block dock! by Adem KAYIRCI $.99

block dock! comes from Adem KAYIRCI. It's very similar to Lunar Lockout from ThinkFun.  The object is to slide Your Men until they land on the target squares.

What's different:
1. When you slide one piece into another, the piece that gets bumped will then travel to a wall or another object, like in the game pool.
2. If a piece is already locked in a target square, it cannot get bumped out. But it can be moved out.
3. The Black dots are NOT wormholes. They are black holes.

There are 88 levels.  Normally, I would cruise through these rapidly. However, because of the chain reaction feature, I'm finding these to be quite challenging. Especially, when none of the targets are placed on the perimeter.

Multiple times I made a mistake, but there's no 'undo' button. My mistake! There is an undo button. But it only undoes 1 move only.

At the moment, level 49 is proving to be quite difficult.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/block-dock/id1437139002?mt=8

Adem's other puzzles
turn,
maze cube
cohex
-look-

Similar Games

Slidercrash
Buffalooh
Even Up
Line's Life
Moskeez
Fuzzy Logic
Bumpling
Fling!
Oggoelement
Dots Pairs

ELOH by Broken Rules $2.99

ELOH comes from Christian Baumgartner of Broken Rules.  It's a laser with mirrors puzzle app. We've seen this type of game numerous times. See list below.

 What's Particularly Good
1. The red and yellow reflectors change the color of the beam.
2. Sliders (images 1, 4 and 5)
3. Semi-reflectors (images 1 and 5). These are the vertical-line-mirrors. A yellow beam will pass straight through a yellow mirror, while a red beam will bounce off.
4. Toward the end, brown is the third color to solve.
5. Wormholes. We've seen this many times before. Not sure if they exist in another laser puzzle. However: sometimes the wormholes are on half of a cell while the other half is covered with a tile.  Tapping the tile: they switch places.

There's an interesting musical element to ELOH.  As the balls/beams bounce off, xylophone sounds plunk and pling.

There are supposedly 85 levels but I counted 84 and solved them all.
Christian: good game!

Somebody sent me an email about the fact that I only give credit to one person per game.  True. It's mostly because I'm a bit lazy.  
Andrew Rohrmann did the sound & music.
Jan Hackl did the programming.
Art Direction Team: Daniela Leitner, Lip Comarella, Simon Griesser.

Note to other puzzle app developers: you can't do it all!  Get a team like this.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eloh/id1406382064?mt=8

Other Laser Puzzles (Not a complete list)
Laser Maze 2015
MatrixLines
HackBeam
Shoot & Reflect 3x3
LaserBox
Photon Lab
Amid Worlds
RouteOut - not a laser game, but uses mirrors
RouteOut 2
Neon Connect
Mirrors & Reflections
Guide the Light
Lasers Free
Laser Logic
Lazors
ReflecTs DS
Laser Glow
logi.
Raytrace

-look- by Adem KAYIRCI FREE

-look- comes from Adem KAYIRCI. It's a drafting puzzle. The object is to project the 3 dimensional object onto the 3 planar perspectives.

All of Adem's puzzles are 'minimalist' in that: nothing is ever explained. Just figure things out for yourself.

The 3D object can be rotated so this game gets to be fairly easy. I did the first 50 levels very fast. I've stopped at around 90.

This game has 105 levels, which is probably 30 too many.  Still it's fun and fast.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/look/id1310308475?mt=8

Adem's other puzzles
turn,
maze cube
cohex

New Tetris Champion

https://nypost.com/2018/10/23/teen-dethrones-7-time-tetris-world-champion/

ColorFold by Martin Pluisch

ColorFold comes from Martin Pluisch.  It's a Ribbon puzzle game. The object is to drag the ribbons across the board to cover squares of the same color.  Key: ribbons can be folded, but not over any of the target squares.

Colorbind (see link below) was the first game to utilize this concept. It's outstanding. Sadly, it's no longer available. It came out in 2010. (Theoretically, old ipads that have this game should be worth more!)

Let's get back to ColorFold. It's very similar and very good.

What's different
1. Random black squares are scattered in the grid to prevent the movement of ribbons.
2. Wormholes: this is a common element in puzzle apps, but it's the first one in a ribbon game.
3. Forced Movement: when there are blue and tan ribbons, the blue ribbon forces an opposite movement in tan. Very interesting: there are a few levels where blue can keep going, but tan gets stopped.

There are 100 levels and they're not too hard. Which is good because I like feeling smart.

Here's an idea for future puzzles: how about when a ribbon goes through a wormhole, it comes out with a different color?

Good game Martin!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/colorfold/id1418593600?mt=8

Other Ribbon Puzzles
Ribbons Puzzle Game
The Weaver
Ribbon Puzzle
TAPES - similar to Colorbind. Excellent
Woven - easy
Colorbind - the first of its kind. Genius
Twisted Lines - very hard
Spreadset Easy til you get to level 7 or 8

Subwords by Klemens Strasser $1.99

Klemens Strasser recently contacted me about his new game Subwords.  Klemens made Assymetric which I reviewed and liked a lot last year. 

The object in this new game is to spell out the words in various categories. One example: European Countries. 

This is a good word game for just about anybody. The graphics are very nice. And the puzzles are fun. Definitely the kind of game that you can play with somebody.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/subwords/id1205201517?mt=8

Binary Games by BAD THUMB LTD

Binary Games comes from BAD THUMB LTD.  How fast can you converth binary numbers to decimals and vice versa?

Interesting: there's a dictionary which translates letters and symbols to their assigned binary numbers.  At long last, I now know that '^' is the equivalent of 01011110.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/binary-games/id1418951079?mt=8
badthumbgames.com
info@badthumbgames.com

Light Them Up by No Power-up FREE

Light Them Up comes from No Power-up. The object is to move the square mirrors to light up the bulbs.

There are 70 levels and I've done 26.

There's another laser puzzle app that I'm playing right now that's more interesting.  The graphics of the other game is better. The puzzles are more innovative. Which means I've stopped playing this one.
However, this game is very solid.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/light-them-up/id1436250116?mt=8

COLOR LINK! -brain teaser- by Yuji Kurita FREE

COLOR LINK! -brain teaser comes from Yuji Kurita. It's a 'stick 'em' puzzle. The object is to slide the squares around until everything clumps together.

However, there is a move-count limit for each level.

What's Particularly Good
On some levels, the blocks come in 2 colors, but must still be merged into one group. Tap on a block once and it changes color. This counts as a move. This is a new feature in 'Stick 'em' puzzles.

These are seriously good puzzles.

There are 45 levels, which is perfect! There is an option for users to make their own levels. At the moment, I'm on level 20.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/color-link-brain-teaser/id1436984991?mt=8

Other Very Good Puzzles that have a sticky element (not quite the same though):

Denki Blocks I believe this was the original puzzle app that introduced this concept.

Tile'M All This version is crazy hard.

Jelly Slide

Blockoban - a must have

Impossibru's Blockoban

Move on Green
Blocky XMAS   from the prolific Bart Bonte
Push Blox from Andrew Duff

vovu by Ugur Kubat

vovu comes from Ugur Kubat. The object is to tap on the big red circles to make little red circles rotate in order to free up the green circles. Where things get complicated is when there are multiple big red circles. Unquestionably, the overall design is very artistic.

It's a very calm game. Similar to Hook from 2015.

There are 70 levels and I've done 53. There are ads, but they are minimally annoying.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vovu/id1435900520?mt=8

Miscellaneous

Read this article from the NY Times about Speed Cubing:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/sports/cubing-usa-nationals-max-park.html?emc=edit_ne_20180817&nl=evening-briefing&nlid=6211441420180817&te=1

Loyal Blog Follower Robert Dancer has been on the lookout for puzzles that are getting major updates.
Hexologic has 2 new sets of puzzles.
Unpuzzle also has new features.  When I upgraded this, it wiped out my previous progress. Grrrrrr.


Oskar van Deventer has a hand in this puzzling Kickstarter thing:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bitcoinproject/bitcoin-puzzle-playing-cards

Bring me Cakes - Fairy Puzzle by Aliaksei Huleu FREE?

Bring me Cakes - Fairy Puzzle comes from Aliaksei Huleu.  (He's from Belarus - where my great-grandmother was born.) This game was published in 2017. I skipped it for 2 reasons. First, it cost $2.99. Second, it looked too juvenile.  Recently, the price was reduced to FREE. I don't know if that's permanent. Either way, this game is very good, and worth paying for.

Bring me Cakes - Fairy Puzzle  is ultimately a route-finding puzzle.  Little Red Riding Hood must gather the doughnuts before getting to the exit. All creatures slide up/down, left/right until they hit an obstacle.

This game has great features.
In the Forest World, which has 44 levels:
1. The wolves will eat the doughnuts and LRRH.
2. The Bears will eat the doughnuts, LRRH and the wolves. Importantly: the bears will knock out the trees, which act as obstacles for the other creatures.
3. The Man with the Shotgun: he will kill the wolves, but will get eaten by the bears.
4. Lakes/Black Holes: LRRH will die if she enters these. However, these are good tools for eliminating the wolves & bears.

In the Mine, which has 48 levels:
5. The Railroad Cars can be pushed like the crates in a Sokoban. However, they only be pushed in one direction: either vertically or horizontally.
6. The Wizard can chop out the stalagmites and stalactites.
7. The green trolls only move 1 space at a time.
8. There are boxes of TNT. Use the trolls to explode what needs exploding.

In the Ice Land, which has 44 levels:
9. LRRH will freeze to death at the end of 5 moves. However, if she lands next to a fire, she's recharged.
10. Big ice blocks are obstacles. LRRH can chop them out herself.
11. A black ghost can extinguish LRRH and the fires.
12. An angel can eliminate the black ghost. More importantly, the angel can ignite wood piles.
13. Once the angel kills the black ghost, she can no longer move.

I've solved all of the Forest & Mine levels.  Most of the Ice Land ones.  The game offers hints and bombs to remove anything annoying, but I'm not using them and I'm picking up every single doughnut. Bring me Cakes - Fairy Puzzle is a big winner. Fun fun!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bring-me-cakes-fairy-puzzle/id1167655230?mt=8
http://bring-me-cakes.com/

New Mechanical Puzzle

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/craighill/the-venn-puzzle

There's a new mechanical puzzle on the market called The Venn Puzzle.

It's a 3 piece coordinate motion puzzle. The object: put the 3 pieces together.  $75

From what I've seen on the Kickstarter webpage, it looks a lot like Kuku,which has been out for at least 7 years.  Sonic Games: http://www.sonicgames-uk.com/isis-adventure/products/kuku-puzzle/58
is the producer of Kuku. Kuku is going back on the market very soon and you can buy one for 150 pounds. (At the last International Puzzle Party, I sold my copy for $75 to an old friend. I told him it was a good deal!)

As coordinate motion puzzles go, The Venn Puzzle looks pretty easy. Line up the pieces carefully. Your dexterity is important! And voila.

Kuku is much better because it has 3 internal pins. You can solve it with 0, 1, 2 or 3 pins.