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Usually when a Jigsaw puzzle type game arrives for review, it is the work of 8 Floor Games but, in this case, Denda Games is the company responsible for Puzzle Pieces 4.  Subtitled Farewell Dear Winter, the product takes you on a  pictorial journey that is meant to inspire you as the season moves on from the icy cold of Winter to the more friendly embrace of Spring and the rebirth it offers.

Following a rather unassuming opening, this game offers you the options to adjust the volume levels for sound effects and background music.  A full screen view and a choice of European language are further options.  You can then move on to view the 230 jigsaw images making up this product.  Denda Games has split its jigsaw images into five sections that can be viewed in a scrollable interface area allowing you to make a suitable choice. 

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With an image selected, it can be viewed alongside a panel displaying the default settings that will be applied to that puzzle.  Using a slider bar feature, you can decide which of the eight types of jigsaw pieces will be used within the puzzle make-up.  The main differences in the style of the pieces will be in shape of the linking protruding elements as the pieces are fitted together. 

A second slider bar can also be used to adjust the number of pieces that make up the current puzzle.  You are limited in this respect to the twelve different number of pieces, ranging from 30 up to 1024 pieces, that are supported by the product.  There are also settings to either enable or remove a rotation feature whereby many pieces will need to be turned before they can be placed correctly in position.  You can also add non-required extra pieces to the puzzle which add to its difficulty.

Using the selected settings, the jigsaw pieces will be quickly transferred to a work area forming the central area of the screen.  The pieces will be scattered randomly around the area.  While this scattering of pieces is fine when puzzles are of the small numbered type, with puzzles with larger numbers, the overall effect can be rather cluttered and will require some initial sorting to aid when starting the construction. 

Arranged across the top of the screen will be a row of icons giving access to available tools that could help in the building up of the jigsaw.  There are tools to magnify selected areas, auto solve the puzzle, display just border pieces, change the colour of the work area, shuffle the pieces and restart the puzzle.  There is also an option to sort the pieces but I found it was more beneficial to do this task manually. You can also work on the puzzle while viewing a picture of the completed puzzle of a ghost image on which to place the pieces.

Completed jigsaws are automatically saved.  You also have the option to replay a jigsaw using the same or different settings.  I downloaded this title from Gamehouse.com where it is priced at $9.99.  It is also available from Big Fish Games priced at £7.88.  The game requires a 1.2 GHz processor with 2048MB of RAM running Windows 7 and later.

Puzzle Pieces 4 - Farewell Dear Winter | GameHouse

Puzzle Pieces 4 - Farewell Dear Winter | Big Fish Games