Video games have the capacity to be elaborate, intricate, cinematic and affecting. The game’s exquisite presentation and tinkling soundtrack make this a soothing pleasure, and one that, like a physical jigsaw, can be enjoyed by a group pitching in ideas and suggestions. In this way, each puzzle has an in-built emotional arc: the initial, straightforward pleasure of laying down the “frame”, the plodding frustration as you feel your way through the middle of the picture, and the accelerating crescendo, as you spot and lay the last few remaining pieces without difficulty. In Glass Masquerade, you typically locate the edge pieces first, then work your way inwards. In both games the puzzles become progressively ornate, with an increasing number of constituent pieces.Īs with the wooden or cardboard variety, two clues guide your progress: the shape of the piece and how it might fit to the vacant spaces on the board, and the picture itself, which suggests placement according to colour and image. Glass Masquerade II takes a similar approach, but here you assemble the kind of stained-glass pictures you’d see in a cathedral. In the first game, the puzzles take the form of 25 art deco-inspired clock faces from around the world. In both, your task is simple: assemble a series of stained-glass windows from an assortment of irregularly shaped pieces. Still, the games’ pleasures are meaningful and timely. Glass Masquerade, a duo of jigsaw-inspired video games now available as a twin-pack, has none of the multi-layered cinematic complexity of, say, The Last of Us Part 2. Typically confined to the spidery depths of the boardgames cupboard, hauled out only as a salve for the rained-upon holiday in a Dorset Airbnb, the jigsaw fits this moment of discombobulation and tragedy snugly: from a dispiriting mess of indecipherable pieces we must, with collective effort, attempt to create sense and structure until a bigger picture emerges. At the moment when lockdown was at its strictest and most adhered to, it’s telling that many British households rediscovered the modest pleasure of the jigsaw puzzle.
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