With there being something of a scarcity of engaging jigsaw puzzles on the Nintendo Switch, Glass Masquerade 2: Illusions comes as something of a breath of fresh air. With this game there are no boss battles, no enemies to defeat or even items to hunt down as you traverse hostile alien plains. With Glass Masquerade 2: Illusions there’s just you and 31 mind bending jigsaw puzzles to solve. Hailing from Onyx Lute, the same people who released the original Glass Masquerade back in 2019, Glass Masquerade 2: Illusions is a challenging yet relaxing title inspired by art deco and 20th century stained glass artisans.
The game has you trying to piece together abstract and hauntingly beautiful images made of stained glass. For anyone familiar with the idea behind jigsaw puzzles, Onyx Lute have added a few twists with the hope of bringing something new to the all too familiar table. The first difference you’ll notice is that all of the loose pieces are designed to resemble the shards you’d find in a stained glass window. The shards are presented as darkened out silhouettes that you have to pick up and rotate in order to put them together. The loose pieces are in two circular, rotating rings and you’re tasked with scrolling through the rings hunting for the shards with just the right shape and placing them in a display area at the centre of the rings. Glass Masquerade 2: Illusions offers two difficulty levels with the harder one requiring you to rotate the pieces yourself, rather than relying on the game to do it for you. There’s also a handy clock that ticks away the seconds from the minute you pick up the first shard to the moment you place the last one. Graphically, Glass Masquerade 2: Illusions is nothing short of a work of art. Once completed, each image creates a beautiful abstract work of art accompanied by a riddle or esoteric saying. As you progress through the game you’re rewarded with a key that unlocks new puzzles or you get shards that will be used to play the final puzzle which has a monster 88 pieces to put together.
Audio-wise Glass Masquerade 2: Illusions offers a soothing orchestral soundtrack performed by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra which loops in the background. The act of picking up a shard and rotating it is accompanied by a suitable whooshing sound. But these are quickly ignored as you concentrate on the task at hand.
Not being a huge jigsaw puzzle fan I did however enjoy my play through with Glass Masquerade 2: Illusions. The easier puzzles took me around 15 minutes to solve while the harder ones ate up almost an hour and a half with each puzzle. Some might argue that this is quite a steep difficulty curve. But the beauty of a great jigsaw puzzle is that, the harder it is, the more you want to play it. Adding those figures up tells you there are at least 20 to 30 hours of solid game play on offer here.
The only minor niggle I had with Glass Masquerade 2: Illusions was that the fact that you don’t know what the image is that you’re trying to re-create. At times this made the game unnecessarily difficult. I would like to have seen a thumbnail image available to click on so the player could get an idea what pieces they should be looking for. I also noted the conspicuous absence of a leader board which would have been a great way of bench marking my (humble) performance with gamers from all over the world.
These minor gripes aside, Glass Masquerade 2: Illusions is nonetheless a challenging and rewarding offering that will satisfy all of your jigsaw cravings. The beautiful abstract images, relaxing background music and soothing gameplay are sure to help you unwind after a long busy day. Highly recommended.
