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Friday, October 25, 2019

One Line Weekly by Marcelo Pars FREE

 Marcelo Pars recently contacted me about his new puzzle game One Line Weekly

I'm a big fan of Marcelo's puzzles. See my reviews of his other games below.

The objective of One Line Weekly is to tap on the line segments to make one very long connection.

When I opened the app on my ipad, I was floored.  GIGANTIC AND OVERWHELMING. It's also very hard.  I've tried at least 5 times.....I had to give up.  It's just too big.

But you should definitely download this and see for yourself.  Most importantly, if you do solve 1 level, take a screen shot and send it to me. 

Interesting review and response from the App Store:


ToxicCheese,

Pointless and not fun

Where is the fun? And why does this start with one huge giant puzzle? Where is the slow ramp up in difficulty? No thanks.

Developer Response,

Thanks ToxicCheese. I can see your point but maybe I can explain my motivation for making this game. It was my wife's "longing" for the Sudoku in the Saturday newspaper. She can't wait for this difficult but sober puzzle moment. I also wanted to make a sober puzzle game (no color, no sound, no ads, no in-app-purchase) with a constant level of difficulty a puzzler can count on.
I'm taking a risk now, but I also made other games like this one (Loop Loop and Cage It!) which have the ramp up in difficulty you asked for. They also have color and a little music, so they are more in style with a "traditional" app. Maybe you can appreciate these games a little more than this one.

My own note to Marcelo:
All artists and puzzlers need to explore the boundaries of convention. I think your game will not succeed in popularity (like the vast majority of puzzle apps, sadly), but that's okay. You made something that is appreciated.  Like a Rubik's Cube with 33 x 33 x 33 dimensions.  Technically, not much harder than a 4 x 4 x 4, but a hell of a lot longer to solve.  Bravo for making this.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/one-line-weekly/id1480090253

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

Friday, October 11, 2019

Stack Me Challenge by eDoc LLC FREE

Stack Me Challenge comes from eDoc LLC.  It's a point scoring game.  The object is to slide all the tiles up/down/right/left and not fill up the board.

In the beginner mode, only primary colors are used.

In the advanced mode, primary colors merge, and points are awarded for only secondary colors combining.  

In the beginner mode, I had to intentionally lose.

In the advanced mode, I'm in the middle of 1 game.  My score is 1800. I would be #2 on the leaderboard, but I think I have to lose for that to show up.

This is an interesting game. However, the game is unending.  Multiple times I made a silly mistake and easily recovered. 

The #1 score is over 6000, which I'm estimating took at least 5 hours to play.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/stack-me-challenge/id1476944808

Monday, October 7, 2019

Drop Drop! S by Adem KAYIRCI FREE

Drop Drop! S comes from Adem KAYIRCI.  It's a point scoring game.
The object is to drag the 3 pieces onto the board to match colors and score points.  The pieces fall upwards from the bottom.  Each match yields points, the tiles disappear and you're ready for the next round.

Adem is definitely one of the more interesting puzzle app developers who is still going strong.  I particularly liked his game cohex (see link below).

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/drop-drop-s/id1472487835

Adem's other puzzles
turn,
maze cube
cohex
-look-
block dock!
eceo

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Sixy Sudoku by PZZL.com FREE



Sixy Sudoku comes from Peter Ritmeester at PZZL.com.  I know what you're thinking: Not another Sudoku variation!


This version has a lot of charm, because the grids are so small.

Also, I really like the element where each shaded region must contain 1-6.

There's a 'wacky' version which is similar to 'jigsaw sudoku' and is also known as 'squiggly sudoku'.

Best of all: each version has difficulty levels ranging from very easy to very hard.

There are 500 levels, but there is no system of checking off which ones you've done.

I've bought 3 of the puzzle books at Peter's website.  I've shared some of the puzzles with my math students.

Nice job Peter!

Update 10/7/2019: Peter informed me that there is an update to the game that includes level progress.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sixy-sudoku/id1471766658
https://pzzl.com/