In Touch Reviews

SET. ($3.99, version 1.0.2)

2009-05-20T21:58:00.000-07:00

iTunes Link.

Set is a memory game on steroids. The basic premise is to match three cards in which everything is the same or everything is different.

When you first start up the app you have the option to enable or disable sounds. From there you get to a menu with quite a bit of options. You can view your scores for the four game modes and reset them, you can view a tutorial, you can start playing any of the four game modes, you can change settings around, or you can go to a help screen where you can again select the tutorial but where you also can view instructions or an about page.

Scores are local only. The tutorial shows you two cards and asks you which card the third one should be and gives you three options to choose from. The settings allow you to turn hints on or off, turn the sound on or off, and choose from three different backgrounds. The instructions explain the gameplay, the difficulty levels, and the game mode. The about screen gives you the developer's website and email address, always welcomed information.

The basic gameplay is to make a set. A set is three card that are either all the same OR all different in each of their features when compared with each other. The features are either color, symbol, and number in the basic difficulty level and color, symbol, number, and shading in the advanced difficulty level.

The game screen includes 9 cards, the timer on the upper left, the current set goal and progress so far in the upper right, the mode towards the bottom center, and a pause button on the lower right. From the pause button you can resume the game or go to the main menu. Games are not saved so make sure you have enough time if you want to complete a full game. It would be great if there were four save states, one for each mode.

There's a lot of replay value because there's four different game both, two timed and two untimed (there's still a timer on the first two modes but it goes up instead of down and there's no time limit). In Classic mode, you have to find 10 SETs in the least amount of time, and every time you make a match those cards disappear and three new cards fill in their spots. In Puzzle mode find between 4 and 6 sets in a single puzzle. It becomes challenging because cards do not disappear when you make a match and you have to keep track of which matches you have found already. In Timed Mode you get two minutes to find as many sets are you can, and you get three seconds added for each set found. Matches disappear and new cards fill in. In Arcade mode you get a certain amount of time to complete a certain amount of sets, and if you find that number of sets you get more time and a higher number of sets to find.

There's music during the menus but not during gameplay. Cards make a swiping sound when selected and you get two different noises when you match a correct or incorrect set. Once you finish you get what sounds like a ghost whispering in the wind.

The graphics are not overly flashy but they don't need to be for a card game.

Now we get to the recommendation. This is a $4 game. I am not going to say it is not worth it because a lot of time and effort had gone into this game. This game was designed by Marsha Falco in 1974 and published by SET Enterprises in 1991. Part of the cost goes into licensing fees. If you're comparing it to Sega and Gameloft, it's cheaper. But it's more expensive than most games out there. Cheaper games climb faster on the sale charts, and now people expect more for a dollar.

Is the game worth it? Yes. Can you get more for your money? Yes. If you have played the card game before and love it, this is a great implementation with lots of features and easily worth the four bucks. But I'm not sure that it has the same longevity compared to what the app store has to offer. Put it at a buck and it's an easy recommendation. In short, the game is fun, polished, and has tons of options, but it's priced in such a way that it delivers less for your money than the competition does.

GridLocked. ($0.99, version 1.2)

2009-05-20T21:10:00.001-07:00

iTunes Link.

Ever been stopped at a red light with cars behind you while there's not a car in sight to your left or to your right? Ever wished you could manage those lights more intelligently? Now's your chance. Gridlocked is a traffic management game. You have four crossroads and have to manage four sets of traffic lights in order to keep traffic moving. Keep cars waiting too long and you lose.

When you first start up the app you get a choice to turn sounds on or off. You cannot change this unless you restart the app. Adding an options menu with a volume switch would be a welcomed addition. A nice feature is that it has music playthrough so if you choose no sounds your music will play through. Once you select whether you wants sounds or not, you get a menu that allows you to play, view a tutorial, view statistics, and view the high scores. The tutorial goes over what the goal is, what the different-colored cars mean, and controls. It's only two screens since there's not much to learn in order to get cracking.

In order to view the high scores you will need an Internet connection, since it only shows global high scores. You can post your highest score to the scoreboard. It shows the top 25 scores, and the top dog gets a little thumbs up icon next to their name. Statistics include your highest score, your last score, how many games played, and most cars that have passed through the intersections in a single game.

From the game screen you have your current score at the top and a pause button on the lower right-hand side of the screen. The pause button brings up a menu that lets you either continue or end the current game. The game screen is what could be called a suburb. There's a parking lot on one corner, a couple of houses, a lake, and lots of trees. The treetops over the houses are see-through, so that you get a feeling that you can see the houses through the branches. The graphics are drawn and while not overly flashy, they serve the gameplay well. There are three types of cars: regular sedans, trucks, and ambulances. It's not explained whether ambulances change color faster.

The cars will change color depending on how long they've waiting at the intersection. White is the default color. White will turn first to yellow, then to orange, and then to red. Once it gets to red you only have a few seconds to get it moving or it's game over for you.

The intersections don't actually have tragic lights, they just have arrows that show which way the traffic will flow, up-down or left-right. If you change the arrows while a car is crossing the intersection and a car is coming the other way, the other car will just wait. There are no crashes in this game; everyone politely waits their turn if you happen to mess up the timing.

As the game progresses, the traffic starts to get bottlenecked. You may turn the arrows on the upper right intersection to go from up-down to left-right to get rid of some upper horizontal traffic but no one can move because the upper left intersection is turned up-down, and there are cars waiting there already. So it's not possible to save a game by just managing one intersection change; you have to also take into account the other intersections.

Your score doesn't increase each time a car passes the intersection, it just increases by one ever second or so. I found the game relaxing until about 200 or so, at which time it start getting a bit frantic. At the end you end up tapping around like a maniac trying to get rid of bottlenecks.

Sounds are minimal with some techno background music. The cars don't make a noise, while the trucks honk once and the ambulances have a short siren.

This game is incredibly addicting. You wouldn't think it would be this much fun to direct traffic. The addition of global high scores may keep you coming back for more. The current game is not saved if you exit the app or go back to the main menu, so if you're going for a high score you might want to schedule in some time before starting. This game is a perfect pick-up-and-play game. For a dollar, this is a worthwhile investment and a nice diversion.iTu

Durak. ($1.99, version 1.1)

2009-05-18T13:30:00.000-07:00

iTunes Link.

We are giving away FIVE promo codes!! Please read more about the contest at the end of the review.

Durak is a very well-known Russian card game. You're not really trying to win, you're just trying not to lose. The last person left with one or more cards at the end loses, so there can be more than one winner but only one loser. Durak means fool in Russian and, if you're playing the game in a Russian bar and lose, you may end up having to squat down and walk around the bar clucking like a chicken.

The interface is extremely polished. From the main menu you can pick a single player game against the PC, a multiplayer game, go through a tutorial, adjust the settings, or get some information about the game. The game information screen includes the developer's website address and if you click where it shows ''E-mail Us,'' it opens up the iDevice's email app with the developer's email address already filled out for you, which is a nice touch. It's frustrating when developers don't include any contact information and their iTunes website and support links lead to nonexistent websites or websites with generic information and no way to get in touch with them. It's refreshing to see a developer go out of their way to make it easy for you to contact them and even ask for any feedback. It would be great that instead of just showing ''E-mail Us'' it would show ''E-mail us at info@losttoken.com'' while still being clickable.

From that same screen you can click on Invite a Friend and it will open up the email app with the subject of "Durak game'' and a pre-written message that says ''Look at this cool game!'' and has a link to the game and a gameplay image and also has a link to the developer's website. All that's needed is to put in an email address and click send. On that same screen you can click on the developer's website address to go directly to their page. I think they want to be reached.

In the settings you can turn the music, sound effects, or turnovers on or off. Turnovers refers to the game rule that you can match an attack card with a card that has the same value (more on that later). You can also choose from three difficulty levels and card style. The default card style is red and white on the back and you can choose another card style from any of your pictures in the iDevice. This is a very nice touch. The changed card style even shows up in the menus, giving the whole game a real feel of interactivity. It's little touches like these that make a game stand out.

The tutorial is very comprehensive and walks you step-by-step through a staged game, teaching you the basic rules. Each player gets six cards, and your goal is to get rid of all cards. Cards go from 6 to Ace. At the beginning of the game a ''Trump card'' is chosen and placed beneath the rest of the deck (after each player's cards have been given out). Any card from that suite trumps any card from any other suite. So if the trump card is the ten of diamonds, a two of diamonds will trump the ace of spades.

As you get rid of your cards, you will receive new cards from the deck until it runs out, always having six cards at the end of your turn. The game rotates clockwise. The first player places a card on the table and the next player can ''defend'' from the ''attack'' by placing a higher card of the same suite or a trump card. If an attack is defended, you can do one of two things. You can continue the attack or you can end your attack by double-tapping the table. This is where most of the game's strategy comes from: what to play and what to keep. You may not want to play higher cards early in the round, because as soon as your opponent cannot defend against your attack, they grab all the cards on the table. So if you played many high cards, they are now in the hands of your opponent.

If you want to continue your attack, you can play any card with the same value as any of the cards on the table (you can attack with anything when you first start your attack). So if the table has a 2, ace, and king, you can place any 2, ace, or kind, regardless of the suite. I think the game could make this clearer, as the tutorial says you can play any ''matching'' card but this doesn't apply to suite, so it would be better if it said something like you can play any card with the same ''value'' as any card already on the table.

If you don't have anything else to attack with, you can double tap the table and the cards go into a "graveyard'' (instead of going to your opponent, which only happens if you attack and they cannot defend). Once the cards reach the graveyard, they stay there.

Turn-swapping boils down to this: if your opponent can't defend against your attack, they take all the cards on the table and you attack again. If they can defend and you give up attacking, the cards go to the graveyard and it's your opponent's turn to attack.

A special rule, called a turnover, is that if your opponent is attacking you can counter-attack by placing a card of the same value on the table. Your opponent then has to defend against both cards. But be careful, as your opponent may place yet a third card of the same value on the table and now you have to defend against all three cards. If you can't, you take all three cards. If your opponent attacks, you can actually throw in multiple cards of the same value and they have to defend against all of them. Once you are ready putting cards in, double-tap to allow your opponent to defend. If your opponent can't defend against your first attack, the game allows you to throw in additional cards of the same value before your opponent has to take the lot. This give-and-take of attacking and defending goes on until only one person is left with cards.

That's pretty much the game. Try to get rid of your cards, try to defend with as low cards as possible, and try to save all your high and trump cards until the end.

In single player mode you can choose one, two, or three opponents. Multiplayer is Wi-Fi only. The game looks very polished, and the table has a nice wooden finish. It would be great to also be able to change the way the table looks with our own backgrounds; that would just be icing on the cake. From the play table you can tap on the question mark on the bottom right and get tips about what to do next (not strategy tips, just gameplay tips). The game also lets you know if you should be attacking or defending.

When you are playing more than one PC opponent, player one attacks first. If Player 1 (P1) decides to end their attack after P2 has successfully defended, P3 and P4 (in a 4-player game with you and 3 PC opponents) can continue your attack. If P2 defends successfully, you get to go yet one more time. If P2 successfully fends off all attacks, it's their turn to attack. If they can't defend the extended P1-P3-P4 attack, they grab the cards on the table and they don't get to attack next because they lost the attack. P3 would go next and would attack P4, and then P1 and P2 can join in the fun of attacking P4.

Who goes first depends on what level you are playing. You will always start on Easy when playing the PC. If you're playing other people or the PC on Normal or Hard, the player with the lowest trump card goes first. If someone doesn't have a trump card but one or more of the other players do, the person without a trump card is automatically disqualified from going first. If only one player has a trump card, they go first. If none of the four players have a trump card, the app will pick the game starter at random.

Something l didn't notice until right now (literally) is that in the menus you can actually grab the cards to the side and move them around (you can grab all four with different fingers). Another little touch that adds polish to this game.

There's some nice relaxing music, reminiscent of playing cards at a jazz club. There's shuffling sounds and other assorted sound effects when you move the cards around.
For some reason I had a hard time learning the rules. But it's like riding a bike - once you learn, you never forget. You may want to prepare for a few frustrating hands while you learn the rules. But once you do learn the rules, it's a very enjoyable game. And if you ever go to Russia, you'll be sure to make lots of friends quickly.

The one major suggestion I would have is to save your current game. Each time you go to the main menu, you have to start over. It does save the current game if you exit out of the app and then re-start the app, but it goes straight into the game. So there's no way to go to the main menu (to adjust settings or change the card background, for example) while in the middle of a game without losing the game.

This is a nice change from all the solitaire games out there. It's different, it's well-explained, it's well done, and it just looks good. The cards are easy to read and handle. Highly recommended if you're looking for a nice relaxing different type of card game. It goes without saying that if you grew up playing and loving this game in real life, it should be part of your game library.

You can watch a gameplay video taken by the developer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nBGjTnsbw.

Contest: The first person to send the correct answer to intouchreviews@gmail.com will get the code and their desired name posted here. Your subject MUST say "Durak promo code" to be eligible, and must have the answer and the desired name/nickname to be posted here.

QUESTION 1: Who was the first person to walk in space?

Stoneloops! of Jurassica. ($0.99, version 1.00)

2009-05-18T09:25:00.000-07:00

iTunes Link.

I can count on one hand how many games I have been obsessed with. Puzzle Quest, Pixel Cross, PathPix, and Stoneloops! This is a rare game (for me) in that I keep coming to it for one... last... time, to try to beat the current level. This game is in the style of Zuma and Luxor. This is the sixth game of its kind that I try in the app store and by far the best. If you get one of these types of games, get this one.

You have one or more lines of colored marbles advancing through curvy paths onto evil skulls who want to eat your marbles. Your goal is to shoot colored marbles to match three or more and clear all marbles without any of them getting to the skull. Along the way you encounter different power-ups. The difficulty lies in having multiple skulls in some levels (along with multiple marble lines) and curvier paths that obscure your shots.

When you start the game you get a gorgeous menu screen with rolling marbles, glowing water, flying fireflies, and jungle sounds. The game has a prehistoric motif. I play most games without music and mostly turn on sounds just for reviews, but I find myself wanting to play this with sound all the time. It really adds to it. From the main screen you can choose from classic and grab n' shoot mode, change options around, view your high scores, view your trophies, learn how to play, or view more games by the same dev.

Options include a music and sound effects slider, enable voice on or not (more on this later), and controls. It remembers music options but sadly it doesn't seem to remember the voiceover option. The controls include:

a. Touch - Grab and hold to move, remove finger to release the marble - the default and the only one I use. There doesn't seem to be a way to swap marbles using this control method. On all controls method if you are covering the marble with your fingers other cues let you know the color - marbles of the same color appear to the sides of the "paddle/shooter," and the guide line (which shows you where your marble will end up) is the same color as the current marble.

b. Buttons. Move by holding and dragging. Button to shoot, button to swap marbles with the next one.

c. Tilt - Tilt left or right to aim, tap anywhere to shoot.

There's a control scheme to please anyone.

The trophies are varied and are given for points, gems collected, powerups used, etc. There's "levels" of trophies which adds more depth to the trophy system. The high scores are divided between classic mode and grab n shoot mode and include some pre-loaded ones. You can also clear them. You can see the name, score, and max level reached (but you can keep going from the last level finished without having to start over).

The tutorial not only has images but also has animations and walks you through all aspects of the game. It also covers the different power-ups:

a. Boost - advances your level progress bar by 10% (finish the progress bar and no more lines will generate).
b. Storm - a lightning bolt that destroys marbles in its path (which is only from the bottom to the top of the screen in a vertical line).
c. Meteor - a meteor shower destroys marbles.
d. Spear - get a few spears to destroy specific marbles and aid you in making matches.
e. Stop - stops the marble lines for a few moments.
f. Reverse - moves the marble lines back.
g. Color cloud - drops powder onto the marbles that turn them into the specific color of the cloud.
h. Pteranodon - a bird that eats the first 10 marbles of the line.
i. Multicolor - like a wild card marble, matches any other color.
j. Fireball - a ball of fire that destroys marbles.

The help includes instructions for both game modes. In Classic mode you have a "paddle" in the bottom with a marble that you shoot up to match other marbles of the same color and clear them. In grab 'n shoot, you grab a marble and then release it back up to make matches. Reminds me of the Xbox Live Arcade game Astropop.

There are some loading screens between menus and each level but only last 2-3 seconds and are not annoying.

There are 75 levels in each game mode (and you'll be playing some levels more times than one... many more times). There is easily over five hours of content here (being conservative). There are five different areas with 15 levels each. In each area you have the mini-back story of building a house. The one thing I hate is that every time I finally pimp out my pad, I abandon it for a new run-down house. No time left to enjoy it! I mostly ignore that backstory in this game and just tap through the five screens or so per fifteen levels.

When you go to start a new game you can resume a saved game or start a new game (and thankfully it asks you if you really want to start a new game, in case you accidentally tap that button while you are almost done with level 75). Going back to the menu or exiting out the app saves your progress. Not only do you start in the same level, you start with the same progress within that level. Nice.

There are bonus levels in which you first match marbles then hit rocks in order to get power-ups. Once you match the marbles, the rock will have a flashing power-up. Hit three rocks with that power-up and you will have that power-up at the beginning of the next round. You get a bonus round every five levels.

Before you start each stage, you can view the "world" name (i.e. five worlds, 15 stages each), the game mode, how your house is going, which level you're on, the total score, and you go to the main menu, view your house, or play. You also get a little progress map of how you are progressing through the levels. From the game you can tap Menu on the upper left to pause the game (and it's very responsive, which is great in this type of fast-moving game), you can view your cumulative save slot score (which doesn't get reset if you lose, only when you start over), your level progress meter, the world, the stage, and what color marble is next. From the pause pop-up you can go back to the main menu (and save your current stage progress), go to the options screen, or resume the game.

The sounds are absolutely amazing. There's some jungle music and sounds during the menu and some Indiana-Jonesy music during gameplay and if you turn the voice on, it tells you "Good," "Solid," or "Avalanche!" depending on how many marbles you match. I haven't heard any others so far. It will also tell you "Level Complete" and "Gem Catcher" at the end of the level. I can never get enough of a game that tells me how solid I'm playing. There's a little clanking noise when you release marbles and nice crunching breaking noises when marbles explode. You get a little congratulatory music when you finish a level. The music speeds up when you are nearing the skulls.

I have found the difficulty to be a little inconsistent. I'll play a few levels, then get stuck on a level, play the level 10 times, pass it easily the last time, then breeze through a few levels, rinse, repeat. It's more of a roller coaster ride than a gentle ascent to a top of a mountain. But with a game this much fun, little annoyances like this get a "who cares!"

Here is my wishlist. It seems the developer may not implement these as it seems I'm in the minority, so if you would like to see this too, please contact the developer :) I'd like multiple save slots, with at least two. This would allow me to have a save slot with my current game and an open one where I can start the lower levels all over again when I just want to play for fun and not get (deliciously) frustrated by the current level I'm stuck on. I'd also love endless/survival mode, which is great for quick games. I'd also love to be able to start from any level previously beaten. Those three additions would make this the best game on the app store. That would just be icing on the cake. It's rare that a game will have me yearning just one... more... try. This one certainly does. I spent two hours on this review because every time I went back to the game to check on something, I played at least one more level.

It's a dollar right now with a description of 75% off sale. Get it. This is a no-brainer. This is one of the best apps in the app store right now. For the price of a cheeseburger you can have hours of fun. And less cholesterol.

In Touch Reviews Hall Of Fame.

PathPix. ($1.99, version 1.0)

2009-05-08T02:46:00.000-07:00

I love my Nintendo DS. And what I love most about my Nintendo DS is playing Japanese puzzle games and non-US cartridges such as Pic Pic and Colour Cross. Pic Pic comes loaded with three games, one of those being Drawing, or PathPix, as it's called here. And with the release of PathPix on the iDevices, I have found my most favorite iDevice game.

Let's cover the menus first and then we can focus on the goodness of the gameplay mechanics. When you start up the app you can pick a puzzle of get some help. The help walks you all the way through solving a simple puzzle in order to teach you the game mechanics, and also offers up some additional instructions. Play shows you a list of available puzzles. From the puzzle selection screen you can also view the help.

There are a total of 144 puzzles in increasing difficulty. This game is going to take you a long time. One of the best things about this game is that it keeps each puzzle's save state stored separately, so that you can be in the middle of all the available puzzles at the same time. This is a game where you can be stuck for 10 minutes on a puzzle, leave it, come back, and solve it in one second. You either visualize the solution or you don't. You can also do any puzzle at any time as they are all unlocked.

A puzzle will appear in one of three ways. It will have the PathPix icon if it's untouched, it will show a screenshot of the puzzle in progress if you have clicked on it before (whether you have connected any paths or not), or it will display the puzzle's finished picture and a philosophical quote if completed. The quotes are actually very nice and are not corny at all. They really will make you reflect on them.

When you click on a puzzle, you get taken to the main screen. This contains the board, zoom in and out buttons (only one zoom level, in or out), the puzzle number, and a button to go back to the puzzle list (puzzle progress is saved automatically at all times whether you press Home or go back to the puzzle list). If the board is larger than the iDevice screen you get one to four arrows, depending on which side of the screen it extends beyond. If you press the zoom out screen, you get an overview of the minimized board. You cannot select paths while being zoomed out.

On to the game play. Looking at the screenshots will make the explanation make more sense. You have a board divided into squares. The smaller the squares, the more difficult the puzzle is. You have pairs of numbers in different colors. Your goal is to link up all pairs of same-colored numbers. For example, a 1 will just be a dot (or square...). A pair of 2's will be directly linked, so that they're two colored squares of the same color next to each other. A pair of 3's of the same color will have one colored square in the middle and their squares will be colored in. There are pretty much number-2 squares in-between each pair, and both numbers at the end of the link will be the same color. As you link the numbers of, you will start filling up the puzzle will color and will be creating images. There are blank squares here and there but most will be filled up.

The challenge is how to accommodate all the links so that you can pair up all matches. The difficulty is also ramped up when you have a bunch of the same number because not only do you have to figure out which path to take but also which number goes with which number. If you're stuck, follow these three guidelines:

* If you're stuck, you're probably following the wrong path.
* If you're stuck, you're probably linking up the wrong number pair.
* If you have one pair left to link and you've found no way to make room for it, erased everything around it, link that pair first, and then work around it.

There is no music or sound effects in this game. I don't miss them because the gameplay is so solid. The graphics are polished, bright, and clear.

The controls are divided into two portions. Drawing up the paths and moving the screen on bigger puzzles. The selection process is just flawless. Tap on a number and drag your finger around to create a path, which finished off automatically when you reach its pair (whether the right pair or not). Double tap to erase the completed or partial path. Retrace your steps to erase part of the path. Intuitive, responsive, perfect.

The other part is moving around the screen. Right now you move through the screen with the green arrows that appear on corresponding side of the screen if the puzzle extends beyond the screen area. If the button is pressed the screen advances in steps. The developer said that she had implemented screen dragging at first but that messed up the selection. That if you perfected one, the other had to suffer. I can live with that. The one tweak I would love is for the screen to move smoothly instead of in little steps when the arrows are pressed. I rarely use the arrows. I work on what I can on the screen then zoom out and back in on an area I have to work on. I only use the arrows when I have to travel just a couple of steps in any direction.

The developer, Kris Pixton, has six PC games available at Kris Pixton games, with PathPix being one of them (and the PC version has fourteen HUNDRED puzzles). PathPix actually cost me $66 because I had to buy the six-game PC bundle after playing the iDevice game. Another awesome game (which is another game in Pic Pic) is what Kris Pixton calls PrismaPix (although her version is much more involved than the DS version). If this one sells well PrismaPix may make it to the iDevices. I would say if all her iDevice games sell well all of the six games might make it to the iDevices sooner or later. This is her first foray into the app store, and I am more than excited.

This game holds a special place in my heart and is my most favorite game in the app store (until PrismaPix comes out). There are a lot of awesome games in the store, but this is definitely the one I enjoy the most. I hope more puzzles are added in the future. Should you get this game? Yes! (and I'm not biased at all... not at all). Great pick for any puzzle fan. The price is a steal for this much gameplay. Solid controls, polished graphics, lots of content, challenging. I have found my app store nirvana, and its name is PathPix.

In Touch Reviews Hall Of Fame.

Trixel. ($2.99, version 1.0)

2009-05-07T07:29:00.000-07:00

iTunes Link.

Trixel is a puzzle game. You have a board with different-colored tiles and your goal is to match a pre-determined pattern.

When you first start up the app you have six menu items. You can go to the puzzles, race the clock, change the settings, view records, take a look at the credits, and get some help.

The help is basic and goes over controls and special items. Records include what percentage of each difficulty level you have completed, how many crystals you have collected, and how many gold, silver, and bronze trophies you have. You can also get statistics on how many maps you have completed in Race the Clock mode (Relaxed, Fast, Frantic, and Furious), how many moves you have taken, time taken, and the date. There are some records already entered for you in Race the Clock mode for you to beat. There's also an option to clear all records, which also deletes all progress.

In settings you can turn the sound and special effects on and off and there's a slider for the music volume. There's also a music pass-through option so that you can play your own music, which is excellent. It remembers your selections even after you close and reopen the app.

The Race the Clock mode is not accessible from the beginning. There's no indication on the help files about what you have to do to unlock it, so I'd guess you have to beat all the puzzles in Puzzle mode first.

The gameplay consists of going from tile to tile turning the tiles into different colors until you match a set pattern. When you start the game for the first time (or after a reset) you have an option to go through a brief tutorial or not. I would like a Skip option so that even if you select the tutorial you can skip it after a few screens instead of having to close and reopen the app, especially since this choice applies to every new gameplay piece you uncover (i.e. wormholes, special items). If you close and re-start, you get the option to resume your last puzzle. You can only move up, down, left, and right, and you cannot wrap around (i.e. go right at the rightmost tile to end up on the left-most tile). You have a maximum number of moves you can take. On Easy level 12, for example, you have to solve it within nine moves. Five moves gets you gold, seven moves gets you silver, and nine moves gets you bronze. This is the one part I dislike about this game. I would like to have an unlimited number of moves, even if I don't get a trophy at all. That way I can get through the game and go back and get trophies on all the levels later, like an achievement system.

When you click on Puzzles at the main menu, you can choose from four difficulties - Easy, Medium, Hard, and Bonus. Medium, Hard, and Bonus are locked at the beginning and it seems you have to beat each level to have the next one unlocked. When you select a level, you get a list of puzzles. Easy has 45 levels. Levels are locked until you beat the level before it. Something really nice is that you can revisit any level you have completed before. That way if you get a bronze trophy you can retry until you get gold.

Once you select a level, you get to the game screen. The board is in the middle. On the top you have the pattern to match on the upper left, the level (including the difficulty) and the current number of moves on the center, and the maximum number of moves to achieve each trophy on the upper right.

On the bottom you have buttons to warp, to undo, and to skip to the next level. The pause button allows you to restart the level, exit to the level selection menu, go to the settings, or go to the help. On the center you have your crystal counter. Undo gives you a warning that you are about to use crystals and the option to opt out of it, but warp doesn't. Skip Level also doesn't warn you it will cost you crystals (and at eight crystals, it's a big hit). It would be great if anytime you are about to use crystals you get a warning screen (especially since you have to guess what the buttons do since they are not covered in the help section; I had to reset the game to get more crystals to see if the next level button gave you a warning). The buttons are covered when you first unlock them but it would be great to have them explained in the help for future reference. During gameplay there's arrows emanating from your current square that let you know what the valid moves are.

If you take too many steps you can retry or go the level select menu. Once you complete a stage you have the option to go to the next puzzle, start over, and play the stage again.

On the levels menu you can see which levels have crystals. If you have previously collected all crystals in a certain level, they don't regenerate. This adds a level of difficulty because if they regenerated all you have to do is grind a level and get hundreds of crystals (Trixel RPG anyone?)

There are some special items that help you out a bit. Most of them cost a certain number of crystals, which you can collect throughout the game by going over the tile that has the crystal. The freebies (no crystals needed) are tiles that allow you to move along the diagonals, wormholes (go in one tile and reappear on a tile at the other end of the wormhole; arrows indicate entrances and exits), sequences of tiles that have to be visited in order, counter tiles which have to be visited a certain number of times, and rollback tiles which reset the puzzle back to its starting position. The "paid" items include an undo button, warping to any tile from any tile, and skip to the next puzzle. In the Race The Clock Mode you can also add time to your clock.

There's some relaxing music and there's different beeping sound effects while selecting tiles or menu options. There's a little congratulatory sound when you solve a level and a little scolding sound when you exceed the maximum number of moves.

Trixel is a very polished puzzle game. The only things that would make it perfect would be to add warnings whenever crystals are being used, allowing an unlimited number of steps without awarding trophies, allowing someone to choose the tutorial but being able to rapidly skip through it, and adding button information to the help. The visuals and music add to the gameplay. It's a solid buy, and this will give you hours of puzzlish entertainment.

Board@Work. ($1.99, version 1.0)

2009-05-05T11:36:00.000-07:00

iTunes Link.

Board@Work is yet another match-3 game. That's where the similarities to any other app store match-3 game ends. There are many gameplay nuances that makes this game stand out from the rest. It is highly polished and it shows that a lot of thought went into the game mechanics.

When you first start up the app, you get to a menu where you can start a new game, resume a game if you have one saved, view the help files, view the scores, and view the game's credits. The game is supposed to mimic a day in the office and hence all the menu items have names that you would encounter at a work place like organizational chart (credits) and job description (help).

The help is very detailed and includes an overview of the game, the gameplay, how the scoring works, what blocks you will encounter, and power-ups. If you don't have a saved game and you choose resume, the game beeps at you and you stay on the menu screen.

The menu illustrations and icons are, for lack of a better word(s), funny and hilarious and give off an Office Space jibe. When you start a game, there are two modes: Single Player and Multiplayer. The only different is that in Multiplayer (aside from the obvious fact that you are playing against someone else) you have an extra button that lets you throw blocks at the other player in hopes they run out of room before you do.

In the high scores you can view your score for each of the three game modes (more on that below) both locally (where you are matched against pre-set scores) and globally. My best is 61k and someone has managed to break 2 million. It's a cat-eat-mouse world out there.

When you start the game, you get to select between three game modes. In Normal, you make matches until you run out of room and the goal is to survive as long as possible (and hence to get as high a score as possible). In Quota 250, the game ends whenever you run out of room or hit 250 blocks matched, whichever comes first, and the goal is to get the highest score possible within the 250-block limitation. This mode is great for quick games although the saving feature is so-well implemented in this game that you can just play Normal mode and keep pausing it. In Cram Down you get bombarded with save blocks (more on that later).

The main game screen resembles a white erase board. There's a Menu button that lets you go back to the main menu (and saves your game). It's very responsive which makes this a great game to play a couple of minutes at a time. On the top you have how many blocks you have cleared so far, the payout, and your current score. You can also see which block is coming next and clicking on it makes it appear immediately, speeding up the slower levels once you start getting good at this game. Every 30 blocks you get a performance review which results in adding to the Payout percentage, which is the score multiplier. The better you do, the higher the "raise."

You can match blocks based on shape or color. I set up the following on the board:

Red block shape 1
Red block shape 2
Orange block shape 2
Orange block shape 2
Orange block shape 3

And everything but the last one disappeared. So still not sure how it handles mixing shapes and colors, since it did the transition from shape 1 to 2 but not 2 to 3. The developer explained that the reason he didn't want to have colors to the left and shapes to the right and have a tile that has the color to the left and the shape to the right erase all five (it just does one or the other, not sure how it makes the decision which way to go) is because he wanted to keep a certain level of difficulty to the game.

On the bottom there's the game mode and the power-ups. The windex clears the entire board, the eraser clears one block at a time, the markers color the blocks, and the clock gives you a score multiplier. To use a marker you first click on them and then slide your finger left or right to highlight a marker color. It shows how many of each power-up you have. Something I dislike about the game is that if you have multiple power-ups you have to click on them to de-select them. For example, if I have two erasers and I click on the eraser and then on a block in the game board, the block gets erased. If I then click on another block, I use up the other eraser. I'd much prefer to have to re-select the power-up if I want to use it again and if I don't do that I just go back to selecting blocks. The developer made a good point that when it gets frantic it's better to have this mechanism, and after thinking about it I agree. He provided the tip that if you have erasers, you can click on Save blocks to have them erased without having to click on the eraser tool first.

Now we come to the pesky Save blocks. You cannot match them, you cannot move them. You can only get rid of them with an erase or windex. They are going to be the cause of losing most of your games. Save yours erasers for them. This block adds a whole other dimension to the gameplay. Your four tiles with a space in the middle become worthless all of a sudden:


X  X        X   X
     S A V E

Which shows that you can never plan the future too concretely.

Another great feature is that blocks appear on the screen in random squares. So that if you have

X  O  O  X  X

with the Xs being blocks of the same color and the O being empty spots, and you plan to put another X where the left-most O is, the game will ruin it for you and place it randomly on the rightmost O, making a match of 3 instead of the 5 you were planning for.

The more you match, the more the power-ups. The most I've been able to match is five. I have an idea for seven but I haven't been able to execute it yet:


XX XX
  X
  X

and drop a block right in the middle.

A huge part of this game is the sounds. There's no music but the sound effects make this game an engrossing experience. There are random sayings such as "You work for us!," You set low standards and consistently fail to meet them," and "Let's get to work!". Game over? "Maybe you should take a break." This is supposed to mimic the abuse at the mercy of bosses, and it does so satisfyingly well. This is one game you don't want to play with the sound off. There are beeps when you select menu items. There's a little speaker icon on the bottom right of the menu screens that lets you turn the sound on or off. This is a great feature. When you are in the game there's a beeping noise when you clear lines, a bell-like noise when you get a power-up, an erasing noise when you use the eraser (I see what they did there), and there's no sound when you use the markers.

The screen where you enter your name for that game's score is the best one I've seen so far in the app store. It's one of those ubiquitous pink Important Message slips. Please tell me I'm not the only one that tapped on Urgent to see if a checkmark would appear there.

Other than how multiple power-ups are handled, I would like the title screen to show up for more than a second (I like how it looks and I would have loved to take a screenshot of it for this review).

Once you start getting used to the power-ups and once you start making big matches the fun really begins. There's a lot of depth to this game and a lot of quick decisions to be made. The game combines humor, polished and thematic graphics, hilarious sounds, inventive and useful power-ups, and a great scoring system to deliver not just a game, but a really engrossing experience. For example, let's turn out attention to the screenshot that shows the raise percentage received. I got about 7 raises before I was able to take the screenshot. I was having so much fun and was so engrossed in the game, I kept forgetting to take the screenshot. This review would have come out a whole quicker if the game wasn't so much fun. Highly recommended.

Chess Problems. ($0.99, version 1.0)

2009-05-04T12:59:00.000-07:00

iTunes Link.

I've been playing chess since I was five years old and I love it. That's why it's been great to find developers pumping out chess apps, including chess problem sets. Chess Problems includes 100 puzzles. When you first start the app you get taken directly to the first easy problem without much fanfare. A chess problem is a certain pre-determined position. You have to mate or gain a winning position in a certain number of moved. Chess Problems starts with two moves and ramps it up as the difficulty progresses.

The game screen contains the chessboard, the name of the person who compose the chess problem, the year the game was composed, what you have to do (i.e. mate) and in how many moves, arrows to go backwards and forwards through the moves you have done in the current game, a button to go back to the list of puzzles, and the time it took you to beat the problem for the first time. At the bottom it lets you know how many moves you have left. Run out of moves and you won't be able to make any more moves until you press the left arrow a bit.

There are four difficulty levels. Beginner, Standard, Difficult, and Expert. At the beginning you have four puzzles in each category. Each time you solve a puzzle, you get a brand new one. The iTunes description page promises more puzzles in future versions.

I'm not a chess expert, but I can hold my own. I was one of four people that represented my high school at the Florida State Scholastic Championship (in 1995-1996, when I was a senior) and we came in at #2. My rating hovered around 1260 USCF. I've found a couple of the beginner puzzles quite challenging. This is probably not a good app for a chess beginner (it doesn't teach you how the pieces move, for example, and you don't actually play a game), but it's a great app for any chess fan.

There's no music or sounds. It would be great to have to option to turn sounds effects on and have tapping noises each time you select a piece and sliding noises each time you move.

I'm a little torn on the time recording. On the one hand I wish it would record the lowest time but I understand that it would then be easy to just re-do all puzzles once you know the answer to get a lower time. Just make sure you're ready to go before going into a puzzle. I would love to have a main menu so that you don't accidentally go into a puzzle and set the timer off.

I've played other chess problem apps and the ones that offer you help (i.e. they only allow you to select the right piece and then only allow you to move it to the right square, so you can pretty much solve every problem by brute force) now seem like a piece of cake compared to this one, and that makes this particular app much more enjoyable and satisfying.

I see myself spending hours on this solving the problems, and highly recommend it for those that already know how to play. $1 is just an introductory price, and it will go to $2 for regular pricing or even $3 when more content is added, so grab it now!

Boxd. ($0.99, version 1.0.2)

2009-05-01T07:10:00.001-07:00

iTunes Link.

Among the countless match-3, shooting, and platforming games (some of which are very inventive but most of which are run-of-the-mill) we still get games that introduce new life/gameplay into the appstore. Boxd is one of them.

The goal of the game is to box in your opponent to make them run out of moves before they do the same to you. When you start it up you get a nice little welcome to the game, and three options. Single-player game, two-player game, and high scores. High scores include the highest score per level beat, in seconds. If you select one- or two-player game, you get to select the level. You can select any level you have beaten plus the first unbeaten level. It would be nice to have an option to go back to the main menu from the level-selection menu, in case you change your mind. Once you select the level, you get taken to the main board. If you have beaten a level in the one-player mode you can then play that level in the two-player mode.

The main game area has just the board and two dots, nothing else. The board is a 6X8 grid of squares. You are the green dot and your opponent is the blue dot. You get to move first. You can move one square in any direction, including diagonals. After you move, you get to block out any square you wish. You move by selecting the square you want to move to, and then select the square you want to block out. Little by little you try to trap your opponent into a single square without any more moves possible by putting boxes all around them. If there's a box to the right and below, they can still use the lower-right diagonal, making it tougher to box them in.

I found the game more difficult than it sounds (which is great). It took me many tries to beat level one, but then I breezed through more of less through levels 2-4, and I currently haven't beaten level five. The first level has all squares unblocked and levels 2-5 have different box layouts.

If you are having trouble passing a level, pay attention as to how your opponent is boxing you in, and then try to use the same strategy on them.

There are no sounds or sound effects. The developer was going for simple, but there's simple and rough or simple and polished. A few enhancements could polish up this game a bit. I think a title screen could be a nice touch, with a graphic and the game's name. Each step in the menu should have an option to go back to the previous menu. There should be a way for the player to go from the game screen to the main menu instead of having to exit the app and then restart it.

A few sound effects would also be nice, such as when one moves, when a block is placed, and winning and losing sounds.

At a dollar it's a great bargain title and the gameplay is top notch. The developer seems to be responsive and seems to want to add to it. It's worth its asking price as it is and it seems it will be getting better with time.

Ravel. ($0.99, version 1.0.0)

2009-05-01T07:09:00.005-07:00

iTunes Link.

Ravel is a word game akin Wheel of Fortune. You are presented with a saying, a name, a thing, something composed of one or more words. Your goal is to guess what it is. It's just you and the blanks.

When you start the app you get to a title screen from which you can start a game, go to options, or get some help. The help is extremely detailed and offers an overview, goes over controls, lets you know how to put letters in the blanks, goes over the different hint and tool options available, and gives you a few hints which are actually really helpful.

Options include the option to turn the sound on or off, an option to clear all game data, and credits. Sounds are turned off by default. This is the first app I've encountered that has it set up like that. Neither negative nor positive, just different. Sounds includes both music and sound effects. There's different beeping sounds when you choose menu options and paper rustling sounds along with a transition from screen to screen that includes sheets of paper falling all over the screen and then disappearing. There's different tapping noises during the actual game and an upbeat sound when you beat a board. There's no music during the actual game, just around the different non-game screens. The main screen also shows highest level and cash obtained.

There's a lot of options to help you along. You start each new game with $10 and when you beat a board you earn money. You can use this money to buy hints. There's three kinds of hints. Lockdown shows you which letters are in the correct spot. You can also pick a letter and it'll let you know where it goes. The third hint shows you what letter goes in a particular spot.

There's also free tools to use. Clear removes all letters from the board. If you had previously selected Lockdown, the letters that were in the correct spot stay there. Shuffle fills up all blank spots with letters. Pass lets you skip the puzzle, but can only be used three times.

The game says it ends when you go broke, but I haven't found a way to go broke yet. If you don't have enough money left for hints you simple can't select them. You pretty much play until you run out of passes and hints and give up the current board and go back to the main menu.

The game screen includes the Hints button, the Tools button, the current level, your cash, and an option to exit to the main menu. Exiting ends the current game. Pressing Home and then restarting the app saves your current game. It's not essential but it would be great to have an option to have the option of a new game or of resuming your previous game from the main menu, and having the exit button save your current progress.

The game boasts over 600 puzzles and no repeats, and so far I haven't seen any questions repeated. For a dollar this is well worth it for fans of words and/or puzzles.

Wordee. ($0.99, version 1.0.0)

2009-05-01T07:09:00.003-07:00

iTunes Link.

Lite Version.

I was very excited to play Wordee at first because I love word games. My excitement diminished somewhat when I found out it's not really a word game but a sliding game. You've probably played sliding games before. You have square with numbers or images on them and you have 1 blank square. You slide the other squares around until you recreate the image or put the numbers in sequence. Wordee is just like that, except that you recreate pre-determined words.

When you first start up the app you can go ahead and start playing or go to the options. The options include the credits, sound on or off, and a clear data button that erases all progress. It remembers your settings after the app is restarted.

Once you press play you get taken to the level selection screen. From here you can go back to the main menu and access four pages of help, including some hints. Your completion percentage is on the bottom center. There are a total of 70 levels. Something really nice is that you can choose to complete a level at any time without having to have finished all the levels before.

Once you select a level, you are taken to the main game screen. The level number is on the upper right and on the bottom you have buttons to go back to the level selection screen and to get to the help screens. Something extremely nice is that each level saves your progress if you exit out or use the button to go back to the level selection screen. So you could be working on several levels at the same time.

You finish a level by moving letters around and getting them into their correct spot. Once the letters are in the right spot, they light up. You can still move around in order to get the other letters in place. The trick is to use the empty space(s) to help you move the letters around to their right spot.

I realized it was a sliding game and not a word game when I formed valid words but the letters wouldn't light up. It doesn't matter if you form words, you just have to form the pre-determined words and place them in their pre-determined place. This is the main reason why this isn't a word game. There could be numbers or pictures instead of words and the gameplay would be the same.

There's clicking sounds when you select menu items and a nice wooshing sound when a board appear and a little congratulatory sound when you beat the level, along with beeping noises as you slide tiles around. There's no music.

My main reason for disliking this game is because it's mis-categorized. It's not a word game, it's a sliding game. I like word games but dislike sliding games. If you like sliding games, this is as good as any and more challenging, as it gives you 70 different levels in ascending difficulty. The recommendation is based on what you expect this game to be. If you expect this to be a word game, you may be in for a big letdown and disappointment as I don't think it's a word game at all. If you are looking for a sliding puzzle game, this has tons of level, saves each level indivially, looks great, and has a lot of replayability and is very challenging. Word game? Skip it. Sliding game? Highly recommended. Try out the Lite version and see how you like it.

Scarab Solitaire. ($1.99, version 1.0)

2009-05-01T07:05:00.001-07:00

iTunes Link.

Card games. There's a thousand and one variations out there. When most people think "Solitaire" they are actually thinking of one of the countless versions of Solitaire named Klondike. I first came upon the Tri-peak variation on the Nintendo DS and have been looking for a good version on the Touch. I have a few of the Solitaire compilations and those that include it don't have a version I can truly enjoy like the one in the DS. I have finally found the app to fill my Tri-peak void: Scarab Solitaire.

In this version of Solitaire, you have a card arrangement that looks like three pyramids. You start with 10 cards face up. Then you 9 cards behind them (one in-between each of the 10 cards). Then you have six cards behind them (two cards in-between, then an empty space, two cards in-between, then an empty space, then two more cards in-between). You finally have three cards, one in-between each of the three pairs of cards in the row before. There's two variations. The bottom row is always face-up. One variation has the rest of the pyramid cards face up and the other variation has them face-down. I would say it's more common to have them face down as this game does.

The rest of the cards are placed in a pile to the bottom left. You flip up the top most card and the game begins. Your goal is remove all cards from the pyramids. You can only remove a card if it's face up, i.e. no card on top of it. You remove it by either going one up or one down the face-up card at the bottom. I.e. if the card that is face up at the bottom is a four, you can select a three or a five. One such combination would be 4-5-4-3-2-3-4-5-4. You can keep going up and down until you cannot make any more matches. Kings wrap over to Aces and Aces wrap back to Kings.

The game saves your progress to the card, which is great with this type of game. You have a timer that counts down and is reset as soon as you make any move. I never ran out of time, as it gives you ample time to think. I would prefer a per-level time scheme like the DS version, and the time available keeps shrinking as the stages progress.

My biggest complaint about the game is that there's only five levels. I would like unlimited levels that you go through with decreasing available time (again, like the DS version). I've reached level 5 a few times so far. It's not a piece of cake, but it's not extremely hard either.

There's an element of luck to this Solitaire variant but there's also a lot of strategy involved. You have a 4, and have a 5 and a 3 in the pyramids. Did you already turn up all the sixes or the twos? This move could decide whether you win the game or not.

The graphics are very polished and the cards very readable, specially since there's so many cards in the game screen at a time. The sound is great, with some belly-dancing music. I sometimes let the game run just to hear the music. Controls are simple and spot-on, and you simply touch a card to select it. It's extremely precise. There's some good card-flipping sound effects. At the top of the screen you can see your current score, the current level, and your high score. The move timer is to the bottom right, and there's some graphics in the background that give the impression that you're in some sort of ancient ruins adventure. On the top right there's an arrow that takes you back to the main menu. From here you can play a new game, resume your current game, get instructions on how to play the game and the scoring, and you can view the credits. The instructions are in-game, which is how card game instructions should be handled. One should not have to go to Wikipedia to learn how to play the game.

As it is right now, it is the best Tri-peaks game in the store that I have tried. It would be the ultimate perfect Tri-peaks game if there were unlimited levels with decreasing level time. Why pay for one version of Solitaire where you can get compilations with a whole lot more? Polish and perfection. If a developer focuses on just one variant they can create a much better game than if they're just cramming variants into a compilation game, as can be witnessed with this game. At $2 this is a no-brainer. It helps if you like the variant, of course. I would suggest reading up on it and maybe trying to find an online flash game or playing it with real cards to get a feeling for the variant. If you like it, this game cannot come with any higher recommendation. This is a keeper.

Flip Disc. ($0.99, version 1.02)

2009-05-01T07:04:00.007-07:00

iTunes Link.

I got this game on 4/17, and found that the controls made the game unplayable for me. The controls were updated and I still found the game unplayable. The controls were updated one more time, and I was finally able to enjoy this game. And enjoy I do. I have been in communication with the developer this whole time and it speaks volumes about a developer when they keep tweaking the controls so that the game is accessible to even more people. I found control scheme number one to be perfect for me.

The gameplay consists of matching five balls of the same color. You have five concentric rings of varying sizes. You have eight holes on top of the outer ring, and different-colored balls come out of those holes. Only one ball comes out at a time, but as you progress through levels, they will start to come out faster and faster. You also start getting more ball colors as the levels increase. You have to make 10 matches in order to go up a level, and after 10 levels/100 matches, you get an achievement for "finishing" the game. I tap out at around 20 matches, so 100 matches is quite a challenge and adds lots of replayability to the game. It would be great to have an achievement system, which could include achievements such as 100 total matches or three hours played. Since I started seeing games that keep track of how long you've played them I've really grown to like that feature and would love to see it added to all games. Each time you make a match, you get 10 points added to your score.

There are a few power-ups to help you out. There's power-ups to boost your score, to temporarily stop the production of new balls, to destroy all the balls lying in the same disc, to block for a few seconds the disc where the power-up was lying (I would suppose this would make it harder, not easier, but I have not encountered this power-up during gameplay yet), and a black ball that cannot be used to form lines but disappears after a certain period of time.

When you first start up the game, you get to a menu of options. You can start a new game, change options around, see the credits, view the instructions, view the high scores, resume a game (if you have one going), and an option that I haven't seen in any other game - Exit, which does the same as pressing the Home button on the iDevice. Options include sliders for music and sound effects and the option to choose the control mode. There are four control modes. The first one (and my favorite) allows you to just tap on a ring to select it and then draw arcs with your finger to rotate it. The second one gives you buttons on the screen for rotation and disc selection (this was the default control scheme when the app first came out and my least favorite). The third one is kind of the opposite of number one: rotate the inner disc left or right to go through the disc selection and move your finger up and down through the rings to rotate the current ring. The final one has you tapping in the center to go down the discs and at the edge to go up the discs and draw arcs with your finger to rotate. There's a control scheme to please just about anybody now, and the developer is again to be commended for adapting rather quickly to customers' requests.

The instructions are very detailed and include pictures. The game screen gives you the current level, number of lines cleared (a match of five balls is considered one line), your score, the next ball coming, a Danger sign that flashes and makes noise if you are running out of room, and a pause button that allows you to either return to the main menu (and save your game) or continue. You can also save your current game by pressing the Home button. There's also a bar to the right that shows you how close you are to running out of room. You can tap on the upcoming ball to have the next ball come out without having to wait.

The sound is upbeat. There's beeping noises when selecting menu items, scraping noises when you rotate discs, and sucking noises when you make a match and the balls are sucked into the center.

I really like how the game handles losing the game. It will keep shooting out balls until every single spot is filled. Not just when one hole gets plugged up: ALL holes have to be plugged up in order for the game to end. This allows you to frantically clear some lines and get some more gameplay out of it. There are still two more tweaks that I would like to see in the game, and a wishlist item. I've gotten up to 20 lines or so and I've only seen a couple of bombs per game. I have not seen the other power-ups yet. It would be great if the help information included what triggers a power-up to appear - chance, score, a certain number of lines? But what I would really like to see is a greater frequency and variety of power-ups.

Developer reply regarding power-ups:

Regarding the special gems: they appear by chance and based on the current level. For example, the black and blocker gems only appear during the last levels. The game is also programmed in such a way that there cannot be more than 4 special gems on the board. The reason behind that decision is that only one special gem can be used to form a line and, during testing, I found out that if I didn't limit the number of simultaneous special gems the player could suddenly found she would be unable to form a line.

The other tweak I would love to see is to have the game start even slower. I can manage the speed, but it would be a more enjoyable experience at least for me if the speed is lowered a couple of notches more.

The other thing is not essential to the gameplay but I'd love to have the option to slide my finger up and down lines and have the balls move up or down that line, so that you could not only send balls left or right, but up or down as well. Yes this would make the game a whole lot easier. There could be an option to turn vertical swapping on or of. That way those who want more of a challenge can leave it off and those who are looking for a more casual game can turn it on.

There is one more change that I would like to see that does not involve the gameplay, and that involves the mechanism to put your name in the high scores. I believe it's a combination of swiping left and right to go through the spots and up and down to go through the alphabet, but I was only able to get an A on the final spot out of it in the three times I tried it. A pop-up keyboard would be a lot better, or at least have it looked at to see what could be going on.

While reviewing the game I found a bug. If you press Home while the Game Over! screen is up (I did this to go back to the menu quickly to work on the review), it got stuck in the Game Over! screen. I restarted the app but it remained stuck on that screen and would not go back to the main menu. Even after resetting my iDevice, it would not go back to the main menu. I had to wait until I got home to delete the game and re-download it. I'm more than confident that this will be addressed (and will update the review if it does).

Graphics are polished, music is enjoyable, gameplay is solid, and the game is constantly being updated. lf those are not the signs of a keeper, I don't know what is.

Modulo. ($1.99, version 1.0)

2009-05-01T07:04:00.003-07:00

iTunes Link.

Lite Version.

Modulo is a strategic puzzle game. You have different wheels with one arrow pointing outwards. Your goal is to have all wheels pointing up.

When you start the game you are taken to the first level. It's a very busy and beautifully drawn game screen. On the top you can see the level you are on. On the upper left there's the lowest number of moves you have taken to complete the level (if previously completed) and on the upper right is the current number of moves. In between these three items there's a level reset button. On the bottom left there's a help button, on the bottom center there's a button to take you back to the level section menu, and on the bottom right there's the options buttons.

Options include on/off and sliders for the music and sound effects, a button to view more games by the same developer, a game reset button that erases all your progress in the entire game, and a credits button. Pressing the options button again takes you back to the game. The help includes some basic game instructions, and pressing help again takes you back to the game. The levels button takes you to the difficulty selection screen (and pressing the levels button again surprisingly takes you back to the game).

I was surprised to see levels, as I got through Easy into Amateur before I got to the levels screen. You could finish the entire game and never see the levels screen. There are six levels of difficulty: Easy, Amateur, Experienced, Seasoned, Adept, and Auteur. Each difficulty level has 30 puzzles, which means 180 puzzles total.

That's it for menu and options. On to the gameplay. You have a certain number of wheels on the board and you have to point all of them up. There's a catch, though. Some balls are connected to other balls, and if you move a certain ball one way another ball might move another way. The trick is to figure out the relationship between the different wheels. A strategy I use is to figure out which wheels don't affect the other wheels - I leave these for last. Also try to figure out which wheels affect other wheels but are not affected by other wheels, and do these first.

Through trial and error you can probably solve all puzzles. There's a lot of replayability because you can always try to solve each puzzle with less and less moves. Depending on how many moves you take the game either congratulates you or lets you know you can do better. I like that there's not a maximum number of moves because it lets me relax and just focus on solving the puzzle.

When you exit the game screen by either pressing Home on the iDevice or by using the levels button your progress in a level is not saved but this is not a deal-breaker as each level is not terribly long. If you exit out of the app and open it again you are taken back to the start of the level you last played.

The music is one of the best I've hard on the app store. There are clicking noises as you turn the wheels and a noise like a lamp turning on when you place the wheel in the correct position. There are some sound effects as you go through the menus.

The entry price is well worth a few hours of entertainment, and the game is polished and has great music. Since you can solve it by trial-and-error it's not inaccessible for the casual player and an unlimited number of moves makes this a great relaxing game when you have a few minutes to kill. Recommended. And you can always try the Lite version first.

Rich Diamond. ($2.99, version 1.1)

2009-05-01T07:03:00.001-07:00

iTunes Link.

Rich Diamond is a puzzle game in which you navigate obstacles to get to the goal. When you first fire up the app, you get a splash intro screen and then go right into the main menu. From this menu you have quite a bit of options. You can play the last puzzle selected, you can select which of the 100 puzzles from the current puzzle pack to play, you can select a puzzle pack, you can view your progress in the current puzzle pack, you can select options, view help, or go to the developer's website. The current difficulty level selected appears on the top of the main menu screen.

The first thing to note is that there are 300 puzzles total (so far). The puzzle packs are divided into Easy, Medium, and Hard, and each level has 100 puzzles. The second thing to note is that you can do any puzzle at any time without having to unlock it. This is really nice in case you get stuck in any particular puzzle.

In the options you can turn up or down (all the way to off) the sound effects or the music volume. The volume is a nice adventurish score. From options you can also choose your perspective. You can choose between a top-down viewpoint or a 3D perspective. Help is very detailed and includes an introduction, moving around, things in the game, menu controls, selecting puzzles, and even further online help if needed.

There are many things that will get in your way. There are walls that you cannot walk through, boxes that you can push and throw into water to make bridges, rocks to plug pits and make bridges over lava, arrows that block your way once they're shot, bombs (it's a good idea not to be next to them when they explode and not to run into them), water, lava, pits, grass that gets trampled if you go over it but makes things get stuck to it if not trampled, slopes, slopes that change direction, ice that makes you slip, lattices that traps some item to it, items that push you into a different direction, bi-directional and uni-directional doors and doors that need keys to open or a plate to be activated to open them, power-ups that protect you from other things, robots that chase you and zap you, monster and spiders that want nothing good with you, and surprise squares - you never know what's below!

Needless to say, you're in for an adventure.

If you go to the select puzzle screen, you are presented with the puzzles for the current difficulty level. They have one of three colored diamonds. Grey if not completed, red if completed, and blue if completed in a certain number of steps (mastered). You can change the level selection menu to show number of steps taken in each level as opposed to the level number.

Once you have selected a level, the fun begins. You can move a step at a time by either tapping in the direction you want to move in anywhere on the screen. If you are at the bottom left and you tap the upper right area, you will move right. You can also use a control pad at the bottom center of the screen. At the top of the screen you have the puzzle number which alternates with how many gems you have yet to collect and also the lowest number of steps you have taken to complete that level (which doesn't appear if it's your first time doing that level and instead shows that it has not been solved yet). You also have how many steps you have taken so far and what is the maximum number of steps you can take in order to get that coveted blue diamond on the level screen and master the level. You can Skip a move, which means you don't move but the board does (i.e. enemies; this is helpful if you're trying to escape an enemy's path). There's also an undo button. This means you can pretty much keep undoing and moving until you master any particular level.

From the game screen you can also tap Menu to get more options.
Hint: The game will show you the next move. If you have taken some extraneous moves, if will back you up to where you started on the wrong path.

Show: Your position is saved and the solution shown.

Redo: If you have used the undo button, this undos the undo.

Begin: Re-start the current level.

Save: You can have one save per puzzle and it will save the moves you have taken so far in the game.

Play: Returns you to the checkpoint, if any.

More: Even more menu options.

Quit: Go back to the level selection screen.

The third menu is only activated if you have solved the puzzle before, and it will take through the solution step by step or show you the best (lowest number of steps taken) solution. Show also seems to be activated only when you have completed a level.

The game pretty much allows you a great amount of freedom. You can take as many steps as you want to solve a level without having to worry about time. Once you solve it you can "cheat" and see the best solution and then copy it to get that blue diamond. Or you can try and try again until you come to the answer yourself.

When you are playing, the exit door to a level remains closed until you collect all the gems. There are "jungle" sounds in the game sometimes, along with sound effects when you interact with the environment such as splashing when something falls in water or burning if a box falls on lava. The graphics are basic sprites but do not take away from the gameplay.

This is not a half an hour game (and if is, leave a comment so that you can be properly admired). At a minute a puzzle, that's five hours. And some puzzles will certainly take you much more than a minute, specially is you try to master all of them. This much gameplay is certainly worth $3. Highly recommended!

Azkend. ($2.99, version 1.10)

2009-04-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

iTunes Link.

I held off buying Azkend when it first came out because it was a $3 game. $1 games are impulse buys. I've been burned too many times with $3+ games to keep blindly buying them. I then saw on a forum that there was a free online (or it could have been a downloadable) version, and I tried it out. Big mistake. Played it for 30 seconds, closed it out, and bought Azkend immediately. It is that good.

The best part of Azkend is the controls. It's a match 3+ game, but you swipe your finger over like tiles to create a chain and then release your finger to break the tiles. It is oddly satisfying, and one of the best match-3 control schemes I have ever tried (and I've tried a lot of them).

When you first start up the app you get a bit of back story. You found a relic in far Asia and took it back home. As relics tend to do, it brought a curse over your head, which you now wish to get rid of. You are retracing your steps to put the relic back. I find a backstory is always welcomed because it keeps pushing you until the end to see how it all works out.

Right at the beginning you get to select whether you want sounds or not. I don't particularly like this because you have to restart the app to change your choice. This is the first app that does this and I'm curious as to why they chose to handle it this way.

The gameplay is deeper than most match-# games. First you match 3+ tiles to turn their spot blue. Sometimes they're filled with obstacles and you have to turn tiles around them or on them to first break them free, THEN you can turn their spot to blue by matching the item on that tile again. Once you turn the whole board blue, you then get either a talisman piece or a gem at the top of the board and you clear tiles below them to get them to touch the bottom of the screen. The obstacles include steel, ice, and tar. You have to match objects on a tile twice to break through steel, you have to turn tiles around a tile to break through ice, and you have to turn tiles around tar to make it disappear. Take too much time with the tar and it infects adjoining tiles. You also get wildcards that can take the place of any other tile. Sometimes part of the board are locked out and you have to turn tiles around them to unlock them. Sometimes there's holes that make matching more difficult. If you wait a few seconds without making a move, there's two ways the game helps you. It points out possible tiles to match and sometimes it shows you what tiles you have left to turn. It would be nice to be able to turn these suggestions on or off.

From the main menu you can select Play, Instructions, and Options. Instructions cover just the basics (Talismans are not covered here), but at least are nicely illustrated. There's just a couple of options: To turn the music on or off, and the sound effects on or off. There's also some credits information under options, and the version number. Once you press play you have two modes to try out: Adventure and Survival. Adventure mode has a total of 70 levels. It will take approximately two and a half hours of game time to complete, given you don't fail any levels the first time around. Survival it just what it sounds like: Keep going at it until the timer runs out. As you progress the timer resets back about 10 clock minutes (out of 60).

If you have a game in progress you can continue it or start a new game. If you were in the middle of a stage and you either exited out to the iDevice's springboard or selected Save & Exit to go back to the game menu, your progress in the current stage is saved, which is really nice. The "world map" shows how many stages you've done, how many stages you have left, how many stages you have gold-starred (completed the stage in a certain amount of time or less), Achievements, Talismans, Play the current level, or Save & Exit.

The Achievements page is pretty detailed. It shows how many Achievements (out of seven) you have obtained, how many tiles matched, total time played, total levels completed, Talismans activated (power-ups used), Expert Levels Rank (out of 100%), and longest chain. Clicking on each Achievement shows a mini-description. They include:

- Completing 40 levels with expert rank
- Strung together 24 or more tiles
- Played over 5 hours
- Unleashed the power of Talismans over 200 times
- Summoned 9 or more lightning bolts with one move
- Strung together 12 or more tiles
- Played 20 levels

The last four are relatively easy to get, while the first three will take some time.

Talismans are special tiles. Match 4 or more to activate them. They include:

- Explode tiles around it (more tiles matched, bigger explosion)
- Shoots a destroying (i.e. tile turning) ray of light from the last selected item
- Gives you a lightning rune (more on this later)
- Calls a falling star to help you turn tiles
- Summon a destroying hammer
- Lightning arcs zaps multiple random items on board
- Destroys all items underneath the activated item (my favorite, as if you get this at the top of the board it really helps your progress)
- Destroys all extinction tiles on board

At the game screen you have your game progress to the lower left, the timer to the lower right, and your lightning meter at the bottom center of the screen. Tapping on any of them brings up the in-game menu, which includes the option to go back to the game, access to the paltry options menu, access to the instructions page, and the option to save and exit back to the main screen.

Every time you match at least one-non-blue tile, you get a lightning bolt added to your lightning meter. Once you get five, you get some lightning strikes that turn tiles.

As far as sounds, there are clicking noise when you select menu items. There's also different sound effects during the game, depending on whether you are matching tiles, using a Talisman, or obtaining a gem piece. There some Indiana Jones-esque music. I found (through using an iPod Touch 2G's speakers) that in order to be able to hear the music properly I had to turn the volume all the way up, but then the sound effects were too loud. It would be great to have different sliders for the music and sound effects.

The biggest complaint I have with the game is that you cannot replay a specific stage. I would love to be able to go back to any stage I already complete in the Adventure game and re-do it over and over again until I get gold. You can only go once through each stage as you go through the game. Hopefully this gets added to a future version of the game!

You cannot go wrong with this $3 game. You can spend an easy three hours on this on the first go-around and then go back to it for more. I can see myself replaying the main adventure mode two or three times, and that's 4-7 hours right there It would extend the replayability if you could re-do individual stages. The Survival mode lets you jump right in to the main gameplay. Highly recommended, as it has polished graphics, satisfying controls, inventive gameplay, nice music, and different modes to keep you occupied for hours on end.

AliceX. ($1.99, version 1.0)

2009-04-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

iTunes Link.

I had a hard time coming up with this review because this is one game I did not personally enjoy. Enjoying a game is so subjective that a game I don't like might become your most favorite game in the whole world. The reason that I did not enjoy this game is because the gameplay was totally different from what l was expecting, so I hope that by writing this review you will know what the game is about and will get exactly what you expect if and when you buy it.

This is a port of the first game ever developed for the Mac. Having never owned a Mac (until now, three weeks or so after getting this game) I had never experienced this game before. It was made by Steve Capps, who went on to do a lot of projects for the Mac, including writing the Mac Finder (which allows you to find pretty much anything stored on your Mac). So this is not a new developer but someone who has years of experience and expertise in the business.

When I first heard about the game my excitement ran sky-high because I read it mixed Alice in Wonderland and chess. I love chess, and have been playing it for about 26 years. I'm not a chess purist and love variations of it, my favorite being Crazyhouse. There's other games in the app store that have mixed chess and other game genres and created games I love. And l love the story of Alice in Wonderland.

I didn't connect with the game because instead of starting with chess and creating a game out of that, this is a quick-reflex game that incorporates chess rules. So it's not chess with something else added to it, it's something else with chess added to it, which makes a huge difference.

When you first start the game you get a nice splash screen which disappears after a couple of seconds. Then the rules to the game start auto-scrolling on the screen. You can swipe up or down to stop the auto-scrolling and go back and forth through the rules. The rules are very detailed and include graphical explanations and also explain how chess pieces move. A quick screen tap or reaching the end of the rules takes you to a difficulty-selection screen which provides four difficulty levels. Once you select the difficulty level, you are thrown into the game.

The game screen is simple and uncluttered. On the top you have your score and on the right the current level. There's no level-selection screen. It would be great if you could re-visit earlier levels. You can touch anywhere near the top to bring up the in-game menu. In here you can turn the music and/or special effects on or off, change the theme, start a new game (in the same level), or go back to the rules by selecting About. The majority of the screen is occupied by the chessboard. You are on one side and the regular set of chess pieces on the other. The goal is to capture those pieces and earn points, and letting some of those pieces queen (letting the pawns get to your bottom row and turn into queens) so that you can reach 750 points. Be captured and you lose points (but it is possible to pass even if you are captured a couple of times; be captured too much and you won't reach the goal of 750). You lose 27 points each time you are captured. If you are captured the game pauses and you get to move first. As soon as you make the first move in the game or after being captured, you and the opponent can move as you please without having to wait for the other player to move. You move by selecting which square you want to move to. Each time you play as a new piece, you get a highlight of where you can move to help you out. Then you are on your own after that level. There are a total of 96 levels and a challenge to get a perfect score of 999 in each one of them.

The game has a few visual themes, including red opponents against Alice (the characters seem to resemble characters from the story), politicians including Bush, Cheney, and Rice look-alikes while you are in a suit (which obviously wasn't part of the original Mac game), regular-looking chess pieces against Alice, and what looks like a singer, his posse, and his woman against a dressed-down you. You can't directly choose the theme, you can only cycle through them.

Back to the main gameplay. This game is all about moving fast and having quick reflexes. In order to avoid being captured you're going to have to constantly be tapping on squares to move out of the way. lf you just frantically move from square to square you will be able to escape 99% of attacks. There's a moving trapdoor that doesn't take points away from you but pauses the game until you make a move. Pieces can also fall through the trapdoor, which takes away from potential points. This game is mostly a quick-moving, quick-reflexes game. If you like this type of gameplay, this game will be perfect for you.

The music changes depending on the theme. Sound effects are minimal - Alice "Ouches" when captured and there's a pinging noise when capturing other pieces.

When you start the game you can move as a queen, which means you can move in any direction any number of squares. Next is the rook. Now you cannot move diagonally anymore. As you progress through the levels your movements get more and more restricted and hence the game becomes harder.

The game seems to be a straight port with dated graphics but it doesn't deter from the gameplay. It would be great to have the ability to change to a specific theme without having to cycle through all of them and it would also be great to be able to select the level or at least any level previously unlocked. Ideas for further gameplay modes could include options to do single-board games as the piece of your choice. If you go into the game with the mindset that this is a quick-reflex game with some movement restrictions based on the game of chess, you will get exactly what you bargained for. If you go in expecting a chess game with some varied gameplay thrown in, you might end up disappointed. $2 is a bargain price for a Mac port, and highly recommended if you are a fan of quick-moving games (and specially if you have played and enjoyed this game before).

Amoebas. ($0.99, version 1.0)

2009-04-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

iTunes Link.

Amoebas is a color-matching game. Two things make it unique - its different shapes and a rotating screen. lf you end up buying this game and it doesn't grab you right away, give it a couple of days. When l first started playing it I didn't really get the game and wasn't enjoying it very much, but by the third sitting something clicked and now it's a very solid 5-minute game that has survived a few iDevice purgings.

When you first start the game you get a colorful screen with a few options. You can start a new game, resume a saved game, view the high scores, view very detailed instructions with game screenshots, change some settings, and submit your highest score to the online scoreboard. This last option lets you enter your name, country you're from, and a comment. Settings include turning sound on or off and turning the accelerometer on or off. The touch controls work whether you have the accelerometer on or not. There are four different sensitivity options if you want to turn it on.

The main game board resembles a beehive. You have two pentagons sharing an open side, forming kind of an hourglass shape. You have pieces that consist of little balls, from one ball up to three balls (but the balls can be stretched out and take the space of five balls). The balls are arranged into different shapes and sizes. In order to make the amoebas disappear, you have to match at least seven of the same color. You drop them into each of the pentagons and they stick to the three sides of the wall that look like they have glue stuck to them. You lose when an amoeba reaches a cutoff line on each of the pentagons, which is about 30% from the edge to the center. Each pentagon has a grid of circles that help you figure out how an amoeba will end up. lf you shoot an amoeba into a non-sticky wall, it just bounces onto a sticky wall.

The screen includes an X that takes you directly back to the main menu, your current score, your high score, a button to shoot off the amoeba from the center into the pentagons, a button to flip the board 180 degrees, a button to rotate the amoeba (it only goes left), and buttons to rotate the board left or right. There's a sight line that helps you figure out where an amoeba will land. The accelerometer only controls the rotation of the board. You can also rotate the board by touching the screen with your finger and swiping left or right to rotate. This works pretty much anywhere on the screen that doesn't have other icons. Something very nice is that when you lose, it asks you whether you want to start a new game right away, so there's barely any down time.

If you don't shoot off the amoeba into the pentagons the game will do it for you eventually. It gives you a generous amount of time at the beginning which gets shorter and shorter as the game goes on. I really only have two main suggestions to improve the game. One of them is to change the way the pause works. Instead of going back to the main menu I would prefer if there was a pop-up that allowed you to return to the game or go back to the main menu. The other suggestion is to have a timer somewhere on the screen that would give you an idea of how much more time you have left before the amoeba auto-shoots. It could be in the shape of an hourglass or a bar or just numbers counting down. A little nitpick is to maybe add an arrow that rotates the amoeba to the right also.

The real challenge lies in knowing how to squeeze the amoebas close together so that you don't run out of room. The single-celled amoebas are specially a challenge because it's hard to stack seven of each different color and still have room for the bigger amoebas. Something really nice is that if you have amoebas on top of other amoebas, getting rid of the amoebas closest to the wall will make the amoebas on top of those disappear also, as long as those are not touching a wall in any way. A good strategy is to try to place as many single-celled amoebas on top of larger ones so that you can get rid of them when you match seven of the other.

Sounds are minimal but pleasing. Menu items make a metallic noise when selected and the amoebas make satisfying squishing noises when being shot (more so when making a match).

As a dollar game, this is a bargain. It has inventive and colorful graphics and gameplay that is a bit different than your regular run-of-the-mill match three, and having to match seven makes it a bigger challenge. There are no glaring flaws and it takes a familiar concept and adds a few twists that refreshes the gameplay. And who doesn't like amoebas? Definitely recommended.

Chocolatier. ($4.99, version 1.0)

2009-04-23T07:18:00.000-07:00

iTunes Link.

This is an incredibly deep time management/simulation game. The goal is simple: To sell chocolate and make tons of money. There's a backstory of restoring to fame a chocolatier family's name, which is always welcomed and may give people the extra push to finish a game.

When you start up, you can begin or continue the story mode, go into the Free Play Mode (must have a story mode game started before being able to go into Free Play mode), change options around, get help, view high scores, or change player. When you go to change player, you can add another player, change the player's name, or delete a player profile. You can have up to three players at a time. High scores have the player's name and rank, how much money they have made, and in how long they have made it. It includes boards for free play and story mode, and story mode also breaks earnings down into how much per week. Deleted players stay in the scoreboards.

Help includes 10 very detailed illustrated pages on how the game works. Options include sound effects volume, ambient sound volume, music volume, a mute audio option, and game credits.

When you first start story mode, you get the backstory and also get walked through the game as you encounter for the first time each of the game's pieces.

The music is upbeat and pleasant. There's tapping noises as you select items in the screen. There's some little machine noises as you make the chocolate. Sound effects are minimal but serve the game well and blend into the background.

Think it's easy selling chocolate? Think again! There are many steps to selling chocolate, and you will go through all of them in this game.

You need a factory. Thankfully you are given one at the beginning of the game and you can buy bigger and better ones around the world as you make money.

You need a recipe. You start with a basic milk chocolate recipe and buy more as you go through the game. In Free Play mode you have access to all recipes right off the bat.

You need ingredients. Cacao beans, milk products, an assortment of nuts, mint leaves, and so on. You have to buy them. You can go anywhere in the world to buy them and scope out the different markets.

Something might be cheaper in New York than where you are in San Francisco but you'll spend money to travel back and forth, especially if your factory is in San Francisco. You have to weigh the cheaper ingredients cost with travel cost, and if you find a killer deal make sure to buy a lot of that item, as items don't go bad! Also make sure you don't run out of ingredients halfway through making chocolates.

You need to assemble the ingredients together to make the chocolate. This is the part of the game that surprised me the most. I wasn't interested in Chocolatier at first. There were two main reasons. The first is that I already had a lot of time management games and wasn't sure I wanted another one. The second is that the screenshots don't really convey how much fun this game really is. And this point is illustrated best in making chocolates. There's a kind of game where you rotate wheels to make balls fall into other wheels and once you fill the wheel with like-colored balls, they disappear. The factory screen reminded me of that, and since I don't like those games, I didn't think I'd like this one either. I couldn't have been more wrong about making chocolates. It is my favorite part of the game now.

You shoot different ingredients into the wheels and once you put one of each ingredient into the wheel and the wheel reaches the right side of the screen, it gets made into chocolate. Make sure to aim right or you'll throw away your ingredients! The wheel starts spinning slowly and then gains momentum. Once you run out of ingredients you set the pace for that factory and it churns out chocolate at the rate you set.

If you are ever at a loss as to what to do next, there's a screen that shows you what you have done and what you currently have to do. You can also haggle at the marketplaces to get cheaper prices. But a word of caution: Haggle too often or too aggressively and the sellers will get mad at you and that can never end well.

It would be beyond awesome if a mini-games section was added and you could go right into making chocolate with infinite ingredients. Another mini-game could be making money by buying and selling ingredients, or factories.

After you make the chocolate, you now have to travel around and find people to buy it from you at the highest cost possible. The more you sell quality product the more money you make and the more reputation you gain.

All of these aspects add up to an incredible time management/strategy game that's a lot of fun to play. Highly recommended. Other than the suggestion for mini-games there's really not a whole lot to say in the way of recommendations because the game is loaded with features as it is.

The Good: Tons of game modes add up to a very deep and fulfilling experience.

The Bad: Can't go straight into just making chocolates.

The Ugly: No ugly here.

Bottom Line: Highly recommended for fans of time management games. It's a bit pricey at $5. Will you get $5 worth out of it? Yes! It won't be $5 wasted.

Rune Memory. ($1.99, version 1.1)

2009-04-23T05:37:00.000-07:00

iTunes Link.

Edit: When I published this review this morning the game was $1.99. I just noticed the game has been lowered to $0.99. If you don't have a memory game and want one, this has great sounds and graphics. And if the price being lowered has anything to do with this review, that means the developer is very responsive to feedback and we could very well see improvements in this app's future.

This is a memory game, in which you turn and match pairs of tiles in order to clear them from the board. There's some Zelda-esque music while you play. There's a little clink noise when you match a pair. That's it for music and sound effects. The music is relaxing and pleasant, but there's no way to turn it off (other than lowering the volume). There's a bit of a loading time when starting the game, and it's probably related to the relatively large size of the app (for a memory game, that is) at 22.2 megs.

From the title screen you have to screen to get to the board, but it doesn't say anywhere. It'd be great for it to have a Start button. Games are not saved from session to session. The ability to save would be a great addition.

A good twist is that not only do you have to match objects, you also have to match the color of the object.

When you make a match, both tiles get a ring of flowers around them which disappears in a few seconds. This game would NOT let me take a picture while two tiles were turned (first time I've encountered this), so you'll just have to take my word for it.

The game screen includes a 4X5 board, an option to reset the board, how much time has elapsed, and your best time so far. There doesn't seem to be a way to reset the best time. A little butterfly flutters across the screen, disappears, reappears. There's four pairs of flowers in bloom.

The Good: Relaxing music and polished graphics.

The Bad: Too basic. Not enough options. No saving. Bit of a load time every time you start a game.

The Ugly: No option to turn the sound off.

Bottom Line: Too basic right now. There's tons of memory games at the app store and others have more options. If you want a memory game with pretty graphics and relaxing music, this is a good choice, but I wouldn't recommend at the $2 price tag. Add boards of different sizes and maybe a storyline where you progress through boards of escalating difficulties, and this could easily go up a buck and still be highly recommended. If you want a memory game and are trying to decide which to get, this has more polished graphics than others and the sound is a plus also. So if you want a memory game this is as good as other options and better in the graphics and sound areas, but lacks options.

Plate Pursuit. ($0.99, version 1.0)

2009-04-23T04:05:00.000-07:00

iTunes Link.

You're probably familiar with the premise of this game. You're in the middle of I-15, sister to the left, brother to the right, dog jumping from one pair of legs to the other, one parents driving while the other looks at the map, and every two minutes "Are we there yet?" Someone comes up with the idea of counting license places to pass the time and, paper and pencil handy, half an hour goes by.

Now you can do the same thing with your iDevice.

Plate Pursuit automates the recording of license plates as you pass them on the road (just make sure the person driving isn't the one playing!). It also incorporates state trivia, a very nice touch.

When you fire it up, you get to the main menu. From there you can start a new game, resume a previously started game, change the settings, view your achievements, and get some help. Help explains the game and the settings, which is great as at first I thought a setting meant something but wasn't completely sure.

Achievements include number of plates found, points won, and how many questions you have gotten right in a row. In settings, you can turn the sound effects on and of and you can reset the game. You can also turn the badge counter on and off. The badge counter is a nifty feature that shows in the game's icon (in the Springboard) how many plates you have found in all your games. It looks the same as how many updates are available for your currently installed games on the app store icon.

If you choose to resume a game you get a list of all started trips. This is great because if you go to a major city you can have a game for that trip and then other games for side trips. You can delete a trip by doing a left-swipe over the trip name and then tapping delete (or tapping anywhere else on the screen to get rid of the delete button).

When you start a game, you get to select a trip name and then you get the Alabama plate in front of you. You can't swipe left to go to the last plate alphabetically (great if added but not a deal-breaker). If you have found that plate before, you get a little number in a circle on the top right of the screen. If you tap on it you get a trivia question. There's three possible answers. You tap once to select an answer, and once more to submit it. Answer it right to get more points and if you answer it wrong you lose points (30 points per question added or subtracted). If you answer it (right or wrong) the plate counter goes up. You can cheat a bit and cancel out of it and tap on the plate again to get a different question, so if you don't know a question you can swap it out without losing points. It'd be great for the same question to be displayed until it's answered.

Once you answer the question or click cancel you go to the main screen. You can also click Found from the trivia question screen to raise the plate counter and get 10 points added to your score without having to answer the questions (which means the question itself is 20 points).

From the plate screen you can click on the top right button to go to the main menu or on the top left button to bring up an alphabet bar and go quicker to a state plate. This is an awesome addition for those times Utahns happen to be following Alabamians. Great great great addition.

There's no music and not much in the way of sound effects. A little flipping noise when you click on a plate and get a question, and right-answer and wrong-answer noises. That's about it.

The Good: No more paper and pencil, and the addition of trivia questions more than doubles the replayability.

The Bad: It'd be great if the badge counter could be trip-specific and it remembered your last-played trip, instead of counting all plates found in all trips. There could be a setting option to count all plates or just plates found in the last trip played. The trivia portion needs to be reworked a bit also. It repeats questions too much. It should keep tabs on what questions it has asked per trip and skip those already answered correctly. If it runs out, it should just show "No more questions!" somewhere around the plate in the main screen, and if you touch the plate it just increases the plate counter. Lot less annoying than answering for the tenth time that the abbreviation for Nevada is NV. It also needs a lot more questions! It would also be great to have the option of keeping tabs of questions already answered on a per trip basis or globally. If I already know all the questions I don't want to answer them all over again each time I start a trip.

The Ugly: Found a bug. If you go to Resume Game, swipe left to bring up the delete button, and then press back to go to the main menu, buttons become unresponsive if you go back to Resume Game. You won't be able to select a game or swipe/delete. You will have to exit the app and restart it, and it will work again.

Bottom Line: Can't go wrong for a dollar. Fix the trivia side and can't go wrong for $3. Especially if you travel. I find myself using the app just the trivia side.

Squares! ($0.99, version 1.1)

2009-04-15T10:27:00.000-07:00

iTunes Link.

Squares is a strategy game. I personally don't consider games like Squares! as a pure strategy game because there's chance involved. It all depends on what kind of board you get. Where you win or lose is not wholly dependent on how good you play. High dependent, yes. Wholly dependent, no. The goal is to turn all the tiles on the board to either green smiling faces or yellow scared faces (you get a better score for green than yellow). The game ends if you turn any tile into a red "dead" face. When the game first starts, the board has no faces in it and instead is a 5X5 board consisting of tiles with arrows in them. Each time you successfully turn all squares to green or yellow faces, you advance a level. You keep going through levels until you have no choice but to turn a yellow face into a red face (and it will happen sooner or later in every game).

There are four icons at the bottom. The left circular arrow starts a new game (and puts you back at level one). The rightmost icon provides you with some help on the gameplay and game elements, and the icon that looks like a checklist shows you the high scores and gives you the option to erase all of them. The second icon from the right is the "shake" icon. During the game, if you run into a situation in which your next move would mean game over, you can either shake the iDevice or tap this button to bring up a menu with two options. You can undo your last move or you can "shake the board. If you shake the board, the arrow tiles are reshuffled. You have five shakes per game (and not per level, as I sadly learned). You cannot undo more than one move at a time and it uses up one of your shakes. Thankfully you can do a shake by either shaking your iDevice OR pressing the shake button and then Shake. I hate shaking the iDevice in fears of damaging it and really appreciate the alternate button.

On the upper right hand corner there's an "i" that gives you a brief description of the game, allows you to turn the sound on or off, and gives you come copyright information. I found this "i" to be one of the most unresponsive iDevice game buttons I have found so far and it always took me multiple taps to activate it. Maybe the sensitivity can be looked at.

The game saves your progress whenever you exit the app, which is great. No need for long play sessions.

Let' walk through a few steps in order to illustrate the gameplay. Here's a fresh board:

We are going to tap the upper right hand corner tile. Notice what happens.

The arrow is now pointing up and the tile that was being pointed at by the tapped tile turned green. Let's see what happens if we tap the tile below the green tile which is an arrow pointing up, towards the green tile.

The tile being pointed at by the arrow turned yellow AND the tile we tapped on turned into a green tile instead of staying as an arrow and changing direction. If you tap on an arrow pointing at a green tile this will always happen - the green tile turns yellow and the arrow tile turns green.

Now look at the green tile. There's two arrows pointing to it. If we tap the tile below, the green tile turns yellow and the arrow tile turns into a green tile.

If we now tap into the tile to the left of the lower yellow tile, the arrow tile turns into a yellow tile and the yellow tile turns into a red dead tile and the game ends.

As it stands right now I view this game as a casual strategy.chance game, in the same vein as Yahtzee. Luck and skill. It's only a buck and it's nice for quick games, especially since it saves your progress. I have an idea that I think could turn this game into a deeper and truer strategy game. "Levels" could be made that have a fixed ending configuration and are not random. There is one or more ways to go from the beginning board to the end board without having any yellow faces. If you solve it, you go to the next level. There's an undo button that takes away from your score but you can press it an unlimited number of times, and there's no shake button. This would turn it into a puzzle/strategy game and would add tons of replayability to it, especially with a lot of levels. It could be even better if someone could design and build a program that creates board with a pre-determined solution without having to turn any tiles yellow.

Graphics are simple and cutesy and serve the gameplay well. There's no music and the only special effects are swooshing sounds when the tiles turn and a sharp game ending sound when you turn a tile red.

Bottom line? It's a twist on the "lights off" games where you have to turn the whole board into a different color. Different, but not really earth-shattering. It's a good deal for the price and it's entertaining for the train ride. A true puzzle/strategy mode would make this into a highly recommended game, would add replayability, and would elevate it from casual entertainment/just another app into gaming gold. And would it a stead even at a slightly higher price.

Mini Golf Ace. ($1.99, version 1.0)

2009-04-15T09:26:00.000-07:00

iTunes Link.

I first found out about this game on a bulletin board, and many people gave it a try because of its low price (and were satisfied for the most part). I wasn't convinced because of the screenshots, as I very much enjoy the lush grass and sparkly water of Let's Golf!, and I think graphics definitely add to a game. More than graphics alone, though, I like the sense of environment. The course is on top of a blue mat (as can be seen if you go out of bounds, as the ball goes off the course in little bounces) and is metallic-looking. No grass, no water, just the metal-looking course and obstacles. Everything's blue, shades of blue, some white, and the orange ball. There's not even a flag next to the hole. There's no character hitting a ball, no clubs to choose from, no wind or sand. There's just the course, the hole, and the ball.

I was still intrigued by the game, as I love mini-golf. When I started playing it in order to do this review, I was pleasantly surprised. I love the sterility of the environment, as it takes all frills off and gives you one thing and one thing only: golf. This game focuses on the gameplay and has a strong physics engine. The ball moves like it's supposed to. It is very easy to get lost in the game itself without outside window dressing.

The game does save your progress, which is a very nice feature in any game and especially helps in this one as there is no one-hole game option. There's just a straight 18-hole course. Up to four players can join in the fun (but make sure you have enough time to finish it or the other three people are easily accessible at the same time!).

When you start the app you have two options: view the high scores and Start. If you have a game in progress you won't get to this screen. You get a pop-up message letting you know you have a game in progress and asks whether you want to continue it or now. If you want to continue it, you are taken to the course. If you don't, you are taken to the Start/high scores screen and your save is erased. If you tap on Start, you get to put in your name and add up to three more p layers. Then you are taken to the first course. You have six shots to sink the ball in. If you don't, you miss the level but are still taken to the next course, so you are playing 18 holes no matter what. It records how many hits it took to sink the ball and records seven hits if you miss the level, even if it would have taken you more than that to sink the ball. Maybe in future revisions there could be an option to have ulimited hits and only move on to the next level if you make the hole (and have a "give up" button that adds something like five hits to your score and takes you to the next level).

You hit the ball with your finger. When you press your finger to the ball, you have a little green circle that goes around the ball and a green arrow closing off the circle and showing here the ball will go. You press your finger to the ball, slide it away from the ball, and release it to shoot. It's a bit like pool as you slide your finger away from where you want the ball to go, and the pointing arrow makes it possible to be precise. The more you pull back, the bigger the circle gets. A green circle means you're good, a yellow circle means you'll be close to going out of bounds, and a red circle means you'll probably go out of bounds. Out of the handful of times I've hit with a red circle I've gone out of bounds every single time, and every single time I've hit with a yellow circle I've stayed in the course. I've found yellow circles necessary sometimes to give the ball the little "oomph" needed to get over an obstacle. If you go outside of the course (off into the outside "mat" with little bounces as you go) it counts as a hit and you go all the way back to the beginning of the course, but any hit you've used up is still gone.

As soon as you hit the ball the green navigation circle and arrow disappear. Once you hit the ball and it finally stops, the green navigation circle and arrow flash briefly when the ball is ready to be hit again, which is a great touch as it is sometimes difficult to tell if the ball is done moving or not. The number of hits flases after your fifth hit, indicating you only get one more try.

You can tilt the device left or right to rotate the view of the course. It's kind of an inverted control. If you tilt it to the right, the course rotates to the left because your view is rotating ot the right. So if you want to rotate the course to the right, you would tilt your device to the left to rotate your view to the left. It takes a bit of getting used to. Maybe there could be an option to select what to rotate when the device is tilted - the view or the course. At the beginning I kept trying to turn the front of the device left or right instead of tilting it up and down towards the sides. All good now. There's also no zooming in and out by pinching and expanding like web pages on Safari, a fact I sadly learned by using up one of my hits as it interpreted a pinch as a grab-and-release.

The use of the accelerometer to look around the course is brilliant. It further accentuates the point that this game is a technical masterpiece. The one request people have made is that there be a top-down sort of view, because if there's an obstacle between you and the ball, you can't see the ball. You can rotate the view, but it's not the same as you'll be hitting the ball from the side at an awkward angle.

The picture above highlights this problem. You have to hit the ball from the side instead of from behind, making the shot very hard (and I missed the course on that one). Two options could be implemented: to either have a top-down view or have an obstacle automatically dimmed when the game senses the obstacle is in-between you and the ball.

There's no music and special effects are minimal. There's a clicking noise when you hit the ball, and canking noise when you hit any object in the course with the ball, a nice plopping noise when the ball falls into the hole, and a sad "aww" chorus when you miss a level. It'd be nice to add a happy "yeeeeah" sound (or any other happy sound) to hear when you make the hole.

The game area has the current game's information at the bottom. The course ("lane" - the controls of pool, the levels of bowling, this game has it all!) number, your name, how many hits you've used in the game (this part is very important, as a 4 doesn't mean you're on hit number 4, it means you've used up 4 hit; you start off with 0 hits), and how many hits you've used on each hole. On the top there's two icons. The left-pointing arrow to the left brings up a menu asking you whether you want to cancel the game in progress or not (if you do cancel, the current game is not saved) and the question mark to the right gives you minimal (surprise) information on how to play. The controls are simple and the goal is simple, so there's not much help needed here. THe game follows its theme of simplicity in everything it does, from the gameplay to the graphics to the sound to the game screen to the controls.

When you finish the game it lets you know how many hits you used for the 18 holes and how many points you score. THere's no indication as to how the score is calculated. This would be a nice addition to the help info. In-between each hole there's a little loading screen (2 seconds tops) that gives the name of the following course.

Bottom line? Excellent game. High production values, easy to get lost in it, great controls. Maybe the future will bring more game modes or options. I really enjoyed this game and see myself playing it until I don't miss any holes in any particular game.

CounterBalancE. ($0.99, version 1.0.0)

2009-04-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

iTunes Link.

One of my favorite things as an iDevice gamer is to find little gems that wouldn't get much attention if it weren't for word-of-mouth. Among the countless vampire/zombie/word/gems games filling up the app store, one can find tons of unique games that either resurrect older games or imagine up new ways to play. CounterBalancE is based on a puzzle created by Craig Kasper (one suggestion would be to add more information as to how the game was conceived).

When you first start the app, you are presented with a basic title screen and three menu buttons, along with some copyright info. There are some instructions, options, and Play. Options include Clear Local Data. Maybe some online leaderboards are imminent in future versions? Play presents you with five levels. At the beginning only level 1 is unlocked. You must solve 15 out of 21 puzzles in each level to unlock the next level. There are a total of 105 puzzles. This will take you a few hours to solve (and if you finish it all in less than two, leave a comment so that you can be properly admired!)

Once you select a level you can try any puzzle in that level, whether you have solved it or not. Solved puzzles have a star to the left of them. Once you select a puzzle to solve, you are taking to the game board. The game board has a reset button that clears all solid balls off the board and a black button to go back to the levels select screen (and also clears the board, it doesn't save your progress). Exiting the app doesn't save the screen either, so you have to solve the board before you get a phone call or want to open another app. A save feature would be a very welcome addition, especially for those with iPhones.

When you solve a puzzle you are taken back to the level selection screen. Another suggestion is to automatically go to the next unplayed level once you complete a level without having to go to the level selection screen. Brownie points if you go to the level selection screen if the level you just finished had been solved before.

On to the game board. You are presented with a square grid. On some of the corners of the grid lines there's balls with numbers on them. You will notice a thicker white line connecting balls to each other, either horizontally or vertically. The goal of the game is for each ball to have X squares in between it and any other balls (numbered or solid) that it's connected to (horizontally or vertically), X being the number inside the ball. You use solid balls to fill in the board to satisfy all the numbered balls on the board. If a numbered ball is unfulfilled, it's red. If it's fulfilled, it's green. Just because a ball is green doesn't mean you have solved that particular ball if there's still red balls on the board, as you may have to move things a bit to accommodate everybody.

This game has no music, sounds, or sound effects, but they're not necessary here. Some blips and bloops as balls are placed would be a nice diversion (as long as it can be turned off under options).

SPOILERS FOLLOW

PUZZLE 1-1

Let's go ahead and solve puzzle 1-1 together. I like to start with the bigger numbers. Look at the seven. It's two spaces to the five, that leaves five spaces to go. If you put a ball on top and to the right, that's four down, three to go. If you put a ball all the way at the bottom, three spaces away, that's seven total. There's no other ball configuration that will work. One ball down, five to go.

BOARD AFTER THE SEVEN IS SOLVED

We may need to worry about the green 5, 4, and 7s if some of the balls for the red 5 and 3 interfere with them, but let's leave them alone for now. The red five has one space above and two spaces to the right, making that three. It needs two more. Placing a ball two spaces down greens the five.

BOARD AFTER THE RED FIVE IS SOLVED

Is there a way we can take care of the three without disturbing any of the other balls? Yes, there is! If we place a ball two spaces to the right and one space down, that satisfies the three and doesn't interfere with any of the other balls. Puzzle solved!

PUZZLE 1-1 SOLVED

Bottom line? The revolutionary part of the iDevices is how much entertainment bang you can get for your buck. One dollar is a steal for a game that has this much gameplay attached to it. As you get through more puzzles you start developing some strategies (such as my beginning strategy to take care of larger numbers first). Another strategy is that if you have a 1 next to a numbered ball, there can be no solid balls on any of the 1's horizontal or vertical lines. The puzzles are challenging and the gameplay fresh. This game is an easy recommendation.

Galaga Remix. ($5.99, version 1.0.0)

2009-04-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

iTunes Link.

The iDevices seem to attract retro goodness. Everything from Pac-Man to the complete Wolfenstein. Galaga is no exception, and Namco brings us two game modes - Galaga Remix, and the original Galaga.

When you first start the app, you get two intro screens and then a title screen. Tapping on the title screen brings you to the game mode screen - Galaga, and Galaga Remix, which is the same gameplay with better graphics.

Galaga has a retro feel. The graphics are pixelated and the screen has the control scheme at the bottom and on top has a menu, some unintelligible lettering in the middle, and number of ships remainingon the upper right. On the lower right there's a "medal" (at least it looks like a medal) per level to indicate what level you're on. There's also your score and the top score. Tapping menu before the game begins gives you a few options: Start Game, Options, Help, Rankings, and More Namco Games. Thre's also a little u-turn arrow that returns you to the game mode screen. Help includes How To Play, some tips on Fighter Unification, more Options, and About the developer. The Options entry here explains the options available in the previous menu.

In Options, you can select from 2 to 5 lives, how many points are needed to add an extra life, you can change the control type, and you can turn special effects on and off. There is no music in this game, just special effects including beeping and swooshing. There are three control t ypes. The first one puts left and right arrow keys on the bottom left of the screen and a fire button on the bottom right of the screen. Slider puts a sliding bat at the bottom center of the screen to slide the ship left and right and you touch the screen to fire. The third control uses the accelerometer and you move the ship by tilting the device left and right.

You fire by pressing the fire button on the bottom right. I found the slider to be the most responsive followed by the arrows and finally the accelerometer. I found I had to tilt it quite a bit to move the ship. Maybe calibration and sensitivity options would help.

Something disappointing is that none of the control options have autofire.

You will have to press the screen or fire button Every. Single. Time. you want to fire, which is cumbersome. They more than made up for this by allowing you to jump to the last unfinished level without having to start over from scratch every single time.

During play, the menu key allows you to Continue, Change Control Type, access Help, and Quit Game (which confirms whether you really do want to quit).

While Galaga is played holding the iDevice vertically, Galaga Remix is played while holding the iDevice horizontally. The Main Menu includes Start Game, Free Play, Options, Help, Rankings, and More Namco Games. The last four are the same as in Galaga except for the ability to turn background music on and off, as Galaga Remix has some cool Star Wars-sy music. There's also three difficulty levels to choose from. The in-game menu is the same.

Galaga Remix seems to have more enemies. The screen has the menu button, hi-score, current score, and level on the right, and the control scheme on the bottom There's animated backgrounds also and falling asteroids (that don't do anything to the ship). The sound effects are the same.

Galaga Remix DOES have autofire. This makes it a lot more fun to play than the regular Galaga. When you die, you get a choice of starting from scratch or continuing at the last unfinished level. Free play lets you play any level you have unlocked in the regular game, including the first unfinished one.

We now get to the issue of price. At $6, this is a pretty pricey app.

One curious feature of Galaga Remix is that the enemies don't fire at you, they throw themselves at you, kamikaze-style. As long as you can avoid the ship themselves, you're good to go. In a way this may make the game more challenging because the ships themselves are bigger than the lasers they shoot.

The Nintendo DS has Namco Museum, which can be found for around $20 and includes Pac-Man, Galaga, Xevious, Dig Dug II, Galaxian, Mappy, The Tower of Druaga, and Pac-Man Vs. That's about $2.50 per game. The experience is a lot better on the iDevices, especially the slider control scheme. Some of us also remember how we had to pay 25 cents to play just one game of Galaga. For those who liked the game, it'll be worth it, as it's a great new experience and has the classic mode for those who don't like reinventions. If you've never played it, try to find a free flash game on-line that has the same gameplay of ship on the bottom shooting enemies on top and see if you like that kind of game before getting this one.

Astrosphere. ($2.99, version 1)

2009-04-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

iTunes link.

Astosphere is a puzzle game. You have to navigate a ship through space, picking up powerups and ultimately navigating to the goal.

When you first begin the app, you get some upbeat drum music and a menu of options. These include New Game, Resume Game, Highscore, Credits, and Help. Highscore is self-explanatory. Credits includes some information about the developer. Help includes a description of all in-game objects, such as blocks that stop you from moving and objects that give you an extra life. If you have a game in progress and select New Game, it verifies that you want to trash your saved game, which is nice. You progress through levels and if you don't finish a level, you are taken back to that level after losing a life. The level does not look exactly the same when you restart it; it will move around the level elements. This keeps the gameplay fresh, but you cannot use trial-an-error to solve the level (which for some may be a big plus).

The game screen includes your score, the level, and how many lives you have left. You start out with 20 lives, which is a nice amount. A suggestion would be to maybe add a counter at the beginning so that you can choose how many lives you start the game with. 1-99, for instance. That way everyone gets to have their own personalized experience. 1 for hardcomer gamers, 99 for those who just want a casual puzzle game.

There is thankfully no timer (as you read more of my reviews you will notice I am not a fan of timers; it's artificial difficulty/frustration). Many people like timers, though, so maybe a Timed game mode could be added.

There are two major flaws to the game. The first one is that there is no pause button. Since there is no timer it would seem no pause button is needed, but a pause button could stop the music and also keep one from accidentally pressing on the screen and losing a life.

The second one is that there is no way to return to the main menu. You have to close and reopen the app to get back to the main menu. Returning to the main menu may come in handy if more game modes are added.

Another suggestion would be to add a small speaker icon to the lower right or left of the screen which would mute the sound. Something even nicer would be to have the option to mute sound and sound effects separately, as I tend to like sound effects but music distracts me from the game most of the time (and I tend to play mostly puzzle games). This could be accomplished by a Sound Menu branched off from the main menu.

The sound doesn't change throughout the game. There are sound effects such as a clanking noise when hitting a brick, but are very minimal. The graphics are basic and not flashy. It's mostly blocks on a screen. Whenever you die, you are penalized 5% of your score (that way the hit is not as great when you have a lower score).

Where this game shines is the gameplay, though. It is fun to try to figure out how to get to the goal while obtaining all powerups in the stage. You can use blocks to stop you and be able to change direction, there are blocks that redirect you in a 45-degree angle, arrows that only stop you if you come in contact with them in one direction, gems to increase yoru score, teleporters that transport you to another part of the screen, switches that turn on and off blocks of the same color, and extra lives.

Controls are simple. Touch the upper part of the screen to go up, lower part of the screen to go down, left side of the screen to go left, and right side of the screen to go right. If when you finish the game you obtained a score high enough to be in the High Score list, it shows you what place you achieved.

When you die, it takes you to the main menu. A nice touch is that from here you can "Resume game" and it takes you to the last unsolved level with five lives. This is a nice touch because it makes advancing through the levels possible without having to restart from level one every single time you run out of lives.

The game is not too easy or too difficult, and the difficulty ramps up gradually. Plainly, the game is fun. I would recommend it to anyone who likes relaxing puzzle games.