The concept sounds novel: A murder mystery visual novel mixed with picross, but in reality it's not terribly interesting. It's just a murder mystery game that has you do picross here and there to uncover clues essentially. The picross does break up the monotony of the visual novel style gameplay, which is appreciated, but that is really all it does. Otherwise it is just your standard picross.

Storywise I also don't have a lot to say either. It's entertaining enough, but it wasn't engaging enough for me get through the whole thing. The writing is solid with lots of humor, but the plot leaves a bit to be desired.

Overall, this game just feels like came from a group of friends being like "Yo wouldn't a picross murder mystery be sick?! " without actually considering how either genre could the other one shine. It just plays as though they shoved a picross minigame into a murder mystery, and called it a day. If you like both genres, certainly go play it, but it isn't anything special.

visual novels can be cool, and i love picross, so i figured i would give this one a shot, especially considering i got it for free.

the character designs are cool sometimes, and i think the game has some charm. however, the actual plot happening here really wasn't interesting to me. the cases are formatted as murder mysteries, but none of them really feel like murder mysteries with satisfying conclusions or complex methods of execution that you have to put together yourself. for a long time it felt like the game was promising something better would be up ahead repeatedly, but by the time i eventually made it to the end of the final case, the game just kinda,,, ended. the most fun characters that i enjoyed early on weren't even present for the majority of the final case, and its conclusion really soured any enjoyment i had of the plot previously. i didn't think it would be peak storytelling or anything, but i was hoping it would be at least mildly satisfying.

i will say this. i knew nothing about this game going in, and i was surprised by the quality of the representation. the main character is a strong and independent recently divorced woman of color (hell yeah ???), and there's a pretty strong queer presence, especially during the third case. i thought it was all handled with tact, and it made these characters feel normal, which is something i really like.

if you like picross, there's better games to play for picross. i got S rank on all four cases and solved all of the unlocked puzzles in "SCOUT's memories," and the largest puzzles ever get is up to 20x15. there's no zoom, and there's not as many nice QOL features as something like in Jupiter's Picross (Picross S, etc.) or Pictopix on steam.

i liked moments in its visual novel portions, but seeing as you're mostly just going to be playing picross, especially if you go for 100% like I did, you're probably just better off playing a dedicated picross game.