Review Insights · App Store
Picture Cross
AppyNation Ltd. · 73,849 ratings · ★ 4.6
4.6
★★★★★
73,849 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 67 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"game"
51 negative reviews mention this · 76% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Sorry you changed it. I’ve been playing for years. Used to start my day winning a game or 2 and collecting some tokens. Now you have to spend more in tokens to win the daily ones! The coins aren’t worth anything- I have $1.6M and what pray tell can I do with …" - frustrated with constant ads
2
"play"
26 negative reviews mention this · 39% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Sorry you changed it. I’ve been playing for years. Used to start my day winning a game or 2 and collecting some tokens. Now you have to spend more in tokens to win the daily ones! The coins aren’t worth anything- I have $1.6M and what pray tell can I do with …" - frustrated with constant ads
3
"playing"
22 negative reviews mention this · 33% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Sorry you changed it. I’ve been playing for years. Used to start my day winning a game or 2 and collecting some tokens. Now you have to spend more in tokens to win the daily ones! The coins aren’t worth anything- I have $1.6M and what pray tell can I do with …" - frustrated with constant ads
4
"daily"
22 negative reviews mention this · 33% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Sorry you changed it. I’ve been playing for years. Used to start my day winning a game or 2 and collecting some tokens. Now you have to spend more in tokens to win the daily ones! The coins aren’t worth anything- I have $1.6M and what pray tell can I do with …" - frustrated with constant ads
5
"tokens"
21 negative reviews mention this · 31% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Sorry you changed it. I’ve been playing for years. Used to start my day winning a game or 2 and collecting some tokens. Now you have to spend more in tokens to win the daily ones! The coins aren’t worth anything- I have $1.6M and what pray tell can I do with …" - frustrated with constant ads
6
"years"
19 negative reviews mention this · 28% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Sorry you changed it. I’ve been playing for years. Used to start my day winning a game or 2 and collecting some tokens. Now you have to spend more in tokens to win the daily ones! The coins aren’t worth anything- I have $1.6M and what pray tell can I do with …" - frustrated with constant ads
7
"puzzles"
19 negative reviews mention this · 28% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Best picross UI, terrible user experience. Simultaneously has one of the best game interfaces for the genre, and a lot of gameplay decisions that are targeted to frankly make the users life difficult so that they will burn more tokens. In particular, there’s a really cool encycloped…" - borkware
8
"every"
17 negative reviews mention this · 25% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Going downhill. The puzzles are decent, although I have encountered quite a few that come down to multiple solutions in the end. I paid to have ads removed, yet still see ads after every puzzle. Their customer service can’t seem to figure out how to fix th…" - StratosVX
9
"puzzle"
15 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Malicious Ads. I downloaded the game to play a relaxing brain off game whenever I wanted, not only is the game filled with 1 minute long to 1 minute 30 seconds ads after each puzzle, if you accidentally click on the banner ads at the top they send you to …" - MrUnique68
10
"been"
14 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Sorry you changed it. I’ve been playing for years. Used to start my day winning a game or 2 and collecting some tokens. Now you have to spend more in tokens to win the daily ones! The coins aren’t worth anything- I have $1.6M and what pray tell can I do with …" - frustrated with constant ads
11
"seconds"
13 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Malicious Ads. I downloaded the game to play a relaxing brain off game whenever I wanted, not only is the game filled with 1 minute long to 1 minute 30 seconds ads after each puzzle, if you accidentally click on the banner ads at the top they send you to …" - MrUnique68
12
"until"
13 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Ads have taken over. This was one of my favorite games until a recent change in how ads are presented. Ads pop up in the middle of game play and sometimes open a separate browser to run. Often the ads are repeated within seconds....game play.... ad in a separ…" - Oldkicker
📋 All 67 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
Malicious Ads
I downloaded the game to play a relaxing brain off game whenever I wanted, not only is the game filled with 1 minute long to 1 minute 30 seconds ads after each puzzle, if you accidentally click on the banner ads at the top they send you to sketchy websites. I just got one for “I may have a virus after visiting an adult website.” And “your data may be exposed in the next x amount of seconds.” “Click here to protect your device.” You’d think they’d screen ads before hand if they’re putting so many in but I guess not. Fix the ads. I get corporate greed drives mobile games but come on, this is ridiculous.
Spyware
This was a favorite game for YEARS. Now it won’t work without internet. Que tristeza!
Porn videos as ads
Had this game a while ago, reinstalled once I got my new phone and instantly deleted it again. Too many ads now, and one was literally a porn clip with stickers blocking view, for one of those games where you have to remove the screws. This is completely unacceptable and you can be sure I will never be downloading another game by this developer. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves, I understand needing ad revenue, but plenty of ads out there that aren’t literal porn clips. Do better!
Best picross UI, terrible user experience
Simultaneously has one of the best game interfaces for the genre, and a lot of gameplay decisions that are targeted to frankly make the users life difficult so that they will burn more tokens. In particular, there’s a really cool encyclopedia set of puzzles. When you finish one volume, you have to wait two weeks before getting the next one. What is the point of that? Just to make a frustrated user who is enjoying a play mode and now they are denied it for half a month? My bet it is to force you into other play modes which consume a great number more of the tokens so you end up paying more. Also, the recent change of having to play two games, draining your tokens before you get the daily game bonus, which kind of defeats the entire point of such a bonus. Love the game, hate how I’m being treated as user.
Ads have taken over
This was one of my favorite games until a recent change in how ads are presented.
Ads pop up in the middle of game play and sometimes open a separate browser to run. Often the ads are repeated within seconds....game play.... ad in a separate browser... close the browser....a moment of game play.... ad in a separate browser.. close the browser... ad infinitum (pun intended).
You've ruined a wonderful game with these ads.
******
Update - game deleted. The lack of response to the runaway ads is the reason. Do you not play your own game? I've had as many as three ads pop up consecutively, without pause. I play other games and they balance ads with game play, so stop blaming it on the ads. You ruined this game.
Ads pop up in the middle of game play and sometimes open a separate browser to run. Often the ads are repeated within seconds....game play.... ad in a separate browser... close the browser....a moment of game play.... ad in a separate browser.. close the browser... ad infinitum (pun intended).
You've ruined a wonderful game with these ads.
******
Update - game deleted. The lack of response to the runaway ads is the reason. Do you not play your own game? I've had as many as three ads pop up consecutively, without pause. I play other games and they balance ads with game play, so stop blaming it on the ads. You ruined this game.
WAY TOO MANY ADS
this app is filled with ads to the point I can barely play it do not download this
Complete 2 puzzles for rewards
What garbage is this? You have to spend tokens for 2 puzzles in order to get tokens as a reward? So much for collecting a bunch of tokens and playing for a while. It’s all about the money…..(of having to buy tokens to keep playing)
Why 2 puzzles for daily rewards?
Why? I used to able to stockpile coins and burn through them when new puzzles came out. Kept me logging into your game daily even though I had completed all the puzzles. This game is great but getting greedy with the ads I think. Guess I’ll delete this and find something else.
WAS great, now unplayable
I had this app for YEARS. I loved it, I think the gameplay aspect is still perfect but recently they had added ads that pop up in the middle of you trying to complete the puzzle. The ads on the bottom of the screen never bothered, the ads the played at the end after you completed a puzzle were also fine but its the moment the stupid ads affect the gameplay is the moment it goes too far. It breaks my heart to delete this app after so many years of it being an app i keep coming back to but I literally cant play for 2 whole minutes without being blasted with an ad that throws off my thought process. It is literally unplayable now.
Random ads
This game is one of the original games I had downloaded years ago and I’ve loved it…. UNTIL RECENTLY. Now as you are in middle of playing, it cuts to an ad for about 5 seconds. Short enough that by the time you go ‘ugh, what is..’ the game is back.. HOWEVER, this happens every 1.5 minutes. It’s OUT OF CONTROL. I hated the ads I had to sit through to get to the next game, but I could at least understand and deal with that. This interrupts your play so much that I have no choice but to delete it. I hate that it’s brought me to this because it’s one of my favorite games, but it is maddening to deal with. I’ll be on the prowl for a similar app without the interruption of game play.
Event pass
If you purchase an event pass once, it continues to charge you for future event passes!!! Reported a problem and they denied my claim. Disappointed, loved playing the game but not now. QUIT CHARGING ME!!!! Had to change my card!
Just deleted the app
The ads are out of control. I was just playing and 6 times ads popped up in the middle of the game. I have other games that are more reasonable with the ads. Bye!!!!!
Pop-up ads gotta go
The puzzles have become nearly unplayable because of the POP-UP ADS. At first, they were only for DoorDash but now there are others. This ad strategy cannot possibly be a good way to keep us long-time players happy nor to attract new ones!
It’s hard enough to continue to play without new puzzles, but now with the pop-up ads it’s become a really unpleasant way to spend time.
It’s hard enough to continue to play without new puzzles, but now with the pop-up ads it’s become a really unpleasant way to spend time.
Ads galore
Used to be a great/fun game and now nothing but ads! Completely ruined the game for me
Adz have gotten out of control
I have been playing this game for YEARS. This wasn’t an issue before so I don’t know what recently changed but the ads have gotten OUT OF CONTROL. The game is almost unplayable. While trying to complete a puzzle, an ad now pops up every 10-15 seconds. It’s impossible to even focus on what you’re doing with ads popping up that frequently. It is so annoying and frustrating. Yall have ruined a perfect game. I’m completely done playing.
Ads are out of control
Played this game for a few years now and didn’t mind the ads until recently when the ads pop up mid game I spent almost 5 minutes watching the same ad pop up on my screen with no way to skip. Just ruined my experience
Disruptive ads
Great game, love solving the puzzles. Recently, ads take over the screen for 3 to 5 seconds then disappear or the ad opens a web browser for an ad website. Extremely annoying and disrupts game play. Used to play daily but no longer fun stopping playing until the intrusive ads are removed. Ratings are tanking due to these annoying ads. Sad to see such a fun game being destroyed.
I used to love it
UPDATE ~~ over 40 ads in 10 minutes!! I didn’t start counting until I realized they weren’t going to slow down. Then I got to a point I had to stop counting!! Literally every 5 seconds for several pop ups, then a pause & repeat.
Do they really think anyone is watching these ads? NOPE!! They are swiped off as quickly as they pop up! It’s a shame - this developer had a good thing then became so greedy in wanting more money that now they are losing the long term customers they had. When will people learn that money isn’t everything?!?
Original post…
I’m in my 60’s, I have enjoyed this challenge & completed over 5,000 puzzles to help keep my mind sharp.
It’s not a priority of my money to pay for apps so I have learned to deal with the ads.
But now constant pop-up ads that interrupt focus to try to make you pay to get rid of them.
PLUS, words directly from support about daily awards,
“You'll only be asked to play 2 puzzles to unlock the daily reward when you have a lot of tokens already saved. It will drop to 1 or no puzzles if your token balance gets low.”
So they are penalizing long term customers by making them do more puzzles to get the daily award!! I’m not concerned about the tokens, I have more than I’ll even need, it’s their thought process of how they want to treat their customers.
Got news, all that is doing is pushing me to another developer of the same type of app!!
Do they really think anyone is watching these ads? NOPE!! They are swiped off as quickly as they pop up! It’s a shame - this developer had a good thing then became so greedy in wanting more money that now they are losing the long term customers they had. When will people learn that money isn’t everything?!?
Original post…
I’m in my 60’s, I have enjoyed this challenge & completed over 5,000 puzzles to help keep my mind sharp.
It’s not a priority of my money to pay for apps so I have learned to deal with the ads.
But now constant pop-up ads that interrupt focus to try to make you pay to get rid of them.
PLUS, words directly from support about daily awards,
“You'll only be asked to play 2 puzzles to unlock the daily reward when you have a lot of tokens already saved. It will drop to 1 or no puzzles if your token balance gets low.”
So they are penalizing long term customers by making them do more puzzles to get the daily award!! I’m not concerned about the tokens, I have more than I’ll even need, it’s their thought process of how they want to treat their customers.
Got news, all that is doing is pushing me to another developer of the same type of app!!
So Many AD Pop Ups
The game has become unplayable. I was use to seeing ads before and after a game is completed. But now, ads are popping up during the game. They must be hitting every 10-20 seconds.
Ads are RIDICULOUS
Two weeks ago I was perfectly fine now I can barely go 10 seconds without an ad popping up (NOT an exaggerating. I wish it was) and interrupting my game. this is absolutely ridiculous. i’ve loved this game for years because it used to be a calming but brain boosting game. now it is infuriating to play. Will be deleting.
Abandoned
Why are you selling customer location data to Venntel?
Last update over a month ago killed it. Does not work. Can you fix it? Is anybody out there?
Last update over a month ago killed it. Does not work. Can you fix it? Is anybody out there?
I remember when developers actually wanted you to play their games
Now it’s just a constant string of ads interrupting any real gameplay and new schemes to get more and more money out of players. I used to play this game a ton on another device, redownloaded to a new one after remembering how fun it was, now it’s virtually unplayable with the ads and time gates.
Broken now
It was the daily favorite until it recently stopped awarding green tokens. Too bad.
Update Ruined The Game
I don’t have time to be forced to complete 2 puzzles to get daily prizes. Replaying puzzles for 1-3 tokens no longer works… it’s terrible now!!!
Broken
I’m posting this 3/11/26. So I better not get a year old developer response. Daily rewards haven’t worked in two weeks. Replaying maps for tokens doesn’t reward tokens. I’m poor so I watch every single ad to help these devs get paid. Least they could do is fix the game.
Garbage
1 star for the daily rewards change.
Fun game but unplayable without ads or purchases
This game is fun, and I’ve had it installed in my phone since at least 2019. It went unplayed for most of that time until I got back into it this week. However, it’s basically unplayable unless you spend money or watch thousands of ads. It takes tokens to unlock each game, and you only generate 10 tokens max over time. After that you have to buy tokens or watch ads. To unlock just one puzzle costs anywhere from 10-40 tokens each puzzle. So once you’ve unlocked the few that are just 10 tokens, you are forced to buy more tokens or watch 1 ad to unlock just 1 token. You can also replay completely puzzles to earn 1-3 tokens, but that’s only IF the game is not glitching and gives coins as a prize instead, even though it says the prize is tokens. Absolutely ridiculous.
this sucks.
Absolutely terrible. This game was not fun and an EXTREME time waster. Ads are annoying, and gameplay is just straight up boring.
No Longer Gives Free Tokens Can no longer play without purchase
You no longer receive free tokens daily in order to play the games. They have not updated their playing instructions to show this. The only free tokens are from watching one ad per token for a total of nine tokens per day. Other than this, you can join their market research program, which is an invitation to scams. This used to be one of my favorite games I. I played for years, but without daily tokens, I will no longer be playing..
Why the sudden change?
What was the reasoning behind changing getting daily coins and tokens by simply logging on to now having to do two puzzles to get them? I’ve been playing this game for YEARS, so this all of a sudden feels… strange.
New update
I do not like the new change that requires you to play 2 games to get a daily reward. Through that process, you are forced to watch at least 3 ads. I will not be playing this game anymore until this changes back to only one ad to get reward.
Terrible Change
I loved this game up until when they recently changed the free tokens for logging in daily. Now you’re required to complete puzzles to get them. Completing puzzles that cost 50 tokens each only to get 10 in return is TERRIBLE ROI. This change absolutely needs reverted.
Not granting daily tokens?
Until recently, daily checkins granted tokens which are used to unlock puzzles. Recently, this has been changed to require the completion of 2 puzzles per day to get daily tokens… which seems broken. For two days, now, I’ve met the requirement, but have been granted no tokens. Problematic.
Stop making the app worse
Why are (boring) puzzles hidden behind a paywall and why are you making us complete puzzles to get the daily rewards?
Game has gone horribly downhill
I first downloaded this game back in 2019. I faithfully played every puzzle as they became available. I checked back regularly for any new puzzles and finished them all quickly, most times in 1 day, all 100 puzzles in the picture. I even played the color version. Now there have been scant new pictures and the mosaics they offer require premium play which costs money. I’m willing to ‘pay’ my time in ads to play, but now they are not even allowing that. And to collect ‘free’ tokens is rare. Even with the maximum of 10 a day it takes a lot of time because ‘there is currently nothing to watch’. I’m planning on giving this up and moving on to other games. So disappointed.
UPDATE! Game HAS CHANGED!
So, I’ve basically have played this game for YEARS. I actually almost completed all the puzzles at one point. I recently came back after a few year hiatus and noticed a few things that were added which was nice, but I had lost my progress in the main picture cross puzzles. I thought “no big deal, the game is fun and I’ll just start again, and just take my time”. But as I started poking around, I noticed the game was no longer ad-free for me if I didn’t continue to purchase coins, tokens, or event passes! They’ve basically changed the terms without notification! AND today, they now make you play 2 games that day in order to receive the daily tokens/coins. Again, no notification of this change. I’m going to just play until I’ve no longer have any more tokens/coins and will NOT be buying anymore. Ridiculous move by the app!
ORIGINAL REVIEW (I think done before 2018 sometime):
This game is a lot of fun. I go through each section from super easy to super hard. I like that I’ve gotten better at the game as I complete more. I’m getting close to the end and a little nervous that there won’t be an update for more puzzles. PLEASE add more puzzles. I don’t mind spending money on tokens, I just think of it as a magazine purchase or something similar.
ORIGINAL REVIEW (I think done before 2018 sometime):
This game is a lot of fun. I go through each section from super easy to super hard. I like that I’ve gotten better at the game as I complete more. I’m getting close to the end and a little nervous that there won’t be an update for more puzzles. PLEASE add more puzzles. I don’t mind spending money on tokens, I just think of it as a magazine purchase or something similar.
Ads have ruined the game
I have been playing this game for a long time and almost every day. Loved this game. All of the sudden there is an AD after every level. EVERY SINGLE ONE! The ads are longer than it takes to play some of the levels. It went from my favorite game (that I sometimes spent money one) to a game that I am uninstalling. There is nothing more annoying than a game that is CONSTANTLY interrupted by ADs. How about you try every 10 or 20 levels. I get you need to make money but you lost it with me. BYE!
DONT DOWNLOAD
Terrible and unusable: the app opens sports betting websites WHILE PLAYING with no warning and suspicious fake “your iphone is in danger” sites which then automatically open the app store for those apps
Forced token purchases
This game used to let you just log in daily and collect the daily token reward. Tokens are used to unlock each and every level. You don’t always earn tokens back when completing levels. Now, instead of just logging in, you have to play 2 puzzles to unlock the daily reward. Each puzzle unlock is 10+ tokens and the rewards don’t cover it. I used to be able to log in every day and collect the bonus and play when I wanted. I put up with the ads after all puzzles, but now it seems that when I run out of tokens, I’ll have to purchase them to play any more. And devs, I don’t wanna hear the “you can earn tokens other ways” cause it won’t be enough anymore.
the developers are unashamedly sinister
this game tries to do everything in its power to force you to spend money.. ads after you complete every single level would be fine but on top of that you can only get 10 tokens max whereas to unlock a level it cost around 15-40 tokens.. how do you get beyond 10? you have e to pay ofc
highly don’t recommend there are better options not made by greedy developers if i could give negative stars i would
highly don’t recommend there are better options not made by greedy developers if i could give negative stars i would
Sorry you changed it
I’ve been playing for years. Used to start my day winning a game or 2 and collecting some tokens. Now you have to spend more in tokens to win the daily ones! The coins aren’t worth anything- I have $1.6M and what pray tell can I do with them??? I obviously can’t buy tokens. I only play occasionally anymore. Was a 5, now a 2
Pop up and pop out ads are a huge problem
I understand free apps being ad supported. But ads that cause Safari to open with (hopefully) fake “your device is infected” garbage are unacceptable. I’ve been playing this game for years, but it’s time to delete it. The trust is gone.
Latest update may make me quit after years of play
I have played Picture Cross daily for years. It used to be that you could balance your amount of play and the daily rewards enough to get enough coins and tokens to play without buying anything. The latest update rewards only with coins so that my token bank is down over 1000 tokens from playing one board. If they force me into having to purchase in order to continue playing, I will delete the app.
Not for phones
Seems like a good game but good luck being able to place pixels down close to the edge of the screen - the alternate mode helps slightly but is so cumbersome to use that it’s not worth it. If it had a zoom feature for the larger puzzles that would fix the problem.
Going downhill
The puzzles are decent, although I have encountered quite a few that come down to multiple solutions in the end. I paid to have ads removed, yet still see ads after every puzzle. Their customer service can’t seem to figure out how to fix this issue. You used to be able to collect daily rewards to get tokens to keep playing, but now you have to complete multiple puzzles to collect the meager rewards. I just had to spend 30 tokens to collect 10. It shouldn’t take a math wizard to figure out how this will go. When I run out of tokens, I plan to delete this game and the others I have from this developer.
Too much!
I like the game, but doubling the number of games needed for the streak is too much. No more for me!
So mad about ads
I love this game for years but with the ads popping up in the middle if my puzzle several times per puzzle I can’t play anymore. Sorry to say I had to delete the app because of this.
Ads have gotten horrible!
I’ve played this game for years and loved it but here as of late they’ve put ads in that’ll interrupt you mid puzzle and in between every level, to the point where I’ve stopped playing because I know I’ll just be force feed 4 ads before I even get to my second puzzle.
Ads are ridiculous
I love the game but I had pop up ads showing up so often that I couldn’t even play the actual game.
love this game… but come on now…
This game has been getting bad reviews and it absolutely deserves it. i have been playing this game since 2019 and in the recent months/ weeks it has become unplayable. in app purchases used to get rid of ALL ads. now, it only gets rid of them for a month. pop up ads play for 5 seconds randomly WHILE YOU ARE IN A PUZZLE! ads play after almost every puzzle. you are forced to sit through LONG ads. ads are simply out of control. And under every review talking about these problems they try to gaslight us and say “sorry :( that shouldnt happen” No. it is absolutely happening on purpose. keep giving negative reviews until this is changed.
+ 17 more in the clipboard copy
Sentiment summary
91%
Positive (4-5★)
5%
Neutral (3★)
4%
Negative (1-2★)