarick should have played: Plenty of nonograms to play with some very, very light RPG seasoning sprinkled on. These are good puzzles, too, though quite a bit less challenging than a typical Picross game.

I do have a few small complaints:

  • The RPG mechanics never feel essential. I'd love to see Battleship-like mechanics …
Read more

Protagonist character strikes a victory pose on the game's map, 100% progress displayed in the corner

This is how Picross: Lord of the Nazarick should have played: Plenty of nonograms to play with some very, very light RPG seasoning sprinkled on. These are good puzzles, too, though quite a bit less challenging than a typical Picross game.

I do have a few small complaints:

  • The RPG mechanics never feel essential. I'd love to see Battleship-like mechanics layered on top of the typical nonogram puzzle or something like that.
  • The UI isn't as polished as a Jupiter game. Hints gray out a little earlier than I would expect, and there's no ability to soft mark a square for future reference.
  • I bought this for Switch when it was 50% off. $9.99 feels a bit overpriced compared to what you get in a Picross S game for the same price.

A good introduction to Picross games when it goes on sale.

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