The Birdcage by Kaarel Kirsipuu Partly FREE

 The Birdcage comes from Kaarel Kirsipuu. If you're a fan of The Room, then you'll like this game. 

This game is much the same.  I downloaded the free version and played through the first 10 levels.  Took about an hour. There are 25 levels altogether.

The artwork is stunning. The puzzles are okay. There is a vague story going on via letters that you pick up.  My guess is that they're irrelevant until level 25.

This game is great for non-puzzlers. Serious puzzlers  will laugh out how predictable some of the puzzles are: solve edge-matching puzzle, open box and find a gear.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-birdcage/id1187858976?mt=8
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobigrow.thebirdcage
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HJ829Z9/ref=sr_1_28?s=mobile-apps&ie=UTF8&qid=1539002286&sr=1-28

ReMaze by Bolton Winpenny FREE

 Bolton Winpenny recently contacted me about his puzzle app ReMaze.  It's not a traditional maze game.  The object is to move the balls to their colored squares. 

 How do the balls move? This is the essence of the game.  Tap your finger on any cell within the gray grid. Balls along that spot's x and y axes, will travel to that spot and merge.  More often than not, you do not want merges to happen.

Look at the first image. The sequence to solve:
1. In the bottom section, combine the red & yellow to make orange. Then bring it to the orange square.
2. The bottom red ball can pass through the red bars. But watch out for the green ball. So move the green ball to the left once, and then up once.
3. Now move the red ball to its home.
4.  Since red is home, the red bars disappear. Next up is blue and green.
5. Blue and green must get home simultaneously. In this scenario, this can only happen if they are on different axes. Green is nicely lined up already.  Move blue one space to the left. Tap on the blue/green home and both will arrive at the same time.
6. This releases the green bar and the yellow ball can go home.

Remaze gets very complicated when targets require 4 balls. No hints from me.

There are 50 levels and I solved them all! Which is high praise from me.  Level 48 took the longest. It's the third image.

What could be better:
1. There  is no undo button! I played this on my phone and so many times tapped the wrong space. Arrrrr!
2.  How about adding a wormhole?
3.  How about adding a spike on the grid: if a white ball hits it, 3 balls emerge: yellow, blue & red.

50 levels is an ideal # to have.  Since the game is free and has no ads, I would welcome purchasing 50 more levels.

Note to Bolton: add a screen of confetti when all the levels are solved.  After that: add a note that asks for a donation. Great job!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/remaze/id1449530215?mt=8

Quantum 3 by Michigan State University GEL Lab

   Quantum 3  by Michigan State University GEL Lab. Description from the App Store:

Quantum 3 is an educational match-3 game for all ages where fun meets quantum physics! Build subatomic particles, learn about the mysteries of fundamental physics and deploy antimatter to clear the way! You'll match and swap quarks to make (and learn about) the baryons you need for each objective. Puzzle out the quantum properties of color, flavor and spin. So get in there and start your quantum-venture! Quantum 3 is puzzle-matching at its finest and a great intro to the world of particle physics!

The game is free-to-play with no in-app purchases.

The game is developed at Michigan State University by the Games for Entertainment and Learning Lab and is funded under grant PHY 1653405 by the National Science Foundation.

Some thoughts:
1. It's not a 'match-3' game where you must join 3 reds.  Rather, you might have to join 2 reds and a blue while also matching 2 greens and a red.
2. See the black hexagons? They move to the bottom and disappear by using the hexagons below them. This is essential to getting more hexagons into the picture.
3. By coincidence, I'm reading A Hole in Texas by Herman Wouk, which is about the Chinese finding Higgs Boson and developing a 'Boson Bomb'.

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/quantum-3/id1406630529
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gellab.quantum3&hl=en

Best Fiends by Seriously FREE

 I saw Best Fiends via a tv commercial.  I love the fact that a puzzle app game can make so much money and become popular.

Best Fiends starts out as a 'match-3'game. Certain goals must be achieved.  It morphs into more complicated tasks.

This game is highly polished. Things get difficult and you are encouraged often to upgrade and buy stuff.  It's following in the footsteps of Candy Crush.

According to Seriously, this game has been downloaded 80,000,000 times.  Not bad.  But this is not a game for true puzzlers.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/best-fiends-puzzle-adventure/id868013618

Cage It by Marcelo Pars FREE

Marcelo Pars recently contacted me about his newest puzzle game Cage It.  It's a pipe game where the object is to swivel each pipe within its location to make one big connection.

We've seen numerous pipe games before. But I believe this is the first time it's been done in 3D.

There are 200 levels and I've done about 25 of the them, including the last few which took about 25 minutes per level.

Last year I blogged about Marcelo's game Save Planet Cube, which I really liked.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cage-it/id1439556953
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.marcelopars.cageit

Marcelo's other games
Save Planet Cube
Cube Loop
Cubicks Free

Isoland by COTTONGAME Network Technology Co., Ltd. $.99

Isoland comes from COTTONGAME Network Technology Co., Ltd. It's an adventure/puzzle game. The premise: you're on an island and must solve random puzzles to figure things out.

The artwork is great.  The puzzles are not too hard.

The artwork is great.
Two puzzles are solved by simply asking the stray people on the island. Totally lame. I've never seen a more ridiculous solution on any puzzle in any game.

Ridiculous: once you've solved everything, you must restart the game to experience a few new puzzles and the true ending.

From the App Store:

My Game Was Different

I really love the game, the graphics, the story... all of it. But my adventure was different. The 6 golden triangles were not available to me neither was the red little disc thing and other little things. I don't know if that is intentional or if it's the model of my iPhone. At the ending I had, I realized there were still several puzzles that I didn't complete which will probably give me a different ending if I can figure them out. Regardless- LOVED IT! And will for sure get the next one.

Developer Response,07/16/2018

actually，you can get 6 triangles and the red disc，but，you must had finished this game once first，and restart it again 。you are going to get a new game experience，moreover，you can find the ture ending

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/isoland/id1134805859?mt=8
http://www.cottongame.com/

Look over the Edge by Yury Koshechkin FREE

Yury Koshechkin recently contacted me about his game Look over the Edge. The object is to get Your Man, the little cube, to the house.

Tap on Your Man once, and he turns left. Tap again, he turns right. Then left, then right.  Your Man can never make 2 consecutive right or left turns.

Your Man can go over the edge and around the block.
Some features:
1. The purple sections act as ice: no turns allowed.
2.  The blue sections will shatter - Your Man will fall straight through.
3. At any time, the game can be paused and the scene can be zoomed out - in order to better see the whole picture.
4. The brown sections act as a bridge to another section. I recall one clever puzzle which required using the bridge, then turning around to take the bridge back.
5. Some sections (not sure what color), reaching the edge makes Your Man reverse course.
6. Look at the 2nd image. That's level 36, which I've been stuck on for about 2 weeks.

Look over the Edge has 3 great elements going for it. First, the levels are cleverly designed. Second, the graphics are very good. Third, and most importantly, the levels progress at a gentle pace so that anybody can quickly get into this. This game is a winner.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/look-over-the-edge/id1441652446
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.qaibo.EDGE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgYa3moxT1I  Watch a preview
http://www.qaibo.com/