Five Great Puzzle Games For The iPhone And iPod Touch
To be sure, the iTunes App Store is full of tantalizing puzzle offerings. Whether they are of the Tetris-model or a simple match-three mind bender, most display some level of interest to iPhone users looking for a challenge. Let’s take a look at five new puzzlers that caught our eye.
Cross Fingers, by Mobigames, introduces gameplay where players must refit wooden shapes into preset slots. There are two types of shapes, light wood and red wood that must be dealt with. While light wood pieces slide and stay in place, red pieces must be held in place as other pieces are arranged around them. If players let go prematurely, the red shapes will return to their previous location. This clever feature grants Cross Fingers its name. Fingers must be twisted in order to hold the red piece in place while other shapes are reordered to solve the puzzle.
Pocketball is built on the Box2D physics engine. In this game, players start with balls that drop at predefined points, and they have to fall into colored pockets. Draw ropes between pegs, which bounce the balls at different angles according to gravity. To complicate things, there are obstacles carefully placed to stump you: bombs that destroy nearby balls, gravity wells, and arrows that push balls in a direction.
Implode, by IUGO Mobile Entertainment, is a puzzle game that contains 60 levels of buildings just waiting to be destroyed. Presented in a chalkboard fashion, buildings are arranged with only their support beams showing. Players must destroy the building in each level by using dynamite or blast bombs. Of course, it is harder than it seems for there is a horizontal dotted line that the resulting rubble must reside below. In the end, a letter grade is awarded according to Explosion Points, Height Bonus, a Difficulty Bonus, and an Unused Bomb Bonus. A total payout it given in each level determined by these bonuses. Obtaining an A+ grade is super difficult and will require a lot of time tinkering with bomb placement. As Implode progresses, difficulty ensues as no-bomb-placement beams are introduced.
Dr. Knizia’s latest puzzle Monumental takes place in a Mayan setting, with a pair of 3 x 4 grids. A solid column separates the grids. This column fills with rectangular stones, which must be shuttled either left or right into the grids. Each stone has a distinct color and number of symbols upon its face. The goal is to fill rows on either side of the center column that match as many distinctive features as possible. Ideally, you would want to have three red stones with one bird on each, for example. This would earn an excellent score for matching colors, symbols, and number of symbols. Of course, it will be rare to match across all three elements. If you can place stones with the same symbols in a row, even if these are a blue, red, and yellow stone, or two stones with two birds and one stone with three birds, these still qualify as symbol matches. You also score points if you match an identical pair in a row, regardless of what is contained on the third stone. Broken stones without symbols will appear, too. These can only match by color.
Wordigo is a unique word puzzle game for sale on the App Store by RiverEdge Game Company. Combining creative word development and a fierce seven minute time limit, Wordigo aims to be the word game players will keep coming back to. Unlike other word building games, Wordigo prescribes where you can create certain words and limits each game with a strict descending seven minute clock. Eight puzzle boards are offered, each designed with horizontal and vertical paths for words. Think of a partial cross-word puzzle with several word paths and empty areas. The goal is to construct words using randomly generated letter tiles. Players can only move on to a new path once the previous path is complete. Scoring is based on clever vowel placement.
We hope our review of some of the latest and greatest puzzle games give you an idea of what the App Store has to offer. These are simply five of the puzzlers that caught our eye. Regardless of your choice of one or all, we feel you’ll enjoy each puzzle’s unique characteristics.
If you’re interested in finding the best apple apps for the iPhone, visit our site now. Or if you just want to find the best iphone games, stop on by.
Filed under: Online Gaming Addiction | No Comments »
