CRIMO for PC and Mac

Software Reviews and Criticism

• By Dinsdale3

  Fun take on logic puzzle, but silly restrictions make it frustrating

  This is a fun take on the picture logic puzzle. However, as a long time player of those puzzles, I find a few of the ‘features’ to be highly annoying. The limit on the number of traffic cones you have (to block of spaces that you know can’t be filled) seems arbitrary, slows down the game, and makes the puzzles more tedious than they need to be. Having to ration these markers forces you to keep more in your head unnecessarily. It is like making a sudoku game where you are only allowed to make tentative ‘pencil’ marks for odd numbers. Sure, it makes the game more challenging, but not in a fun way. I also dislike the instant health loss for a mis -click. If you are dragging to fill a group of 8 and accidentally drag a square too far on your small screen, you are immediately penalized. As someone experienced with this type of puzzle, I could zip through the early puzzles easily but have to go much more slowly than I should have to in order to prevent this. I realize that the mechanic of hiding extra things behind boxes made the developers not want to only have this check only at the end of the puzzle. However it currently has been a great annoyance to me. Perhaps consider something like allowing users to lock in individual rows or columns and penalize them/reveal items at that time.

  
  
• By Zer0Actual

  Decent game, terrible gameplay choices

  This game is decent, at least it was, until I completed the tutorial. In the Academy missions, the game is simple: check boxes, place cones, solve cases; but after completing the tutorial, everything changes. Now I only have a certain amount of “energy” (I don’t know what it’s called in the game) to actually play the game and I only have a certain amount of cones/flags. In a game where placing cones is so you don’t accidentally click a false tile and to help reveal the answer, having limited tiles doesn’t really make sense. And in a game, having a certain amount of “energy” doesn’t make sense either. As a developer you want people to continuously play your game to make the most money. But with “energy”, once I run out I have to wait to play and I already have to wait when I try to analyze a clue. The third problem I have with this, is health. In the academy missions, you are ranked by stars. You start with 3, and every time you get a wrong tile, you lose one. But in Miami, I click two wrong tiles and my health is now gone and I have to restart. Not three like normal. Two. Health, along with everything else, is what games like this shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t have timers when other features already are timed. You shouldn’t restrict us from playing if we ever run out of “energy.” And you shouldn’t just change the amount of tiles we can get wrong out of nowhere. Decent idea, terrible execution.

  
  
• By RealBookWurm

  Great fundamental game, aggressive monetization

  Nonograms are always fun, and this game does well to make doing them smooth at enjoyable. The premise is sound and the game plays well. I’m about ready to delete it anyway due to hyper-monetization. Forced Ads, limited (but can buy more) cones, ads for hints and coins, timers on clues for no reason other than to try and get you to pay or watch an ad, the health mechanic in tandem with the star mechanic, an attempted weekly subscription (not with new content! Just to play the bass game mind you), ect. Usually these types of games limit themselves to ads or selling power ups and continues. This game instead moves into the territory of blending all of them together. It’s not fun and hinders enjoyment, as I’m constantly reminded of the monetization. Your work is good and a less aggressive model would’ve likely enticed my to purchase say an ad-free version, but I’m wary due to seemingly more layers of monetization. Knowing that even if I pay you to remove ads that I’ll find myself without the ability to play at times from another direction leaves me buying nothing instead.

  
  
• By ParrotMommy

  Great game

  This is a great alternative to picture type puzzles of this sort. Very few ads is a huge plus. The levels are very well thought out. I have found one yet that I needed a clue on, even though many of them are a challenge. Some picture type puzzles are tossed together with no thought whatsoever about the puzzle being able to be completely solved with logic only. I haven’t found that to be the case here at all. I can see that these are very well thought out. I like the challenge of not using cones to solve. I often challenge myself in picture types by not X-ing out unused squares so I used to that challenge. The story lines aren’t that great but I really don’t play for them. You can often solve the crime long before you’ve finished all the levels in a section. Overall this is a great game.

  
  

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