Disctrail: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Stefan Carlsson recently contacted me about his new puzzle app game: Disctrail. It's a topology puzzle.

Object: start at any disc, and clear the board by traveling vertically & horizontally.

There are 16 free levels. I solved them all in about 15-20 minutes minutes. I must admit, I got stuck on a couple.

Disctrail is a free puzzle app game with nice graphics. Give it a try.

 

Links

http://youtu.be/Xabv7Fu2-DY
https://itunes.apple.com/se/app/disctrail/id598878484
http://www.disctrail.com

Chroma Dyadic: free puzzle app game for ipad, iphone

Chroma Dyadic is a point scoring puzzle app game.  See the red circle? Tap on any square that's red to score points.

However, all of those squares change their colors rapidly. If your red square turns blue and you tap on it - bad news.

I actually like this concept. But this game just doesn't work for me.

Hexagonator: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Hexagonator is a very new puzzle app game from http://www.smileygamer.com/
It's an edge-matching puzzle with hexagons.

We've seen this type of puzzle many times before. What makes this puzzle game a bit easier is that the individual hexagons do not rotate.

This particular version has 25 levels. I played the game for about 30 minutes and solved 24 of them and got stuck on 25. It's trickier than I thought. I like the graphics and user interface.

I like this game - it's easy, fast & fun. And I got stuck on 25.

Amigo Pancho Free: physics puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Yury Koshechkin is the CEO of Qaibo Games company and he recently contacted me about his physics puzzle app game called Amigo Pancho Free.

Pancho is holding 2 helium balloons. Tap on him to start his ascent.

But first, you may have to manipulate some things above so he can travel safely. See images 2, 3, & 4 for examples.

I'm not normally a fan of physics puzzles - because there are so many of them! Also, there's a lot of trial and error involved - especially with timing. I am more of a purist when it comes to puzzles.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed Amigo Pancho! It's got a nice balance of challenge and fun.

The graphics are good. When Pancho rises up, his feet sway. Cute? I don't know.

Look at the first image: it says that it's been played over 50  million times on the web. I never heard of it, so I'm dubious about that claim. However, I always like promoters that inflate their popularity.  Note: I never do that for this blog! Do a search of 'Puzzle App' on google, bing, yahoo and this blog is always on page 1. Frequently, it is the first item.

But I digress. Amigo Pancho is a mucho coolo winner.

Candy Crush Saga: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Everybody seems to be playing Candy Crush Saga. When a game is this popular, I'm always skeptical.

Candy Crush Saga is similar to the many versions of Bejeweled. The object is to swap adjacent candies to create a line of 3 similar candies. They drop out, you score points, and new candies drop in.

There are 425 levels. The objective for each level is a little different.

I've played the game for several hours and just completed level 50.  After failing it 5 times, I was locked out and told I could not play for another 30 minutes!  Of course, I could purchase extra lives, extra moves, extra other things that would help.

Candy Crush has become a money-making machine. People spend real money for these upgrades to feed their addiction. You cannot make a one-time purchase that eliminates annoying lockouts.

I'm going to continue to play this game for another 10 levels or so. Because it is a good game.  But there is little genuine variety between the levels. And I suspect something evil: I think that after you fail a level a number of times, the game presents an easy layout of tiles to keep you going.  I'm giving myself a few more days, then will delete this forever.

A much better game that uses a similar, but much more interesting approach is called Go Round. It's also designed to encourage people to buy things. But it's so much better done. And I'm proud that I solved the 100 levels without buying anything.

Temple Trap: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

 My friend Raf Peeters is the brains behind all (or most) of the puzzles at Smart Games. He has invented at least 2 dozen puzzles.  About a year ago, I asked him to please make them available for the iphone, and ipad.

 Temple Trap is a sliding block maze puzzle app game. The object is to get your Indiana Jones archeologist to the exit. When the archeologist is in a square - that square cannot move.

Temple Trap has 110 levels. 13 are free. The rest cost $2.99.  All of the levels are different from the physical version.  Along the way, you can pick up coins and maps.

Most importantly: Temple Trap is challenging and fun! The physical version is an ideal compact size.

 

  Click here to purchase the real version.

Dabble: free point scoring word puzzle for iphone, ipad

Dabble is a point scoring word puzzle app game that was invented by George Weiss who is 84 and a wall paper hanger.

Look at the second image. You must rearrange the tiles to spell a 6-letter word at the bottom, then a 5-letter word, then 4, 3 & 2.  The quicker you do it, the more points you get.

Also, you definitely want to use the higher point letters for the 6 letter word.

My high score is 756. That's not too high compared to the serious word puzzlers out there.

If you like Scrabble, Boggle and Bananagrams, you will love Dabble. My prediction: there will one day be a Dabble tournament where all the players are given the same sets of letters. Everybody will bring their ipad to the tournament hall and will download that day's Dabble Tournament App.

Unquestionably, Dabble is one of the best word puzzle app games of 2013.  The Final List will be revealed December 30th and 31st.

'Not Pacman': Cool version of Pac-Man

Check out this video that's a variation of Pac-Man.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJWJt_lgd4g#t=57

I never got into Pac-Man. But I love this rotating screen physics version. Right now it is not an ios game.

Download it here: http://stabyourself.net/notpacman/

Games Magazine: Garden Dice named as game of the year

https://www.funagain.com/control/productaward?award_type=GMMAG&award_year=2014

My friends John McCallion and Robin King write the reviews of new games for Games Magazine. They sometimes let me play-test the games.

About 2 months ago I played Garden Dice. It's strategic and fun. And now it's been named as game of the year.

Color Paper: free puzzle app for iphone, ipad

 Color Paper is a free puzzle app from Laurence Hillaireau.  The object is to stack the papers onto 1 square.

You do this by tapping an empty square that is adjacent to both squares that have paper on them.

Color Paper has 30 levels and I've solved 16 of them and am stuck! Interesting concept. Worth your time.

https://myspace.com/laurence0659

Woven: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Woven is a new and very interesting puzzle app game. Look at the first image. You must drag 2 ribbons onto each dot. The ribbon that is on top must match the color of the dot.

There are 200 individual puzzles. 96 of them are free. I've done them all. They took about 45 minutes.Once you get the hang of the concept, they go pretty fast.

Another puzzle app game that uses ribbons is Color Bind. It's much more interesting and challenging.

Still, give Woven a chance. It's fun.

Urban Puzzle Contest

Puzzle friends, you have no idea how many emails I get about all sorts of puzzles. This one seems like fun, so I'm posting it. Would you do me a favor please? If you win some of that $5000, buy me a pizza.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/epic-quest-online-treasure-hunt-for-5000

Hi Tom,

My name is Kelly and I’m writing from UrbanQuest. We make puzzle-based scavenger hunts that are found in almost 40 cities across North America. I’m emailing you to share a new puzzle project we’re launching called the EPIC Quest. We’ve dubbed it the biggest Internet puzzle in history. EPIC Quest is an online, interactive puzzle that will take place over 5 weeks with $5000 in cash prizing. There is an added component where winners will choose a charity to receive a donation equal to the prize money they’ve won (it’s our take on Celebrity Apprentice!). We are crowd-funding the campaign through Indiegogo, the world’s largest crowd-funding website.

We’re reaching out to like-minded puzzle fans and we hope you’ll find this project interesting! If you feel so inclined, we’d be grateful if you would consider sharing it with your followers.

Our campaign link is http://igg.me/at/epicquest/x/2683113. (It’s the 2^nd day of our 40 day campaign and have already hit 10% of our funding goal!)

Please don’t hesitate if you have any questions or feedback. And thanks! We’re just getting started so any help is greatly appreciated!

Best,

Kelly Liu

Hexpeg Solitaire: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Hexpeg Solitaire uses a hexagonal grid. You must end up with only 1 peg and it must land in the black hole.

When you do, you are given a time bonus. How many 'stages' can you complete before time runs out?

Blooocks: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Blooocks is a point scoring based on speed. The object is to change each square from black to blue - as fast as possible.
If you touch the red squares, you die.  See the red wheels? They roll around. If you touch them, you die.

White squares must be tapped 4 times to change to blue.

There are 16 levels. I've done them all.

Blooocks is a very fun speed point scoring game. But 16 levels is not enough. You'll do them in 5 minutes. There's potential for at least 100 more levels.

Sluzzuls: free puzzle app game for ipad, iphone

Sluzzuls is a puzzle app game that's very familiar. We've seen this type many times in the past.

Slide the rows and columns so that all the colors are grouped together in squares. See the first image.

I don't have an image for the 'harder' and 'hardest' levels. But I've solved 1 of them. And yes, they are harder only because the tiles that border another color have a more fixed location.

I like the graphics and interface of Sluzzuls. However, by no means is this a great puzzle app. I've previously deleted all of the other versions, and will delete this one too.

Still, if you've never played a puzzle like this, it's good.

Smash Draughts: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Smash Draughts is a puzzle app game that has nothing to do with checkers, chess or draughts.

The object is to shoot the white checker to get the green checkers off the board.  The white checker may not touch a red one.  Blue checkers cannot fall off the board.

That's it.

I did the first 30 levels and I think they're fun. I have no idea how many levels there are. When I go to 'select level' the program turns off. I've also tried to contact the developer - no response.

Smash Droughts is not a brilliant game. It reminds me of 'The World's Hardest Game' which you can play online.  That's a fun game!

Smash Draughts is especially for somebody who likes pool & billiards. Hey, it's free.

Stickets: update on puzzle app game

If you've been reading this blog carefully, you'll remember Stickets, a point scoring puzzle app game that I really liked.

There is a fellow named Chris Pheasey who is the top scorer with 3,753 points. He's been going strong on this one game for a long time, maybe 2 or 3 months. 

Next up is OddballDave with 2,913 points. Not sure if his game ended. He hasn't played in a week. Maybe he's taking a break.

Just to put things in perspective at how great those scores are, #3 is 1735. #4 is 1655. #5 is 979. I'm at #6 with 972.

Escaple: free iphone, ipad puzzle app game

Here is the latest rip-off of Rush Hour. There are 240 levels.

Here's what's new: a 'difficulty index'. There's also a mysterious system of scoring points.  Example: when I solved level 161, I did it in 43 moves, while the least possible moves is 28.  My points earned: 962,635.

Treehouse Wars! free puzzle game for iphone, ipad

Treehouse Wars! was designed by a 9 year old kid.

An astute puzzle app follower in the Washington D.C. area alerted me to a story in the Washington Post about the kid and his game: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2013/09/03/viennas-jefferson-johnson-9-creates-treehouse-wars-gets-it-into-apples-app-store/

Aliens are walking in your backyard and you are in the treehouse throwing water balloons at them to kill them.

If you fail to kill them, they will cut your tree down.

I didn't get to the level where flying saucers are swarming around you. But you can see the image.

Major kudos to young Jefferson Johnson for creating this. I know that future versions will be better.

Break the Hex: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Break the Hex comes from http://www.dogfishapps.com/
If you've played Rush Hour or Unblock Me, then you get the idea. The object is to slide the colored bars along the hexagonal grid so that the red bar can move to the red spot on the right.

We've seen many versions of Rush Hour. We've also seen a hexagonal one too. A couple of years ago I reviewed Hex Slide 1000 and Hex Slide 10,000. Same idea. However, with Hex Slide, the red piece could be anywhere on the grid - not just on the horizontal row.

Break the Hex has 100 levels. I didn't think that I would solve them all, but I did, so it's good. The graphics are fine.

Plants Vs Zombies

Plants Vs Zombies is a classic action game.  The object is to kill the zombies as they march onto your front lawn.

You will first need to plant sunflowers, which will emit 'suns' from time to time. Collect the suns and you will gain points.  With those points, you can then plant pea-shooters that will kill the zombies.

As you progress through the 50 levels, you will be able to plant more sophisticated things like mushrooms that have their own killing properties.

Plants Vs Zombies is a genuine puzzle because as you get to the higher levels, you must strategically place things. Also, before each round, you will get to choose how to stock your arsenal.

I first played Plants Vs Zombies 2 years ago. I played 3 or 4 levels and loved it. But did not view it as a true puzzle, because it's not. I restarted it a couple of weeks ago and have now gone through all 50 levels. I thought to myself: whew!  Then I downloaded Plants Vs Zombies 2. It's more of the same.

Plants Vs Zombies is a fun game. It's truly a modern classic.

FlowDoKu: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

When I first saw FlowDoku, I thought: okay, it's another version of Sudoku.

Yes and no.

Each square region - or rectangular region, depending on the grid size - must contain the same number of blue squares, green triangles and orange circles.  The blue squares must be connected. The green triangles must be connected. The orange dots are free agents.

I cannot believe how good these puzzles are.

In the 6x6 grids, I solved 30 of them in 55 minutes.
In the 8x8 grids, I solved 50 of them in a little more than 3 hours.
In the 9x9 grids, I solved 50 of them in 4.5 hours.
All of those were either 'easy' or 'medium' levels.

I have not played the 12x12 grid sizes yet.

FlowDoku is a great concept. It's fun. And did I mention that it's a great value? Totally free.

FlowDoku is a fabulous puzzle game app! Bravo.

Flip Stones: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Andreas Riedmüller recently contacted me about his new puzzle app game Flip Stones. He and his brother made it. Andreas and his colleague (not his brother) previously made a very stupid app called Touch Me. I confess, I've played it several times and have still not deleted it. What does that say about me? Scroll down to about 10 days ago to read my blurb about that.

Back to Flip Stones. It's a topology game. You must cover all of the tiles and flip them to gold. I did the first 32 levels in about 15 minutes. Keep in mind, I've done thousands of these over the years. The key is to figure out the starting and end points.

Then I decided to pay the $.99 for the additional levels.

Look at the top of the 4th image. See the 0/2 at the top? That means you are given 2 separate continuous movements to make the flips. Some of these are really hard.

Flip Stones has 99 levels and I've completed 71 of them.  I'm stuck! I've spent a lot of time on these hard ones and have made minimal progress. Flip Stones is very challenging and fun. Definitely a winner, after you get through the easy ones.

Oh, I should mention this. As you are casually pondering your strategy, various creepy-crawlies will meander on your screen. Try not to drop your ipad.

Spin Dots: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Spin Dots is a very good sequential movement puzzle app from Spooky Cat: http://spookycat.net/contact/

The object is to get the 4 green dots to the upper right corner. The blue dots to the bottom right corner, etc.

See the red triangle in the top left corner? Tap on that and those 8 dots will rotate in a loop.  Tap on one of the bottom triangles and those rectangular loops will rotate.

Spin Dots is hard! I've solved it twice.

There is a mechanical version that is similar: The Orb, which I really like.

Spin Dots is a free puzzle app game. Can you do it?

Color Cubes: free puzzle game app for iphone, ipad

Color Cubes is a topology puzzle game app. Tap on any square and then drag your finger over all of the others once and only once.

We have seen many topology puzzle apps lately. This one has 30 free levels. I did them in about 10 minutes. Not very hard. You just have to know where to start!

The graphics are fine.

Next week I'll be commenting on a very interesting topology puzzle app game.

Combinations: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Look at the image. What do you see?

Here's what I see: a total copy of the card game SET.  If you haven't played SET, get the deck of 81 cards and get playing!

This free puzzle app version offers clues and keeps track of your score.

Worms*: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

If you have been following my blog the past 3 or 4 years, then you know the game Lights Out.

Worms* is basically the same thing. Except the worms either stick their heads out or crawl back into their holes.

59 levels.  I did 5 or 6.  I've got more interesting puzzle apps to play. But I like the theme.

Brain Catalyst: free puzzle app game for iphone, ipad

Brain Catalyst is a round version of Rubik's Cube.

No other explanation needed.

Tertiary!

Tertiary! is an unusual, unique puzzle app.
I had to read the directions twice before I really understood them.

You are given a grid of gray triangles. Tap them one at a time. You must tap on them in this order: a triangle pointing up, followed by a triangle pointing down - any where in the grid.

Try not to tap on the ones that are 'tertiary'. You can figure out some of them. But there is an element of guessing.

I've solved it twice. I cannot say that I'm a fan. However, this is an interesting concept and I challenge anybody to determine if luck is not needed at all.

Weekend update: I've investigated this more and have solved it 10 more times - all without luck. I have figured out a system.

Tertiary is definitely intriguing, but once you've figured out a system, it then becomes a 'how fast can you solve this' puzzle.

Tertiary is a free puzzle app, give it a shot.

http://www.tertiaryapp.com/