Depixelate Review

Depixelate is a word game in which players are given a pixelated picture that they must decipher and spell out letter by letter. The game on its face is completely functional and plays just fine, but doesn't really have a core concept that engages and excites.

Word games are all well and good, and making twists on this familiar genre has resulted in relatively huge titles like Writer Rumble and Letterpress, but Depixelate just doesn't do enough to make itself as exciting as it could be. To be fair it delivers exactly what it promises, but what it promises isn't super compelling.

As mentioned above players are given a picture, a preset number of blank letter slots, and a bunch of letters. Based on the picture (or the letter slots and available letters) players need to guess what word describes the picture. These pictures are of objects, animals, and logos mainly. If any picture proves to be too tough to figure out, players can also tap the image to depixelate it, but doing so costs a set number of coins. Coins are earned by successfully identifying pictures.

This is literally all their is to Depixelate. There are three different sets of pictures to go through: random starters, pixel logos, and more logos, but other than that it is picture after picture for players to solve. There isn't any flourish on any part of the game, and the only other visual information on screen beyond what's already been mentioned is a green background and a facebook button. The result of this sparseness is a game that feels pretty empty.

Part of the fun around word games is the flair of execution put into them to make them more visually appealing, or seemingly more deep or complex. Unfortunately Depixelate doesn't deliver on any of these fronts, making it a perfectly playable, but pretty boring experience.