Just Four Colors: free puzzle game for ipad, iphone

Just Four Colors is based on an old math theorem: any map can be colored using just 4 colors so that no 2 neighboring countries have the same color.

We've seen this on the app store a few times.  Quartzic is another title.

There are 10 free puzzle levels.  After that, you must pay.

300,000th visitor - will it be you?

If you're the 300,000th visitor, take a screen shot and send it to me via email. Then I'll send you a prize. Nothing expensive. Sorry, my budget is low.

Boxes Free: puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

The image basically shows the objective. You are given a grid with numbers. Draw rectangles that have exactly that many boxes.

We've seen this type of puzzle game for many years. Nothing new here.

Also, they're not too tough.  However, I can picture novice puzzlers saying: brilliant.  Hey, it's free. But this will not make it onto the list of best puzzle apps of 2013.  Sorry.

Matrix Cube: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Matrix Cube is very similar to Lab Mice Puzzles. See the link just to the right of this column.

The object is to connect the red squares with a red path that do not intersect with the blue path or green path etc.

This concept of doing this on a cube is not new.  Still, this puzzle game app is free. 30 levels.

Parking Jam: this month's ripoff of Rush Hour

I predicted a dozen ripoff versions of Rush Hour for 2013.  Well, here's another one. I think it's the second one. 

Miscellaneous Updates and Ramblings

The Voxel Agents have updated their puzzle app Puzzle Retreat: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=thevoxelagents.puzzleretreat Puzzle Retreat is out on Google Play with 50 puzzles to solve for free!

Luma Link also has an update: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/luma-link/id579343484?mt=8

Senkai has added an easy level - phew! http://grifia.com/senkai

I've recently been playing NineOut again. 3 things: my new high score of 217,000 was not recorded on the Leaderboard because my wifi was turned off. I am now in 4th place. The 3rd place person looks like he's 15 years old. Another blow to my ego - a kid is ahead of me. The first place person has a score of something like 440,000. More than double my score.

Nonogram Style Lite: free puzzle app game for ipad, iphone

Tom Chen recently contactec me about his puzzle game app: Nonogram Style Lite.

The concept is not new. There are 60 free levels, and I've done them all.  I like the mechanics of this game.

It's not one of the best puzzle apps of 2013, but it's worthy of your time.

Just Routes: free puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

The object of Just Routes is to draw 1 continuous line that never intersects itself. Naturally, you must start at 1 and finish at the highest number.

There are 45 easy levels, 35 medium levels and 25 advanced.  I've done them all.  I really like this set of puzzles.

I'm not sure if the puzzle designer Oleg Gorshunov intended this: your path need not cross over every square.

What I really like is that it's easy to erase your moves.

Another puzzle game app that I think is better is Numeric Paranoia. Same concept except many more puzzle levels and more difficult. But once you make a mistake, you must start over again.

Nice job Oleg!

Bubble Maze: free puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

Bubble Maze was designed by my Dutch friend Oskar van Deventer.  The object is to tilt your device so that the blue bubble will eventually land on the yellow dot. Joe Miller did the programming work.

This puzzle game app has only 1 level, but it's free.

I highly recommend downloading Amazing Cube Maze - another Oskar van Deventer puzzle app.

http://www.josephclaymiller.com/games/bubble-maze

Mechanical Puzzle Review: Smartphone

Smartphone is a sliding tile puzzle game.  Raf Peters of http://smartgamesandpuzzles.com/inventor/Home.htmlinvented it. In the last 5 years Raf has invented a slew of puzzles!

The grid has tiles that are 2 by 1.  Some of the tiles have circles. The object is to move the tiles around so that the circles hover over the telephone numbers of your friends. Notice that each friend has only a 5-digit telephone #!

There are 32 challenges.  I have not done them all. But I have done the 'expert' levels.  And the solutions can be tricky for a novice puzzler.

Smartphone is not easy to find. Check with Puzzle Master to see if they have any in stock.

Lazors : free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Lazors is a puzzle app game from the the good people at Pyroshere - great company name!

Instead of placing the typical mirrors, you must place white squares on the grid so that the little black circles get hit by a lazor. Important: you must place all the tiles on the grid - some will certainly get in the way.

Black squares: they act like black holes - the light will die and not bounce off.  The gray tiles act as a doubler: when a ray strikes it, 2 rays will emerge, one bouncing off, and the other passing straight through.

A good set of puzzles will let you bounce around between easy & hard.  Lazors does this. 

Right now I've done about 80 of the levels of varying difficulty. 

There have been many lazer puzzle app games published......Lazors is refreshingly good. Not that the others are bad.

Matcube: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad



MatCube is a very interesting, difficult sequential movement puzzle.  It's similar to Lights Out.  Touch 1 cube and the surrounding cubes rotate.  In Lights Out games, the surrounding pieces turn on/off.

I tried MatCube at the easiest level and got stumped!

I was able to get all the top squares to be the same color, but the side squares have to match too.  MatCube is a totally free puzzle app game.  Let me know how you fare.

New Blog about Puzzles

Nicola Salmoria created Twin Beams, which is a puzzle that I really like.  He has also been sending me puzzle recommendations for the past 6 months.

Now Nicola has a blog that's very similar to mine.  So, go to his site and sign up as a follower.

http://nontrivialgames.blogspot.com

Puzzle Retreat: puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

Simon Joslin is one of the Voxel Agents who created Puzzle Retreat. A better title that would help describe the objective: Ice Cube Tray Puzzles.

The object is to slide the ice cubes to the empty spaces and fill up the tray. Naturally, ice cubes will slide over other ice cubes and then fall into an empty space.

At times, you must slide 2, 3 or 4 ice cubes at once to fill up a row or column.

This is a sequential movement puzzle: the order of the sliding matters.

Interesting features: Directional arrows that divert the path by 90 degrees. The Ice Cube with a handle on top: once that ice cube lands in the tray, nothing can slide over it.  The Fire Cube: this will melt all th ice cubes in that row or column. You must then refill those empty spaces.

The good people at Voxel Agents sent me a promo code to download and play-test Puzzle Retreat.  This includes 96 levels. They are not terribly hard, but they are compelling and fun.  And yesterday I bought a level pack of 24 levels for $.99, which I think is a bargain.  There will be a new level pack every month.

Bottom Line: Puzzle Retreat is a fun, challenging, original concept puzzle game app. It earns a spot on the prestigous list of Best Puzzle Apps of 2013. Congratulations Voxel Agents. Everybody: after a hard day of work, you need a Puzzle Retreat. Now do you understand the title?

http://puzzleretreat.com/

Extremely Detailed Review of My Puzzles

Mindware.com has published 2 of my puzzle games: Lab Mice Puzzles and Find Your Way Gnome.  Click here to order them.

Below is a very detailed review. Who is Mr. 99?
http://www.toysaretools.com/2012/05/review-and-giveaway-find-your-way-gnome.html

Tring: puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

Tring is a new sliding tile puzzle game app that is similar to ThinkFun's Rush Hour.

As you can see from the pictures, the pieces are parallelograms and trapezoids and they must slide along a triagular grid system.

Jason Fieldman is the brains behind this. I've done about 50 of the puzzles. They are challenging!  The best part of this puzzle game app is reading about Jason's trials & tribulations.

http://www.fieldman.org/

Rotago: puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

Andrey Biglari recently contacted me about his new puzzle game app: Rotago.

I had to do the tutorial 3 times before I truly understood the directions. The first two times, I solved all of the tutorial levels, but still kept tapping wildly.

Look at the first image. Your goal is to complete the square that is outlined by the little white triangles. Now look at the square that is outlined with the thick white line: that's the Active Square. Rotate that so the blue lines up with its neighbor and then transfer the blue triangle. That makes the neighbor the Active Square.

Once you've done the tutorial, you advance to The Continuum which is 40 levels. You are given a time limit for each level and you may not use too many moves.  Once you fail, you go back to level 1!

Rotago is actually a route-finding/shunting puzzle.  On The Continuum, the levels start easy, but they get tricky and I started to panic.  The highest level I got to was 14.

Also, new puzzles are generated each time, so you can't memorize solutions.

I'm normally averse to puzzles that give you a time limit. However, the time limit here makes the challenge: how many levels can you do?

Rotago is one of the Best Puzzle Apps of 2013. Congratulations Andrey!

Harbor Master: free puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

Harbor Master is a puzzle game app where you have to quickly direct purple ships to the purple docks and the yellow ships to the yellow docks without collisions.

Think fast & react quickly.  You must also quickly get the ships out of the docks.

Lots of people love this game.  Not I.  Perhaps you will.

Hexius: point scoring puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

Paul Ripley recently sent me an email about his puzzle app game Hexius.  There are 3 modes of play.  The one I'm interested in is the Strategy Mode where you are given 30 moves and as much time as you want to get the highest possible score.

Are you familiar with the Traveling Salesman problem? The objective is to minimize the distance for multiple cities.  Hexius is the opposite: you want to maximize the distance to score points. But there's more strategy involved which is too difficult to explain.  Go to their web page and watch the tutorial.

You will also notice that this company made Guide the Light, which I reviewed not too long ago.

http://www.phasiclabs.com/?p=home

Side note: The List of Best Puzzle App Games of 2013 will be published December 31. Mark your calendars.

Jelly Fits Puzzle: free puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

Jelly Fits Puzzle comes from Qmax, Inc in China.  The object is to slide the colored tiles onto their homes.

Look at challenge level 24: see the small blue square? When the normal blue square gets to its home (which is covered up temporarily by the long vertical red rectangle), then the small blue square will disappear and turn white. Which means that pieces may travel over it.

There are 36 levels. I've done them all. Not terribly hard, but there's potential here.

Pen the Penguin: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Check out the image of the penguin with a human tongue and uvula.

The objective of Pen the Penguin is to surround him so that he cannot get to the edge of the ice island and go for a swim.  If that happens, a whale will gobble him.  That particular video is worth watching!

The penguin takes 1 step, then you get to block 1 step. If you step on a 'supply crate', it can provide you with a choice of 5 things to help keep the penguin sealed in. For example, look at the image.  See the 3 rocks grouped together at the bottom of the screen? They can be deployed.

Pen the Penguin will probably not succeed in making it on to the list of best puzzle apps of 2013. But it's cute.

New York Puzzle Party Symposium

The annual New York Puzzle Party Symposium will be Saturday February 9, 2013.

If you are interested in attending, contact me.

Book Tower: free puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

Book Tower has all the rules of Tower of Hanoi, but color is added.

I've seen 3 or 4 versions of this exact same puzzle. I don't remember the names though. What I particularly like about this version is the theme of books and the library background. They did a nice job on that.

Turnacle: puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

Thomas Visser recently contacted me from the Netherlands about his new puzzle game app: Turnacle.

Look at the first image: your objective is to rotate each circle - using 90 degree turns - so that adjacent colors match.

The puzzles go from very simple to very big. Although the very big puzzles aren't necessarily so hard.

At the 'classic' level: you must solve 10 puzzles as rapidly as possible.

Turnacle is free for a limited time, so give it a chance.

We've seen edge-matching puzzles many times. The maker of Zoki, promised to give me a slew of puzzles once if I could solve 1 of his hexagonal edge matching puzzles. I did and then used the free puzzles for good trades.

Blendamaze: free puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

Blendamaze is a free puzzle dexterity game app.

First, you are given a white ball. Roll it into the red ink and then roll it onto the small red target.

 

I did all the 15 free levels. What I particularly liked was watching the colored path that each ball took.  I think Blendamaze would be particularly appealing to kids.

There is a logical puzzle element: when a ball enters a color, it will emerge from one of several holes. But these types of puzzles really amount to trial & error.

Unblock Red: latest ripoff of Rush Hour

Unblock Red is the first ripoff of ThinkFun's Rush Hour in 2013. I'm guessing there will be at least 10 other ripoffs.

This particular version: I did 5 of the hardest levels. They were all essentially the same.

Skip this! Go for the real McCoy.

Dflux: puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

Dflux seems like a 'connect the pipes' puzzle game app. Yes and no. Yes, because you must rotate the pipes in each place (no swapping).  No, because there is a mixture of colors which can be tricky.

I've played the Lite version of Dflux which offers about 10 free levels from each category of difficulty.

Give it a shot.

Puzzle Up: challenge your friends

Ivan Schneider recently contacted me from France about his new puzzle game app: Puzzle Up.

The concept: take some blocks and put them together to form any shape. Then send it off as a challenge to your friend, who will then send you a challenge. You can also play multiple games at the same time.

Puzzle Up is free. I see this being a good game for family members.

Related side note: I have seen countless 'fill the tray with the given pieces' puzzles at International Puzzle Parties. Right now I'm weeding my collection of them. But not all of them. Some are gems.

Logi5Puzz: free puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

Logi5Puzz is a free puzzle game app from Hui-Min Lu. It is simlar to sudoku and is essentially a Latin Square.  Each color region must have the #s 1-5.  Same for each row and column.

Logi5Puzz is not new, but it is fast and free.  Good for young puzzlers.

Words N-Puzzle: puzzle game for iphone, ipad

Rogelia Garcia recently contacted me about his new puzzle game app: Words N-Puzzle.

You are given a grid of lettered tiles with 1 blank space.  Arrange the tiles to form words horizontally.

The game can be played in English, Spanish, German and French.

You can play by yourself, or you can play against a friend.

Jelly Blocks: free puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

Jelly Blocks comes from Michael Le.  It's a bit like sokoban: move the objects so that all the blue squares connect. Then do the same for the other colors.

All the shapes move simultaneously, one step at a time.  The black shapes never move. The purple shapes have to be pushed by another piece.

There are 96 levels and most of them have multiple solutions.  That's okay. Some of them will get you thinking.  I've solved all of them.  I'm hoping that Michael or another puzzle app designer will produce more levels.

Bottom Line: Jelly Blocks is a free fun puzzle game app - absolutely worthy of your time.

Jelly Blocks came out in 2008, however, since I only just discovered it, it qualifies for the List of Best Puzzle Apps of 2013.

Reball: free puzzle game app for iphone ipad

Michael Barlow and Konstantin Kolobov recently contacted me about their puzzle app game Reball.  The object is to slide balls to form a line of 3 or more to make them disappear.  The final object is to remove all the balls from the screen where each move leads to a line that eliminates some balls.

The first 10 levels are free.  After that, there are 5 packages of 25 puzzles each and each package costs .99.

I solved all the 10 free levels in about 5 minutes.  I like the concept. There's a lot of potential here.

I would recommend to puzzle app designers: give everybody 50 free puzzles - to really whet the appetites of puzzlers, then sell level packs after that.

Side note: on December 31, I will publish the list of Best Puzzle Apps of 2013. Stay tuned.

Puzzling Cubes: free puzzle game app for iphone ipad

Puzzling Cubes is a series of 72 sokoban type puzzles by Gordon Roberts.

Slide the columns around so that certain square will be covered. When that happens, a corresponding column will shrink, allowing your man to travel over that square.

Some wheels must be rolled - until they hit an object.  The wheels can only go in 1 direction.

Some columns must be pushed off the playing surface.

There are holes that must be filled - either with columns or with wheels.

Right now, I have solved 52 of the 72 levels. I like this set of puzzles.

Side note: on December 31, I will publish the list of Best Puzzle Apps of 2013. Stay tuned.

Roadblock by SmartGames: puzzle game for iphone, ipad

RoadBlock by SmartGames is the official title of this puzzle game app.

The brains behind all of SmartGames puzzles is Raf Peeters. He has designed so many intersting puzzle concepts.

In Roadblock, the object is to fill the board with the given tiles so that the red car can not escape.  When that happens, the police simultaneously get out of their cars to surround the villain.

(I should mention: I was in Los Angeles in the summer of 2000, and I saw a police car chase. I was in a car going one way near the airport and a caravan of police were speeding the other way with a helicopter spotlight on the bad guy. It made the news, but at the time, I thought it just happened everyday in L.A.)

As puzzle apps go, this is very well done and could make the list of Best Puzzle Apps of 2013.

Side note: on December 31, I will publish the list of Best Puzzle Apps of 2013. Stay tuned.

Blink Blox: free puzzle game app for iphone ipad

Blink Blox comes from Swoobie.  The object is to slide the tiles around so that the blue tiles will form a line and disappear.  Then do the same for the red tiles.

Some tiles are neutral.  Other tiles cannot move.

Best feature: some tiles can alternate colors.

The free version of Blink Blox has 24 puzzle levels. Each puzzle must be solved within a given time.

I like Blink Blox. Give it a try.

Side note: on December 31, I will publish the list of Best Puzzle Apps of 2013. Stay tuned.

Knight Moves: free puzzle app game

Knight Moves comes from Ken Wessen.  If you're familiar with the famous Knight's Tour problem, you'll like this - it's different.

In the Knight's Tour, your objective is to move the knight onto each square exactly once.

In this puzzle game app, your objective is to move onto the light squares only!

Hey, this is free!

Snake Slider: puzzle game app for Android

Bas de Reuver recently contacted me to announce that Snake Slider is available for Android devices.

Snake Slider (Android)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bdrgames.snakeslider

Snake Slider Lite (Android)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bdrgames.snakesliderlite

Blockwick 101: free puzzle app game for iphone ipad

Blockwick 101 is another version of Blockwick, which I reviewed about 6 months ago.

The object is to slide the tiles around so that the colored tiles will touch each other.

Look at the image on the right. 1 red piece is glowing - that means it can be moved. The other red pieces will need to be touched by the glowing red piece before they can move.

This version of Blockwick has 60 levels. Some of them are easy, some challenging.  They're fun!

I downloaded the original Blockwick and have kept buying the level packs.

Side note: on December 31, I will publish the list of Best Puzzle Apps of 2013. Stay tuned.

Guide the Light: puzzle game app for iphone ipad

Guide the Light comes from appy nation.  It's a laser with mirrors type puzzle.

The puzzles are well designed.  The user interface is slick. There's even a theme of exploring a pyramid.

There's one problem that I have with Guide the Light: there is a time-element. If you don't solve it quickly, you can get eaten by a scorpion. Ouch.

Nevertheless, Guide the Light is intelligent & fun.

Sidenote: this blog is off to a roaring start with over 700 visitors/day.  Feel free to sign up as a follower.