Pepper's Puzzles

Nonograms with a heaping spoonful of humour. There are tonnes of traditional puzzles, two large mosaics, and a trio of timed ones. First off, the music is fine, but the one timed track is infuriatingly grating. I ended up turning the music slider to 0. Timed puzzles -- well, the 7x7 set -- are also annoying due to a baffling oversight: this game lacks the ability to wrap from one side over to the other. There's one further issue that Steam Deck users should be aware of: the zoom is slight, and the overall interface falls well short of Jupiter's DS and Switch titles. With that all said, I enjoyed this. The sheer number of puzzles (plus Workshop support!), its humour, its controls, and value make this a solid, albeit imperfect, nonograms game.

Good Picross. Some minor frustration when the QOL features don't do quite what you think they will, but overall very enjoyable.

Pepper's Puzzles, developed and published by Emad, is a focused and lovingly crafted logic puzzle game that embraces the timeless appeal of nonograms—also known as Picross or paint-by-numbers puzzles—while refining the experience with modern conveniences and generous content. At its core, the game is about deduction and patience, asking players to interpret numerical clues around a grid to determine which squares should be filled and which should remain empty. What makes Pepper’s Puzzles stand out is not reinvention of the genre, but how confidently and thoroughly it delivers exactly what nonogram fans want. From the start, the game is welcoming to newcomers while still respecting experienced puzzle solvers. A clear and well-paced tutorial introduces the logic behind nonograms, explaining how the numbers correspond to groups of filled cells and how spacing rules work. This onboarding is handled with care, allowing players unfamiliar with the genre to grasp its logic without feeling overwhelmed. Once the basics are established, the game gradually increases complexity, moving from small, approachable grids to larger and more intricate puzzles that demand careful reasoning and long-t…

very good

Overall a solidly designed Picross game. As an experienced Picross player, I found it to have about the right level of difficulty, but it definitely needs some quality of life features. I played on Steam Deck, and felt the controls to be a little clunky, but useable. Here are some suggestions: - Add screen wrap. Having to go back and forth was really frustrating, especially when you want to go at speed. - Speed up d-pad movement. This also slowed down the game significantly, especially once you get to the later puzzles and need to fill rows of 15+ squares. - A counting mechanic. The Picross S games have an option to count squares, which helps a lot with working out larger puzzles. At this point I'm used to counting in my head, but the option would be appreciated. Otherwise, I liked the unusual theming of the levels, and the absolutely absurdly huge mosaic puzzles. If you've gone through a bunch of other Picross games, this will probably scratch that itch - once you've gotten your head around a few clunky things.

My brain still hurts from playing this.