Pixel Puzzle Makeout League, originally released in 2020, was developed by Rude Ghost, an independent development team from Boston. The group previously developed Thief Town, Defragmented, and Noir Town. The game’s soundtrack was composed by Neon Shudder, an electronic artist, under his other name, Capsule King.

Resident sneakerhead, puzzle fan, and certified Good Girl™ Pixel Girl finds her life changed after she is kidnapped unexpectedly by the city’s resident bumbling Villain (yes, he’s literally called Villain). Fortunately, Pixel Girl is rescued by the Puzzle League, the local teen superhero group composed of individuals themed after, well, puzzles. Composed of klutzy leader Chess, smart guy Crossword, snarky gamer Sudoku, and energetic alien Piecea, the League succeeds in driving Villain back. However, a mysterious tower appears in the middle of the city, and Villain retreats inside. Pixel Girl eagerly joins the League, hoping to help investigate Villain’s tower and the mysterious happenings in town, and maybe pursue a love interest in the process. 

PPML is a collection of nonogram puzzles combined with a dating sim. Nonograms are a type of logic puzzle, involving filling in cells in a grid based on numbers on the horizontal and vertical axes, with the filled cells eventually making up an image. The game is split into smaller sections on a world map, with individual chapters composed of story sequences and several puzzles. The game has a simplified take on diverging dating sim routes by allowing the player to simply select the character of choice to pursue from the world map, allowing for progression without save scumming and the possibility of running multiple routes at once. There are also bonus puzzles available as the story progresses.

PPML’s nonograms are approachable to newcomers and seasoned puzzlers, thanks to its modular settings. I hate timers, and prefer to work with minimal hints, which the game obliges. There’s some nice quality-of-life toggles, like auto-x-ing columns and rows when completed and having a cell counter when filling in multiple cells. The only feature missing was the ability to disable auto-correct, as I prefer to work around my own mistakes, but it isn’t a huge issue. It’s also worth noting the game rotates between 5×5, 10×10 and 15×15 puzzles, which might be jarring if one is used to nonogram games like the Picross series, which consist of puzzle packs that gradually increase difficulty. PPML seems to throw in smaller puzzles as a breather to pace out the story segments, which I grew to appreciate. Also, the actual puzzle UI is pleasant, and during the story, a character (usually Pixel Girl, but sometimes others) might hang out next to the screen and offer some dialogue based on completing lines, making errors, or general story shenanigans. Unfortunately, it’s easy to miss characters’ dialogue if you’re really focused on the puzzles, but it’s a cute addition.

The actual dating sim part of PPML is…competent but simplistic and quite short. If you happen to be coming from much longer dating sims or otome games, expectations should be tempered. That’s not to say that what’s here is bad. The cast of PPML are all pretty delightful in their own ways, and their routes try to explore different aspects of their personalities. Chess struggles to get over a particularly embarrassing social incident, Crossword muses that his dearth of trivia knowledge doesn’t translate to applied skills, and Sudoku’s sassy exterior masks more than a touch of social anxiety. Piecea is treated mostly as a gag character who leans a bit into annoying “haha aren’t we so wacky”-irony shit, despite wasted potential at the end of her route to explore her as a character. Pixel Girl herself is a pleasant protagonist, being open-minded enough to indulge her colleague’s interests and encouraging them to be their best selves. The cast is full of archetypes, and the dating sim portion of the game is too barebones to explore the characters beyond these elements.

Despite not being a particularly strong dating sim, PPML does excel with its humor. The game is easily at its strongest when it leans into the “comedy” portion of its purported romcom writing, and it helps that the game is willing to throw in a ton of visual gags. Of note is Sudoku’s route: Sudoku turns out to be a fan of a particular animal-themed MMO that is totally not Runescape. For this section of the game, the devs went out of their way to model a full 3D and low-poly environment as Pixel Girl plays through said MMO with her animal avatar. There’s even a fake UI pulled straight from Runescape. It’s a lot of work for what is a small section of the story and could’ve been pulled off with fake screenshots, but it’s one of the funniest sequences in the game. There’s also smaller moments, such as Chess’s chronic avoidance of the library resulting in a tiny pixel version of him physically pushing away the ‘library’ option if you attempt to go there early in one part of his route, or the changing chalkboard menu in the coffee shop. Bizarrely, though, the game’s ending chapter takes a strange meta and existential twist on the story. I won’t spoil the ending, but it builds on certain elements hinted at it in the story and certain character routes. Unfortunately, the story is too scarce for the ending to make its intended impact, so the final chapter is really odd and incongruent with the tone of the rest of the game.   

Pros: Good game for nonogram beginners and veterans alike, thanks to its flexible and modular settings, which also include QoL features. Breaking story and character routes into smaller chapters helps pace the game comfortably and makes swapping between character routes seamless. Has genuinely funny writing and visual gags. Cast of characters are all-around likeable in their own ways. Catchy soundtrack with a great mix of electronic and chiptune tracks.

Cons: Lack of ability to turn off auto-correct in puzzle settings. The dating sim portion of the game is short and barebones, which results in the character routes feeling shallow. Ending chapter is too ambitious for the game’s length, comes off as weird, and clashes with the rest of the story’s tone. Some funkiness with saving if quitting mid-chapter. 

Pixel Puzzle Makeout League is available for the Nintendo Switch and the PC through Steam and Rude Ghost’s itch.io. Despite being a weak dating sim, PPML offers flexible puzzle-solving options and a strong sense of humor. The game also demonstrates the potential in combining nonogram puzzle packs with other genres. While it has its issues, PPML was still a fun puzzle romp to chip away at the end of a work day, and I’m willing to recommend it despite its issues.