Thursday, August 29, 2013

Update: BlockPath Pro for iPhone and iPad

My main regret in my original review of BlockPath was that it is too expensive to unlock all puzzles, since it requires four separate in-app purchases. This has been addressed today with the release of BlockPath Pro, which costs 99 cents and has all the worlds unlocked.
While I feel a bit cheated since I had already bought 3 worlds in the Free version, the good news is that the puzzles in the Pro version apparently are different, so I didn't buy the same stuff twice. Also, it looks like their size is large from the very beginning. In the Free version, the first few puzzles are played on smaller grids.

The developer is promising new puzzles to be added in September, so this looks like a bargain. Get it.

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Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Review: Spliced Colors for iPhone and iPad

Make no mistake: Spliced Colors by Maria Cristian is not a logic puzzle. It is, instead, a game to exercise your visual-spatial abilities.
The goal is peculiarly odd. You have a set of 12 tiles, and a pattern shown on the right of the screen. You need to pick in order the 5 tiles that reproduce the pattern, but rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Review: Reiner Knizia's Kaleidoscope for iPhone and iPad

Reiner Knizia's Kaleidoscope is a nice variation of domino placement puzzles, flawed by a mediocre user interface.
Whether Reiner Knizia was actually involved in the design of these puzzles, or his name is just used for marketing purposes, is unclear to me. The game uses the same double-hexagon domino pieces of Knizia's Ingenious (marketed as Kaleidoskop in some countries), but that's a totally different game.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Update: Lazors 2.2

An update to the popular Lazors was released a few days ago, featuring 5 new groups of puzzles with cleverly thought themes, for a total of 50 new puzzles.

Numbered features grids shaped like the numbers 1 to 10, and each puzzle even has a matching number of blocks!

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Review: BlockPath for iPhone and iPad

BlockPath Pro (also free) is a fascinatingly minimalistic path finding puzzle which hooked me from the beginning.
It was created by Tehnio, a Latvian developer, which is an interesting thing in itself since Latvia is one of the smallest countries in Europe, with a population smaller than Houston, Texas.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Second Look: Fold

My main complaint in the review of Fold was that the puzzles are too easy. +Ricardo Moura, the author of the game, kindly wrote me to point out that if you get a gold medal in all the puzzles of the game, you'll be brought to a "The End" screen which is actually a playable puzzle.
Solving the final puzzle unlocks a bonus world which contains just 5 puzzles, but noticeably harder than the other ones in the game.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Review: Sky Scramble for iPhone and iPad

Sky Scramble by Roberto Canogar and Alberto Borobia is a puzzle game with a fascinating theme, and original mechanics which perfectly fit the setting.
After I solved the third puzzle and the view zoomed out to reveal the following picture, I couldn't avoid letting out a wow.

Indeed, the Hubble telescope pictures that the game shows as a reward for solving the puzzles are nothing short of stunning.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Review: RIPPLE: A Game About Chain Reaction for iPhone and iPad

RIPPLE: A Game About Chain Reaction is a short game with a long title. What's there, however, is enjoyable, though not particularly challenging.

The concept is simple. Tap anywhere on the screen to start a ripple. Careful: you need to tap in any empty place of the screen. I hadn't understood that at first, and kept tapping the grey dots, which caused nothing to happen.