Mosaic of The Pharaohs

Although I enjoy this sort of puzzle game, particularly the developer's previous work 'Proverbs', there's something about Pharaohs that troubles me. Specifically, that I can't tell for certain whether the ~100 Egyptian facts were partly or wholly written by a chatbot. Considering there are no quotes in the game, there are an awful lot of misplaced closing quotation marks at the ends of sentences. There were also instances of fairly similar wording between facts in the game and AI summaries spat out by Google. Lastly, while the creator and artists are credited, there is no writer attributed anywhere. While I can't definitively say that the trivia was written by AI, there's enough doubt that I feel a bit let down. I still finished the puzzle for the sake of it, but I stopped reading the historical trivia, which is something I otherwise really enjoy.

On a different note: despite this being made after Proverbs, there are small issues present here and not there. Namely, some sounds being far too loud (inconsistently too), and the final replay not actually replaying your progress in the right order.

If you haven't played any of Ffrench's mosaic games, please play Proverbs instead.

This is the best of Mark Ffrench's minesweeper-esque games, absolutely loved the theme and riddle at the end!

I was scammed by a salesman while on holiday in Egypt. He convinced me that I would earn a lot of money, but it was just a pyramid scheme.

Mosaic of The Pharaohs (MotP) is a relaxing puzzle game, mimicking one of the developer’s other works, Proverbs, but with an Egyptian theme. Now, I use the term ‘puzzle’ loosely – This isn’t your typical puzzle game, it’s more like a jigsaw puzzle laid out on a minesweeper grid. Featuring a relaxed ambience and calming music, it’s a great time killer, ideal for short bursts throughout the day.

Pairing MotP with an audiobook, podcast, or stream was an enjoyable experience, but the gameplay loop did start to feel repetitive. At the end of the day, it’s a long game of minesweeper, and I wish there was more variety. More pieces of art, or additional pieces of music would have helped greatly, for me at least.

That being said, MotP is a relaxing game, perfect for unwinding after a long day. The game focuses more on enjoying the process, rather than solving the puzzle, especially thanks to the unlimited hints removing any difficulty which may otherwise exist. If you're after something to test your brainpower, it won’t hold your attention for long, but if you just want a relaxing way to pass the time, MotP is a brilliant experience.

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