Amtalee: iphone ipad ipod touch puzzle app

Mikolaj Sikorski has created Amtalee. It's a rolling block maze. Very very similar to Bloxorz which you can play online here.

Download the free version. The full version costs $2.99

Rogo: math puzzle app for iphone, ipad, ipod touch Review

The Traveling Salesman is a classic math problem: if a person has to travel to, say, 15 cities, what would the shortest route be? Rogo is similar, but different. For each puzzle, your route must cover a certain number of squares, say 12. What route, covering 12 squares will score the most number of points?

Very clever set of mathematical, logical puzzles.

Watch the youtube video here.

Dr. Nicola Petty from New Zealand is the author. She has plans for more puzzle apps.

Her webpage is here.

Dicoron: iphone ipad ipod touch puzzle Review

Roll and move a dice to the goal.
You can roll the dice only if the landing spot will match the face of the die.
There is only 1 puzzle in this program. Is this a great, fun, fantastic, amazing puzzle app? No! Suppose you try to make an illegal move: the screen has an awkward way of informing the user. Hey, it's free.

There is a 10 minute time limit. It took me about 6 minutes. I was distracted.

Unlucky Twist: an Oskar van Deventer puzzle

Click here to order the puzzle.

Oskar van Deventer - I've written much about him. My first article for Games Magazine was a 6 page story about his puzzles. That was February 2006. Games Magazine will soon publish my story about Oskar's 17x17x17 cube.

It's impossible to own all of Oskar's puzzles because many are cost hundreds of dollars. This is due to the high cost of 3D printing.

Unlucky Twist is now in my collection! It's a 1x2x13 cubic puzzle. It's not hard at all. But what's amazing is the telescopic mechanism that keeps all the pieces together.

SmartBalls: iphone ipad ipod puzzle app Review

SmartBalls comes from Sergey Lesnichenko. Slide the rows and columns to match the diagram in the upper right corner. This is similar to other puzzle apps reviewed on this site. SmartBalls is free, so do a few puzzles.

Ballentines: action puzzle app for iphone, ipad, ipod Review

Ballentines is an action puzzle. Move balls around to line up sets of 3 in order to score points. As soon as you score, more balls start to fill the screen a bit like Tetris. Hey, it's free, so give it a try!

Sebastian Logod is the author.

Strimko Gold: iphone ipad ipod touch puzzle app Review

The Grabarchuk family has a long history of creating innovative, interesting and fun puzzles. Strimko is essentially a twisted version of sudoku.

Download the Gold version and get over 300 puzzles. I downloaded it 1.5 weeks ago and have solved about 70 levels in about 6 hours. This would be a bargain at $10. But it's $1.99

Photography Apps

Suzanne Davies is something of an expert in photography. So, if you're looking for some good iphone photography apps, click here.

Beam Puzzle: puzzle app for ipad, iphone, ipod Review

15 years ago the Rubik Empire released a CD-ROM of puzzles. One of them was called Cover Up. Great, fantastic, fun puzzle concept.

Ferhat Ayaz has created 50 puzzles of the same concept, now called the Beam Puzzle. I have solved all 50 puzzles. It took maybe 2 hours. Let's hope he keeps going and produces another 50 levels.

Blind Knights Chess: app store game review

Blind Knights Chess comes from Aaron Coleman. I believe his sons Jonathan & David made the graphics and sounds! So this is a family enterprise.

Here's the deal. You make a move, but cannot see your opponent's pieces. Then you hand it to your opponent and your pieces disappear while his appear. Interesting concept among the hundred of chess variations that currently exist. Bravo!

Untangle: puzzle app for iphone, ipad, ipod Review

Untangle comes from Wang Yujin of Bluesky Studio. We've seen puzzle apps very similar to this.

Visit http://www.planarity.net/# to play online with a big computer screen.

Twistrix: puzzle app for ipad, ipod, iphone Review

Twistrix is very similar to the mechanical puzzles Babylon Tower and Whip-It. Easy puzzle. As you advance through the levels, the tower adds an additional level. Still, it's too easy.

If you download this puzzle app, you won't have to buy those other puzzles. Hey, it's free!

Free puzzle apps for Japan?

Dennis Mengelt produced Boxed In, which I reviewed about 3 weeks ago. This week he is offering all of his puzzle apps for free in the hopes that users will donate that money to the Red Cross.

Yesterday I downloaded Boxed In 2, Boxed In 3, and Iced In. I will comply with Dennis' request & send the $6 to the Red Cross.

iRectangle: puzzle app for ipad, iphone, ipod touch Review

We've seen puzzles like this: slide the rows & columns so that all the red is in the upper left corner, green in the upper right. Yellow goes to the bottom left & blue in the bottom right. Not hard, but it's a good introduction to the genre of sequential movement puzzles.

The seller is King Tat Lam. It's free!

New Robot can solve Rubik's Cube

There are many robots that can solve Rubik's Cube. You can even buy a Lego set & assemble it to do this. Zachary Grady and Joe Ridgeway are engineering students who have designed a novel, surprising way for the machine to hold the cube. Very different from the Lego robot which sometimes drops the puzzle. Bravo!

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2010/12/robot-solves-rubiks-cube-in-15-seconds.html

Geared: ipad, iphone, ipod puzzle app review

Geared is an interesting puzzle. The yellow gear is fixed and is always rotating. The blue gears are also fixed and needs to rotate. Object: place the other gears to link the yellow gear with the blue gear.

I downloaded the paid version which has 150 levels. So far I've solve the first 45 levels in 1 hour & 11 minutes. Needless to say, the first 10 - 15 levels were really easy. Good value, good fun!

Bryan Mitchell has made a small fortune off this I think! The game has been rated over 4600 times. It has over 2000 ratings with 5 stars too. Consider this: most people do not leave ratings or write reviews.

Kakooma (it's not sudoku!): iphone/ipad puzzle app review

Kakooma looks like sudoku, but it's not! The images above describes the game perfectly. It's fun and it's free. Give it a try.

Kusoge: puzzle app for ipad, iphone & ipod Review

Kusoge comes with no instructions! You would think that the folks at the Apple App Store would not release it for that reason alone!

Kusoge starts with the arrow in the upper left corner being green. It then moves to the next arrow, depending on where it's pointing. The object is to tap the arrows to change their orientation so that every square will turn green at some point. Not hard at all.

Daisuke Shosaki who created this said: Please do not expect too much.

This is not a great fun puzzle app. However, a 10 year old might think it's brilliant.

NeoStacker: ipad/iphone puzzle app review

The bricks below the red line are fixed. The bricks above can slide side to side, not up and down. The object: the number of bricks above the red line should equal the number of bricks below the red line.

Interesting and challenging. Completely mathematical & logical. Download the 'lite' version for free & test it out.

Brandon D'Orazio made this app.

Muzzle: puzzle app for ipad/iphone/ipod review

Muzzle is a combination of the 15 puzzle and more traditional edge-matching puzzles. The image above shows a 3x3 grid. The medium level puzzles use a 6x6 grid. Much more challenging.

Muzzle is made by Synthetic Dreams. Download the Lite version and take it out for a spin.

Fit Shape: puzzle app review

Fit Shape is simple to grasp. Place the pieces into the grid so they fit! Duh!

Not terribly hard. This is for young puzzlers and people into pentominoes.

Puzzle Auction for Australian Relief

Some fabulous puzzles are being offered by generous craftsmen & collectors in order to raise money for the relief efforts caused by the flooding in Australia.

Kagen Schaefer - superb puzzle designer. Tom Lensch - master craftsman. Pick any puzzle, bid, support the relief efforts & enjoy the puzzle.

Click here now!

Ipuzzle: Junk's Hanoi puzzle app review

If you're a fan of Tower of Hanoi and its many variants, check out this free puzzle.

Object: slide all the bars from the top left area to the bottom right area.

Bentled: iphone ipad ipod puzzle app review

Are you a fan of Bejeweled? If so, Bentled is a good variation. The object is to score points! Drag rows & columns to get groups of 4 or more of the same color together. The bigger the group, the bigger the score. Black tiles must form a group of 8 to be eliminated.

Luis Medel is the creator.

Ancient Frog: iphone ipad puzzle game app review

In the last month, about 25 people have emailed me to check out Ancient Frog. The object is to move the frog to get the fly, which is stationary. Move the frog - one leg at a time. The first dozen levels are quite easy. The harder levels require all sorts of twists & turns. Imagine trying to turn your car around in a narrow alley, but you can stretch your car along each wheel at crazy angles.

I am not compelled to solve each of the 100 levels. So I cannot say that Ancient Frog is a great fun puzzle app. But I do recommend that you download the free version and give it a test run.

Keep the email recommendations coming!

Rotate It! - Doodle Pro: iphone puzzle app review

This is not the 15 puzzle. But the objective is the same: get the numbers in order. Click on any arrow and watch those numbers rotate clockwise. This puzzle is not new. I recall seeing it on a Nokia cell phone maybe 5 years ago.

This would be a better puzzle if there were more features. Example: how about a 2x3 grid where the numbers rotated. Or: tap on 1 number and the surrounding 8 numbers rotate.

If you're a fan of the 15 puzzle - give it a try!

Reverse Maze: iphone ipad dexterity puzzle app: review

The puzzle reminds me of The World's Hardest Game. The object is to move the bright object from point A to point B without touching any of the lines. But here's the catch: you control the object by first pressing down on another object and moving it in the opposite direction.

I solved the first 6 levels. Cannot possibly do level 7. However, I recall a few years ago getting stuck on The World's Hardest Game at level 25 - and yet other people did those levels.

Good luck! Downloading this app is free today!

Boxed In iphone ipad puzzle app review: Update

All right boys & girls, I couldn't stop playing Boxed In. I completed the 50 levels in about 3-4 hours - riding the subway, eating breakfast etc. Not terribly hard - but fun! So, at the very least, this is the best fun puzzle app of the week - so far. As I said in my previous post, Boxworld is the true challenge.

Boxed In iphone ipad puzzle app review

Are you a fan of sokomind or boxworld? If so, you know that you can never push a box into a corner to solve any level.

Boxed In sometimes requires that you push a box into a corner. The object is to get your man to the exit while picking up the gray tokens. Notice the blue square is blocking the exit. You must move a box onto the other blue-outlined square first - that makes the blue square blocking the exit disappear.

.99 for 50 levels. I solved the first 20 levels in about 1 hour. As a huge sokomind fan since 1995 - this is an exceptional puzzle app. Fun & brain provoking.

We look forward to future puzzle apps from Dennis Mengelt.

Martha Stewart Show Tuesday 2/22 Hallmark Channel

Martha Stewart will have Will Shortz- NY Times Crossword puzzle editor. Also Richard Garriott - mechanical puzzle collector.

Watch the preview.

Block Fill: iphone ipad ipod puzzle app review

The object of Block fill is to fill the grid with rectangles and squares. Each number must rest inside one of those rectangles and there must be exactly that number of squares inside.

I first saw these puzzles in print form from Nikoli - the Japanese puzzle book publisher in 2001. They're fun!

I've been playing the 10x10 grids. A bit small for the ipod/iphone. Perfect for the ipad. Each puzzle takes about 1 minute to solve.

Right now the app is free! Download it.

Witty Bump: iphone puzzle app review Updated!

About 2 weeks ago I talked about Witty Bump. It's a maze puzzle with bumpers, wormholes and splitters. I just completed all 100 levels and the image above was my reward.

Whatever puzzle app you try - please rate it! This will help ensure that the good ones get popular.

Is Witty Bump the best puzzle app? No. But it's fun and challenging. .99 provided about 3 hours entertainment on subways & planes.

The Nightmare Maze: text puzzle app

Alex Livingston created this very strange, dark twisted little tale. Answer correctly and you will increase your lucidity and insight. If your fear gets too high - back to the beginning.

Not the best puzzle app. Not even a good puzzle app. But you may enjoy a text puzzle, so I'm informing you. At least the app is free.

Slide to Unlock: ipad/iphone action puzzle app

This website likes to focus on the best iphone/ipad/ipod touch puzzle apps. Slide to Unlock is not really a puzzle, though it was listed in the puzzle category on the app store. It's an action game. All you're doing is swiping your finger as quickly as possible - no thinking involved.

However, so many people have contacted me regarding all these puzzle apps as a way to ward off Alzheimer’s. Once in a while, it's good to test your brain reflexes and enjoy a speed game like this.

Gear Shift: twisty puzzle modification review

http://www.shapeways.com/model/139482/gear_shift.html?gid=sg13603

Gear Shift is the creation of Bram Cohen & Oskar van Deventer. The official description: Gear Shift is based on an idea by Bram Cohen. This puzzle has eight gears around a cube. All gears can turn together. But it is also possible to pull the gears apart in two sets of four. Each set of four can be turned individually. And there are three ways to split the gears. The object of this puzzle is similar to Rubik's Cube: scramble it and then try to solve it.

Yesterday, I toyed with Gear Shift for about 45 minutes. Came up with an idea, implemented it & solved the puzzle. I do not fully understand this puzzle's mechanism.

As custom 3D printed puzzles go, this one is priced well: $133.40 Order yours at Shapeways

Flup: iphone/ipad/ipod puzzle app review

Just yesterday(!) I was telling somebody that I'm not a fan of rolling cube puzzles. But now, I've played Flup. Flup has is a rolling cube puzzle with 2 types of moves. A cube can be either rolled onto another square, with a new face on top (swipe your finger). Or, it can be shifted to a new square without any rolling (double tap it).

Download the free version & test it out!

Solitaire Chess: iphone/ipad/ipod puzzle app review

Years ago, this Mechanical Puzzle Correspondent was a chess fanatic. Then lost interest. The object of Solitaire Chess: every move must involve a capture of a piece. The puzzle is solved when 1 piece remains.

My friend from Finland Vesa Timonen created this. Still I must remain objective. Solitaire Chess is compelling fun! Buy the full version with 400 puzzle challenges. I've solved about 325 of them. All the easy ones are done. 1 medium puzzle should be reclassified as impossible!

Lumi: iphone/ipod/ipad puzzle app review

Several years ago I bought a Nintendo DS in order to play a set of puzzles called Prism. In the last couple of years this Puzzle App Correspondent has seen several versions of Prism in the App Store. However, the graphics were very disappointing.

Fortunately, we can now say 3 Cheers! to the creators of Lumi. Lumi offers a good set of puzzles: easy to hard. And the graphics are super clear. I thought that 2 of the free levels were impossible. After an hour's thought, I got one of them. The other: one of my students discovered the solution. (I forgot to use the prism!)

Download Lumi. Try the free puzzles. Chances are, you'll buy the level packs too. Please comment, after you've tried it!