Pixelus is a single-player puzzle game developed and published by PopCap Games. It was initially released on July 15, 2004. The game follows the story of Cladius, a Greek man who was shipwrecked in the island of Pixelus. To help him get back home, Cladius decides to appease the Gods by rebuilding temple mosaics.
The game’s goal is to create particular images using a restricted number of tiles in the smallest number of moves. The gameplay requires the player to slide the available tiles across the 16x16 grid and move them to the given locations to create the desired image. Most of the locations where the tiles must be placed are not accessible. Because of this, the player must use the tiles as a blocker to place the tiles in their respective positions then later remove the blockers. There are different options available in the game. Players can choose to reset the game, take a hint, or take one move back.
Whenever a mosaic puzzle is complete, the player can receive a gold, silver, or bronze medal. What type of medal the player achieves depends on the number of moves the player used when completing the mosaic. Each mosaic has its own World Record, which is the shortest amount of moves needed to finish the puzzle. This will be the basis for the medals received by the player.
The game also features an Expert mode. In this mode, players do not have access to the Hint and Undo buttons. This makes the game more complicated than the Normal mode.