Remember summer nights when you were young, lying in the grass and finding patterns in the stars? (There’s a country song in there somewhere…) Pictorial runs along those lines; it's an educational/puzzle game where you take seemingly random stars and drag your finger until the stars become lines and eventually form a picture. Hit the picture exactly, and you’re on to the next level.

Multi-staged Pictorial has three maps of 20 levels each to clear as of the current version, with the promise of more levels in future updates. With my love of puzzle games and 60 puzzles to solve right off the bat, I assumed it would be a perfect distract-me-from-housework-or-other-responsibilities app.

My god. It's full of (yawn) stars.

But, it’s oddly boring. The levels don’t get progressively harder. The pictures are clunky and it's sometimes hard to tell what they are; more than once after solving I thought, what was that? The background music (which luckily can be turned off) is of the elevator variety. The whole thing struck me as…meh. I found myself slogging through the levels just to get it over with. Not exactly the type of reaction you’re looking for. 

It’s missing a sense of urgency or danger that other puzzle games have. It times slowly down from 999 points to zero before you fail the level. And when you do, nothing happens. No game over, you can keep going and just earn zero points. There is no strategy to employ; you wiggle your finger until you find the picture. When you nail it, it freezes automatically, and you move on to the next.

Hey, an old-timey record player. Captivating.

The bottom line. Pictorial is a neat concept that just needs a little more excitement. 60 levels are impressive, and the promise of more to come is great as well. It is listed on iTunes as the No. 1 educational app in the US and Canada. But it just doesn’t hold my attention like so many other puzzle apps can. Still, if you do like it -- and many people seem to -- you can like it for a long time.