Quick Review: Dot to Dot Puzzles

(Was also supposed to post this last Friday. Again, sorry!)

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved dot-to-dot puzzles. It was my favorite activity. Always seeking out bigger and tougher pages, going upwards in numbers… The biggest one I’ve ever solved on paper had more than 1700 dots. This game goes way beyond.

Yes, my version is in French.
Doesn't matter, dots are numbered.

Made by Online OciGrup SL and released on July 9th, 2018, Dot to Dot Puzzles has a self-explanatory title. You connect dots. That’s it, really. You pick a puzzle, then solve away. There are options to ease your experience, like a dark mode where the screen is a relaxing black with the dots and lines in white (which is the mode I use, as you can see in these screenshots). Then you can also pick other colors for your lines. It’s a relaxing, soothing activity. Now, these puzzles all have anywhere from 100 to over 7,000 dots, so it can be difficult to find the next dot, which is why you earn a lot of hints over time.

I use the dark version, it's easier on the eyes.

That enough dots for you?

And you’re gonna need those hints, because some dot-to-dot puzzles in this collection have so many dots jumbled together in small areas that it’s oftentimes difficult to see where the next dot is. Also, to prevent having numbers all over in those bunches, some numbers are hidden if they're several hundreds ahead – it does make solving a little easier overall. You also get a helpful little arrow from the last dot in the direction of the next, when you jump over to a new bunch.

Here’s the first thing that bugs me: For every dot connected, you earn a star. You need to use stars to unlock new puzzles… however, locked puzzles have a cost in stars that’s usually 10 times the amount of dots they contain. (So, a puzzle with 1,000 dots costs 10,000 stars to unlock, but there are exceptions). At one dot per star, it’s very slow. Actually, it’s quite likely that you’ll run out of free puzzles.

The picture is slowly revealing itself.

Yes, there are, thankfully, many free puzzles here – the game is free. However, it comes with purchasable extra content: One pack quintuples the number of stars received per dot (making gathering stars 5X faster) and gives an extra 100,000 stars. A second pack gives 50 more hints and makes gathering hints 6X quicker. The last pack, the most important, is the Lifetime Premium Pack. For 10$, you get to play all of the puzzles in the game that were originally locked behind a big “Premium” sticker. Which is… most puzzles. Kind of annoying, but I’m thankful that there are so many free puzzles to start with.

Connect the dots to make circles. You're done?
Make more circles. You're done? Make more
circles. You're done? Make more circles...

Also a minor point of criticism: Several dot-to-dot puzzles are just mandalas. Sure, the end result is pretty, but I don’t really see the point of dot-to-dot mandalas? Part of the appeal for me is to see a picture reveal itself as the dots are connected, something to recognize as the puzzle progresses, but mandalas don’t really give me that feeling. It’s little more than “here’s a fun circle pattern”. It’s not like mandala on paper that you could then color, either. The worst part is that most mandalas cost 25,000 dots to unlock, meaning you need to connect 5,000 dots to get access to one of them… but most of them do NOT have this many dots to recoup your loss.

Some of the pics can look pretty cool.

This one was pretty impressive. Just had to
connect 5,000+ dots for it and pay 50,000 stars.

It’s not… bad, but like a lot of free-to-play games, there’s only so much you can do until you have to take out your wallet. The game itself is fine, and might sate your desire to play some dot-to-dot puzzles, but it’s ultimately a very basic game with little else to do. It does bug me that, in an attempt to have gigantic puzzles to solve, so many dots are bundled in groups where it’s almost impossible to see all the numbers… but that’s pretty minor overall. Best I can say is, try it out for free, and only go for the paid packs if you’re really invested and want to get more.