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Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Favo! by Shumpei Hayashi FREE

Screenshot Image  Screenshot Image
Shumpei Hayashi recently contacted me about his new game Favo!  I liked his two previous games. See links below.  The object is Favo! is to score points by merging colored tiles.
Screenshot Image Screenshot Image
This concept is not exactly new. Merged! immediately came to mind.

Things are very different with Favo!
1. Merging a tile that combines 3 colors gets 4 times as many points.
2.  Very Important: when you've scored enough blue tiles, you will be issued a 'blue unification merger tile' (my phrase) that will enable you to consolidate all your blues and make room for more tiles.  The same goes for red and green.
3.  When your board has no room for new pieces, you are entitled to 3 sweeps that will consolidate all the colors at once.  However, these sweeps will cost you stars.

How do you earn stars?
1. By scoring high on previous games.
2. Watching ads.
3. By buying them.

Seriously, this game is great.  My high score is 35,000 which places me in the top 10 players.

Note to Shumpmei:

1. Great job.
2. You have listed 5 or 6 ways for players to spend money. Maybe this is very successful.  If it is not, I would change this to one small price of $.99  to eliminate the ads and to always allow the player to get 3 sweeps.

Note to everybody else:
1. There has been a significant decrease in the number of puzzle apps being published.  It's because players are not spending money.  Really: $1 or $2 is reasonable. Don't be cheap.

2. This blog has been on vacation most of the summer.  Back in full swing right after Labor Day.

https://flowgdd.com/favo/
https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/id1409011944
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.flow.favo

Other games by Shumpei Hayashi

Puppo!
Levels Addictive Puzzle Game

Other Point Scoring Games Worthy of Your Time (Some are no longer available.)
NumberMania
Four Straight Lines
Pushopolous
Stickets
Folt
Nineout
Nineout II
BeeCells Lite
Kindly Colors
HexAgony
Domino Drop
Put Number
Tripevo
Triple Town
Kindly  Colors
COLORswipe
SubaraCity
Virus Pop Smash
+1 Number
4 Way Puzzle
Merged!
Enso

Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Balls Love Puzzles by QinYuan Tian FREE





Balls Love Puzzles comes from QinYuan Tian. Balls bounce around the grid and the object is to rearrange the squares in order to restore order.


JiggleSaw came out 6 years ago and is very similar. It has more features and is a fun little gem. Unfortunately, it is no longer available.


Balls Love Puzzles has 48 levels and is fun. I solved them all.  The most I spent on any 1 level was about 7 minutes. On some levels the balls move pretty fast.


https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/balls-love-puzzles/id1408600187?mt=8

Monday, August 6, 2018

King Rabbit by RareSloth LLC FREE

 King Rabbit comes from RareSloth LLC. It came out in 2016 and I found it by searching for another game. The object is to push boxes around like in Sokoban to discover gold bars and then eventually rescue the queen.
 There are many interesting elements.
1. The buzz saw which, when activated, will chop down trees, and maybe Your Man.
2. Moving platforms to get Your Man across the water.
I've only solved about 25 levels which barely scratches the surface of this game. I'm running away.


If the game had better graphics, I might stay a while longer.


The puzzles themselves, are good.


https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/king-rabbit/id1073389796?mt=8

Friday, August 3, 2018

ROBOGOYO by Csharks Games & Solutions Pvt Ltd FREE

 ROBOGOYO  comes from Csharks Games & Solutions Pvt Ltd. It's a very colorful version of the class Chinese Rings puzzle.
The number of moves to free the shuttle is a geometric sequence dependent on the number of moves. As a puzzle, it's not hard. The blacksmith at Tucker-Jones Tavern Puzzles told me that he could imagine sailors on very long journeys wanting this puzzle to have many rings.


Overall, ROBOGOYO is a good representation of this puzzle. But this puzzle begs to be handled.


https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/robogoyo/id1404239743?mt=8

Thursday, August 2, 2018

Cool Circuits: Electronic Puzzle $29.95

Cool Circuits is an electronic puzzle developed by Harry Nelson and Hiroshi Yamamoto.  The object is to place the 8 squiggly pieces onto the board to form a closed loop.  When you are successful, the board lights up and some classical music is your reward.


Games Magazine awarded it as the Puzzle of the Year in 2013.  This game's been on my mind for 5 years! But I've finally gotten around to it.

I've tackled 27 of the 40 levels. Multiple times I peeked at the solutions to get a hint.

There is a sequel called Cool Circuits Over the top. Which mysteriously is not on the company website.  I have the game but have not played it yet.  It won't take another 5 years.

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Reigns by Devolver Digital $2.99

 Reigns comes from Devolver Digital. The App Store Editors have had it listed in their 'Games We Love' section for a while. Unquestionably, this is a weird game/puzzle.  The object is to stay alive as long as possible by balancing the 4 powers at the top of each screen: the church, the people, your power, and your money.  If any of these gets to zero or gets completely filled, your Reign is over.
Cards are revealed one at a time. For each card, you have 2 choices. Sometimes they will affect 1, 2, 3, or even all 4 powers. Not always predictable. For example: is borrowing money at 5% good or bad for the kingdom's finances?


On the leaderboard, there are over 900,000 players, which means the producers have made a boatload of money!  Also, the top scorer has lived 666 years.  My guess: that player has played this game a hundred times and recorded the outcome of each card TWICE (because there are 2 options for each card). Then played it to perfection.


This is one game that may have actually consulted a History Major to incorporate all the weirdest scenarios that monarchs have faced over the centuries.


Graphics: not very good.  Consider the fact that there are so many artists who create their own Tarot Card decks with fantastic art.


https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reigns/id1114127463?mt=8