Like LEGO, video games and home-baked banana bread, jigsaw puzzles experienced a surge in popularity during the various pandemic lockdowns of the past two years. We’re talking a boom that the pastime hadn’t experienced since the Great Depression.

For those the bug bit, there’s no shortage of online puzzle resources. We’re talking millions of free jigsaws that replicate their physical cardboard equivalent. At the same time, though, you may be hungry for something a bit more sophisticated and ambitious – which is where Mosaic Chronicles, from Dublin-based game developers Error300, comes in.

Mosaic Chronicles is a casual game that attempts to marry jigsaw puzzles and narrative. Instead of piecing together conventional jigsaw shapes, players move and rotate shards of stained glass to complete a series of colourful and stunning mosaics. Together, these mosaics tell a quirky fairy tale inspired by Belarusian author Olga Gromyko’s Belorian Chronicles.

Mosaic Chronicles released first for PC back in August 2021. Now, several months later, the game has made the obvious leap to mobile platforms. Mobile is a natural fit, as it were, for this style of gameplay, offering players a tactile fingertip-driven experience far closer to the real-world handling of puzzle pieces – as opposed to clicking a mouse.

The good

The good first. Mosaic Chronicles is an exceptionally visually striking game, with a unique aesthetic thanks to artist, illustrator and architect Lena Mackow. With more levels promised, the game currently consists of 13 mosaics to piece together, and with three difficulty levels (Hard is especially tough without preview images to guide you), that should keep you occupied for quite some time. Further sweetening the deal, Mosaic Chronicles is free for mobile devices, with just one in-app purchase if players wish to disable display ads.

So there you go. That’s a lot of value while leaving your pocket unscathed. If you’re looking for nothing more than chilled gameplay centred on beautiful and unusual visuals, you should be sated.

The less good

However, if you crave something more compelling, Mosaic Chronicles sadly falls flat in multiple departments.

The game could do with more polish, or perhaps flair is a better word. It runs well and there are multiple customisation options beyond difficulty settings. If you get sick of the brief looping score you can simply turn it off, so that isn’t even much of a gripe.

Mosaic Chronicles isn’t short on useful features either. Correctly placed shards snap into place, you can save at will, there are three hints per mosaic regardless of difficulty level, and if you find the playfield is starting to get too cluttered, one tap of the Tidy icon returns all puzzle pieces to the bar that neatly houses them on the left side of the screen.

The problem is that Mosaic Chronicles has yet to fully seize its potential as a digital experience. It fails to take advantage of the medium’s capabilities to enhance its puzzle building.

For example, instead of providing an animated easy-to-follow gameplay guide, the tutorial is multiple screens of uninviting text – which you won’t be able to access again. Meanwhile, once a puzzle is completed, the pieces just pulse instead of, say, bringing the scene to life. Even rotating puzzle pieces isn’t done by touch; there’s a button to re-orientate them.

You get the sense that the developers of Mosaic Chronicles are still trying to correctly assemble the components of their game. The game’s Early Access status, and disclaimer, on Steam, suggest a work in progress that is continually building on player feedback and trying to balance different expectations.

One of the biggest issues is Mosaic Chronicles’ attempt to be a story-driven puzzle game. Given the time it takes to complete some intricate mosaics, the plot progresses in a disjointed, hard-to-follow way, like you’re spacing out reading a storybook to a single page every hour, or perhaps even days apart. The Gallery section in Mosaic Chronicles attempts to solve this problem, collecting the completed mosaics and narrative in one place.

These measures aside, the plot in Mosaic Chronicles remains hard to get into. Short story A Bit of Horoscoping, which has been used as the basis of the first 13 game mosaics, is amusing but odd. Perhaps something has been lost in translation, but between unfamiliar, unlikeable and barely sketched characters, and an abrupt ending, it’s not satisfying. One caveat, though, is that a second story, The Lucky Knot, which is already included in the game’s Steam version, will form part of an iOS and Android update in future.

Flaws aside, it’s important to remember that Mosaic Chronicles is an evolving project. The Error300 team are continually working to improve and expand the game. All the pieces are there right now; it’s a case of creating a pleasing combination moving forward.

Mosaic Chronicles is playable now for free on iOS and Android devices, as well as on PC in paid Early Access mode via Steam.


Mosaic Chronicles review

Mosaic Chronicles is a jigsaw game that can do with some serious rejigging to take full advantage of its digital format, and create a more compelling experience. If you’re just in it for the puzzle construction, though, you should find that Mosaic Chronicles is challenging and visually striking.

5.5
Mosaic Chronicles was reviewed on iOS