Dabble: free point scoring word puzzle for iphone, ipad

Dabble is a point scoring word puzzle app game that was invented by George Weiss who is 84 and a wall paper hanger.

Look at the second image. You must rearrange the tiles to spell a 6-letter word at the bottom, then a 5-letter word, then 4, 3 & 2.  The quicker you do it, the more points you get.

Also, you definitely want to use the higher point letters for the 6 letter word.

My high score is 756. That's not too high compared to the serious word puzzlers out there.

If you like Scrabble, Boggle and Bananagrams, you will love Dabble. My prediction: there will one day be a Dabble tournament where all the players are given the same sets of letters. Everybody will bring their ipad to the tournament hall and will download that day's Dabble Tournament App.

Unquestionably, Dabble is one of the best word puzzle app games of 2013.  The Final List will be revealed December 30th and 31st.

'Not Pacman': Cool version of Pac-Man

Check out this video that's a variation of Pac-Man.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJWJt_lgd4g#t=57

I never got into Pac-Man. But I love this rotating screen physics version. Right now it is not an ios game.

Download it here: http://stabyourself.net/notpacman/

Games Magazine: Garden Dice named as game of the year

https://www.funagain.com/control/productaward?award_type=GMMAG&award_year=2014

My friends John McCallion and Robin King write the reviews of new games for Games Magazine. They sometimes let me play-test the games.

About 2 months ago I played Garden Dice. It's strategic and fun. And now it's been named as game of the year.

Color Paper: free puzzle app for iphone, ipad

 Color Paper is a free puzzle app from Laurence Hillaireau.  The object is to stack the papers onto 1 square.

You do this by tapping an empty square that is adjacent to both squares that have paper on them.

Color Paper has 30 levels and I've solved 16 of them and am stuck! Interesting concept. Worth your time.

https://myspace.com/laurence0659

Woven: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Woven is a new and very interesting puzzle app game. Look at the first image. You must drag 2 ribbons onto each dot. The ribbon that is on top must match the color of the dot.

There are 200 individual puzzles. 96 of them are free. I've done them all. They took about 45 minutes.Once you get the hang of the concept, they go pretty fast.

Another puzzle app game that uses ribbons is Color Bind. It's much more interesting and challenging.

Still, give Woven a chance. It's fun.

Urban Puzzle Contest

Puzzle friends, you have no idea how many emails I get about all sorts of puzzles. This one seems like fun, so I'm posting it. Would you do me a favor please? If you win some of that $5000, buy me a pizza.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/epic-quest-online-treasure-hunt-for-5000

Hi Tom,

My name is Kelly and I’m writing from UrbanQuest. We make puzzle-based scavenger hunts that are found in almost 40 cities across North America. I’m emailing you to share a new puzzle project we’re launching called the EPIC Quest. We’ve dubbed it the biggest Internet puzzle in history. EPIC Quest is an online, interactive puzzle that will take place over 5 weeks with $5000 in cash prizing. There is an added component where winners will choose a charity to receive a donation equal to the prize money they’ve won (it’s our take on Celebrity Apprentice!). We are crowd-funding the campaign through Indiegogo, the world’s largest crowd-funding website.

We’re reaching out to like-minded puzzle fans and we hope you’ll find this project interesting! If you feel so inclined, we’d be grateful if you would consider sharing it with your followers.

Our campaign link is http://igg.me/at/epicquest/x/2683113. (It’s the 2^nd day of our 40 day campaign and have already hit 10% of our funding goal!)

Please don’t hesitate if you have any questions or feedback. And thanks! We’re just getting started so any help is greatly appreciated!

Best,

Kelly Liu

Hexpeg Solitaire: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Hexpeg Solitaire uses a hexagonal grid. You must end up with only 1 peg and it must land in the black hole.

When you do, you are given a time bonus. How many 'stages' can you complete before time runs out?

Blooocks: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Blooocks is a point scoring based on speed. The object is to change each square from black to blue - as fast as possible.
If you touch the red squares, you die.  See the red wheels? They roll around. If you touch them, you die.

White squares must be tapped 4 times to change to blue.

There are 16 levels. I've done them all.

Blooocks is a very fun speed point scoring game. But 16 levels is not enough. You'll do them in 5 minutes. There's potential for at least 100 more levels.

Sluzzuls: free puzzle app game for ipad, iphone

Sluzzuls is a puzzle app game that's very familiar. We've seen this type many times in the past.

Slide the rows and columns so that all the colors are grouped together in squares. See the first image.

I don't have an image for the 'harder' and 'hardest' levels. But I've solved 1 of them. And yes, they are harder only because the tiles that border another color have a more fixed location.

I like the graphics and interface of Sluzzuls. However, by no means is this a great puzzle app. I've previously deleted all of the other versions, and will delete this one too.

Still, if you've never played a puzzle like this, it's good.

Smash Draughts: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Smash Draughts is a puzzle app game that has nothing to do with checkers, chess or draughts.

The object is to shoot the white checker to get the green checkers off the board.  The white checker may not touch a red one.  Blue checkers cannot fall off the board.

That's it.

I did the first 30 levels and I think they're fun. I have no idea how many levels there are. When I go to 'select level' the program turns off. I've also tried to contact the developer - no response.

Smash Droughts is not a brilliant game. It reminds me of 'The World's Hardest Game' which you can play online.  That's a fun game!

Smash Draughts is especially for somebody who likes pool & billiards. Hey, it's free.

Stickets: update on puzzle app game

If you've been reading this blog carefully, you'll remember Stickets, a point scoring puzzle app game that I really liked.

There is a fellow named Chris Pheasey who is the top scorer with 3,753 points. He's been going strong on this one game for a long time, maybe 2 or 3 months. 

Next up is OddballDave with 2,913 points. Not sure if his game ended. He hasn't played in a week. Maybe he's taking a break.

Just to put things in perspective at how great those scores are, #3 is 1735. #4 is 1655. #5 is 979. I'm at #6 with 972.

Escaple: free iphone, ipad puzzle app game

Here is the latest rip-off of Rush Hour. There are 240 levels.

Here's what's new: a 'difficulty index'. There's also a mysterious system of scoring points.  Example: when I solved level 161, I did it in 43 moves, while the least possible moves is 28.  My points earned: 962,635.

Treehouse Wars! free puzzle game for iphone, ipad

Treehouse Wars! was designed by a 9 year old kid.

An astute puzzle app follower in the Washington D.C. area alerted me to a story in the Washington Post about the kid and his game: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2013/09/03/viennas-jefferson-johnson-9-creates-treehouse-wars-gets-it-into-apples-app-store/

Aliens are walking in your backyard and you are in the treehouse throwing water balloons at them to kill them.

If you fail to kill them, they will cut your tree down.

I didn't get to the level where flying saucers are swarming around you. But you can see the image.

Major kudos to young Jefferson Johnson for creating this. I know that future versions will be better.

Break the Hex: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Break the Hex comes from http://www.dogfishapps.com/
If you've played Rush Hour or Unblock Me, then you get the idea. The object is to slide the colored bars along the hexagonal grid so that the red bar can move to the red spot on the right.

We've seen many versions of Rush Hour. We've also seen a hexagonal one too. A couple of years ago I reviewed Hex Slide 1000 and Hex Slide 10,000. Same idea. However, with Hex Slide, the red piece could be anywhere on the grid - not just on the horizontal row.

Break the Hex has 100 levels. I didn't think that I would solve them all, but I did, so it's good. The graphics are fine.

Plants Vs Zombies

Plants Vs Zombies is a classic action game.  The object is to kill the zombies as they march onto your front lawn.

You will first need to plant sunflowers, which will emit 'suns' from time to time. Collect the suns and you will gain points.  With those points, you can then plant pea-shooters that will kill the zombies.

As you progress through the 50 levels, you will be able to plant more sophisticated things like mushrooms that have their own killing properties.

Plants Vs Zombies is a genuine puzzle because as you get to the higher levels, you must strategically place things. Also, before each round, you will get to choose how to stock your arsenal.

I first played Plants Vs Zombies 2 years ago. I played 3 or 4 levels and loved it. But did not view it as a true puzzle, because it's not. I restarted it a couple of weeks ago and have now gone through all 50 levels. I thought to myself: whew!  Then I downloaded Plants Vs Zombies 2. It's more of the same.

Plants Vs Zombies is a fun game. It's truly a modern classic.

FlowDoKu: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

When I first saw FlowDoku, I thought: okay, it's another version of Sudoku.

Yes and no.

Each square region - or rectangular region, depending on the grid size - must contain the same number of blue squares, green triangles and orange circles.  The blue squares must be connected. The green triangles must be connected. The orange dots are free agents.

I cannot believe how good these puzzles are.

In the 6x6 grids, I solved 30 of them in 55 minutes.
In the 8x8 grids, I solved 50 of them in a little more than 3 hours.
In the 9x9 grids, I solved 50 of them in 4.5 hours.
All of those were either 'easy' or 'medium' levels.

I have not played the 12x12 grid sizes yet.

FlowDoku is a great concept. It's fun. And did I mention that it's a great value? Totally free.

FlowDoku is a fabulous puzzle game app! Bravo.

Flip Stones: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Andreas Riedmüller recently contacted me about his new puzzle app game Flip Stones. He and his brother made it. Andreas and his colleague (not his brother) previously made a very stupid app called Touch Me. I confess, I've played it several times and have still not deleted it. What does that say about me? Scroll down to about 10 days ago to read my blurb about that.

Back to Flip Stones. It's a topology game. You must cover all of the tiles and flip them to gold. I did the first 32 levels in about 15 minutes. Keep in mind, I've done thousands of these over the years. The key is to figure out the starting and end points.

Then I decided to pay the $.99 for the additional levels.

Look at the top of the 4th image. See the 0/2 at the top? That means you are given 2 separate continuous movements to make the flips. Some of these are really hard.

Flip Stones has 99 levels and I've completed 71 of them.  I'm stuck! I've spent a lot of time on these hard ones and have made minimal progress. Flip Stones is very challenging and fun. Definitely a winner, after you get through the easy ones.

Oh, I should mention this. As you are casually pondering your strategy, various creepy-crawlies will meander on your screen. Try not to drop your ipad.

Spin Dots: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Spin Dots is a very good sequential movement puzzle app from Spooky Cat: http://spookycat.net/contact/

The object is to get the 4 green dots to the upper right corner. The blue dots to the bottom right corner, etc.

See the red triangle in the top left corner? Tap on that and those 8 dots will rotate in a loop.  Tap on one of the bottom triangles and those rectangular loops will rotate.

Spin Dots is hard! I've solved it twice.

There is a mechanical version that is similar: The Orb, which I really like.

Spin Dots is a free puzzle app game. Can you do it?

Color Cubes: free puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

Color Cubes is a topology puzzle game app. Tap on any square and then drag your finger over all of the others once and only once.

We have seen many topology puzzle apps lately. This one has 30 free levels. I did them in about 10 minutes. Not very hard. You just have to know where to start!

The graphics are fine.

Next week I'll be commenting on a very interesting topology puzzle app game.

Combinations: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Look at the image. What do you see?

Here's what I see: a total copy of the card game SET.  If you haven't played SET, get the deck of 81 cards and get playing!

This free puzzle app version offers clues and keeps track of your score.

Worms*: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

If you have been following my blog the past 3 or 4 years, then you know the game Lights Out.

Worms* is basically the same thing. Except the worms either stick their heads out or crawl back into their holes.

59 levels.  I did 5 or 6.  I've got more interesting puzzle apps to play. But I like the theme.

Brain Catalyst: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Brain Catalyst is a round version of Rubik's Cube.

No other explanation needed.

Tertiary!

Tertiary! is an unusual, unique puzzle app.
I had to read the directions twice before I really understood them.

You are given a grid of gray triangles. Tap them one at a time. You must tap on them in this order: a triangle pointing up, followed by a triangle pointing down - any where in the grid.

Try not to tap on the ones that are 'tertiary'. You can figure out some of them. But there is an element of guessing.

I've solved it twice. I cannot say that I'm a fan. However, this is an interesting concept and I challenge anybody to determine if luck is not needed at all.

Weekend update: I've investigated this more and have solved it 10 more times - all without luck. I have figured out a system.

Tertiary is definitely intriguing, but once you've figured out a system, it then becomes a 'how fast can you solve this' puzzle.

Tertiary is a free puzzle app, give it a shot.

http://www.tertiaryapp.com/

Neon Connect: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

I recently played Neon Connect on a long plane ride.  It's similar to a laser puzzle, but different.

There are 60 free levels. I've done them all.

I think this is a good set of puzzles.

Touch Me Lite: free game app for iphone, ipad

Andreas Riedmüller recently contacted me about his company's old and new game.  The old game is Touch Me Lite.

Tap on the 'Touch Me' bar. Keep doing it as it darts up and down the screen. As Andreas wrote to me: it's a stupid one button game that was number one in Germany for several days.

I played this and got a score of 106.  I checked the Leaderboard. My score is not exceptional, but I was amazed to see that over 45,000 people have played this.

Is it worth your time? Not really. But there's a Touch Me Pro version for $.99 where you can customize things.

Their other puzzle app is much more interesting. More about that next week.

Hexic Flow: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Hexic Flow uses a hexagonal grid for Flow.

I'm not crazy about Hexic Flow. For one thing, I have solved the hardest advanced levels without using all the hexes. Which means there are multiple solutions for these.

I should mention that Hexic Flow is a free puzzle app and young puzzlers should enjoy this.

Dizzy Squares: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Dizzy Squares is a very simple puzzle. Rotate any 3x3 square grid to match the pattern on the bottom.

There are 10 levels and I'm stuck on level 6. And they only get harder!

I'm wondering: can any permutation of random colored tiles be solved?

 

Did I mention that Dizzy Squares is a free puzzle app?
http://dizzysquares.com/

Labor Day Holiday

Here in the US, it's Labor Day - an official holiday of rest and the unofficial end of summer.

Recently I got a nice note from a puzzle app developer - thanking me for my labor. Ignacio's game is Tuptap: https://itunes.apple.com/app/tuptap/id574335567?mt=8#

Hi Tom,

 

 

I was about to write you in order to give you BIG THANKS for your kind review.

 

It's been the first time I've had feedback from someone outside my personal circle so It's been very important to me that you liked my game and you considered it interesting.

 

Definitely downloads experienced a significant increase after the publication of your review, so I can see your blog is being followed by a lot of people!!!!

I really wanna thank your honest work in my name and in the name of other developers that appear in your blog for free, not like other review sites do.

 

I am now working on another app, which will be a free board game, exclusively multiplayer. As soon as it's ready I'll let you know, though I don't know if you're interested only on puzzle games, or perhaps on board games too.

 

Congratulations for your good work and thanks again, I hope you keep doing well in the future.

 

 

Best regards,

Ignacio.

Block Path: free puzzle app game for ipad, iphone

Block Path is one of many topology puzzle apps that have been made over the past couple of years. It's hard to keep track of them!

You are given the starting square - blue and must draw a continuous loop that covers the whole grid.  Orange squares are obstacles. If you have ever studied topology, you should first identify which square must be last. From there, it's a lot easier.

There are 35 free levels. I got stuck on a few of them, but prevailed!  Each World of 35 costs $.99. There are 5 Worlds.

I then downloaded BlockPath Pro which only cost $.99.  (Thanks for the promo code Richard!)  I did the 165 puzzles in about 90 minutes while cooking, watching tv etc. I've done thousands of these, so I've become really fast.

Still, some of them had me stumped.

If you're looking for more of these, try Numeric Paranoia, Chemin and Mortal Coil. Mortal Coil is most similar to Block Path. It is more difficult because the grid sizes are huge and it does not give the starting square.

Still, I think Block Path Pro is a very good game and will look forward to updates.

Color Contagious: free puzzle app game

Color Contagious is exactly like Flood It! which I wrote about ages ago. Look at diagram #2. See the tiny red square in the upper left corner? That's you at the start. You are adjacent to a green tile. Turn yourself green and you will absorb your neighbor. Keep doing this until you have absorbed everything. Like the Borg. Hopefully within a limited number of moves.

Look at the third and fourth images. When you select a new color, there is a very cool flipping. Try it just for that.

PipeBomb: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad.

PipeBomb is a free puzzle app game from http://woowaa.net/
It's like Flow but with 2 distinctions. First, look at the top left corner of the image. It indicates how many squares each color will occupy.

If you don't solve the puzzle in the given time......booooooom.

Stay away from Pipe Bomb. It's not terribly interesting or original. And besides, if you do a search in the App Store, the NSA will probably record that and you may never be allowed to fly again. Ha!

Super Bubble Crush: free point scoring puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Super Bubble Crush comes from Tom Chen and Yuanyuan Dong. They contacted me about 2 months ago, and I'm just now getting around to it. The immense pile of new puzzle app games is overwhelming!

Super Bubble Crush is a point scoring puzzle app similar to Bee Cells, a game I spent many hours on - to much frustration.

The object is to score points by lining up 5 or more balls in a vertical, horizontal or diagonal line.   You are allowed to move 1 ball at a time. After that, 3 new random balls appear.  Each ball is worth 10 points. There doesn't seem to be a Leaderboard for this game.

My first game: 1440 points.  2nd game: 3310 points. This game could be addictive. Give it a shot and tell me what you think.       

Loops: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

You have 60 seconds to make as many loops as possible. The bigger the string, the more points you score.

If you are able to connect a string into a square loop, you get 2 extra seconds.  If the rectangle is bigger, you can get 4 extra seconds.

This game was formerly known as Dots Dots Dots!    

https://www.facebook.com/loopsgame