Glass Masquerade's globe-trotting stained glass puzzler
Rose-tinted glass
Given I was so behind the times when it came to writing about Alice's Patchwork (although IN MY DEFENCE no-one else here wrote about it either) it's nice to be ahead of the mosaic jigsaw puzzle game curve by a whole day, bringing you news that stained glass puzzler, Glass Masquerade [official site], is out tomorrow.
Welcome to Glass Masquerade - an artistic puzzle game inspired by Art Deco & stained glass artisans of the 20th century. You need to combine hidden glass pieces to unveil clocks and themes exhibited by various cultures of the world at the 'International Times Exhibition' - an interactive electronic show.
25 countries attending:
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Madagascar, Mexico, Mongolia, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Tanzania, USA
I've been playing for a little and what all of the above info translates to is a map of the world where you can gradually unlock access to mosaic jigsaw puzzles set in various countries. Each completed puzzle takes the form of an Art Deco-style mosaic set up to look like a stained glass window. They aren't really designed as windows - they're actually clock faces with hands that tick along to mark the time the puzzle is taking you to complete.
Each design is themed around the country you're "visiting" so you'll ultimately end up creating/completing a themed set of arty clocks - Britain gets Sherlock Holmes, for example.
In terms of the actual gameplay, it's a drag and drop affair, so you're placing the pieces in the correct spots on the board and then they click into place. To give you a foothold at the beginning of each pussle you get some red pieces and some corresponding points on the edge of the clock face which those correspond to.
As someone who has completed one of those dreadful baked bean jigsaws, then wanted more of a challenge so I flipped one of my 1,000 piece puzzles over and did it with the blank cardboard side face up I am not a fan of anything that makes my life easier in puzzles so I switched the hint bits off.
As far as I can tell there are 25 puzzles so it's not a chunky game, but it is a pretty one so far and scratches the same itch as Alice's Patchwork. It's out tomorrow (18 November) on Steam.