Best Illusion of the Year - Vote Today!

http://illusionoftheyear.com/  Today is the last day to vote for the best of 10 illusions.  Very cool stuff.

annecoleviolinmaker.com  Anne Cole is a longtime Loyal Blog Follower. Scroll to the bottom to check out the PBS video of her making violins.

Considering all the horrific incidents in the news, these 2 items form a nice respite and hope for humanity.

As always, if you're playing a good puzzle app that I have not blogged about, let me know.

Slide!! by Red Chain Games Ltd FREE FREE

Slide!! is one of those many puzzle app games where the object is to get the colored tiles to their targets by sliding them until they hit an obstacle.

What's different? 

1. There's a timer. In order to get your time low, you must slide multiple blocks simultaneously.  

2. I'm stuck on Easy Level #5! Obviously I'm missing something. Because the credits indicate that 25 people have play tested this game. This Puzzle App Blogger is often humbled.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/slide/id1123599463?mt=8

Colorzam: An Update

Last week I reviewed Colorzam by Pedro Navarro. He emailed me about my review and indicated that he would implement one of my suggestions.

So now the '5 rule' is '6'. The game is significantly harder! It might be too hard now.  I checked the Leader Board & I'm still #1. But is that fair? I attained that score under the easier rules.  Can I still claim the glory?

Pedro: I think if you make the grid a bit larger, the game might hit that perfect sweet spot of difficulty.

Everybody else: play test Pedro's game and send him some feedback.

https://itunes.apple.com/sl/app/colorzam/id1261918300?mt=8

Unblock Bomb by Kejia Li FREE

  

Unblock Bomb comes from Kejia Li who also made Puzzle Dots Game which I reviewed recently.

The gray squares are fixed. The object is to move the blue squares to complete the circuit.

I've solved about 40 levels. I was hoping the game would get more interesting or difficult.  It did not.  This game is strictly for kids.

What could be done to make this better.

1. Change the colors every so often.

2. I solved some levels in fewer moves than the  supposed minimum.

3. Don't allow more moves than necessary.

4. How about an explosion after each level is solved.

5. I didn't listen to the music, but a good selection would be the theme from Mission Impossible.

6. All the blue squares are 1x1. Maybe some pieces could be 1x2

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/unblock-bomb/id1282924062?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Color Merge by ImpactBlue Studios FREE

  

Color Merge comes from ImpactBlue Studios. The object is to merge all the colors so the entire board ends up being 1 color which is specified at the top of the screen.

Look at the first image. Near the top you'll see a small green dot in between the blue & yellow circles.  That means, first, that the circles can merge and second, that they will merge into green.

Seems kind of obvious except that red & yellow can never merge. It took me a while to figure the pattern out.  At the top are the 5 circles. A color cannot merge with its neighbors. But when it merges with the other 2 colors, the result will be the color in between.

For example: purple cannot merge with blue or red. When it merges with yellow, the result will be red. Not very intuitive. When purple merges with green, it will become blue.

Color Merge is a serious puzzle concept.  At the moment I've solved 18 levels. I'll do more, but definitely not more than 50.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/color-merge/id1200648707?mt=8

Colorzam by Pedro Navarro FREE

  

Colorzam comes from Pedro Navarro. It's a point scoring puzzle app game. Your task is to place the pieces at the bottom onto the grid to form groups.  Look at the first image.  See the red 3 on top? When you've gotten 3 reds, they disappear. The next goal for red will be 4, then 5.  When 5 reds are grouped, all of the other reds on the board come off.

  

As your score increases, 'boosters' become available to get you out of a jam.

Colorzam has great graphics. Love the concept too. However, this game just never ends.  It's too easy.  I had to intentionally lose. I tried to end my game at 50,000, but I went over just a bit.  That places me 1st on the Leader Board out of just 12 others.  A few months ago I reviewed another point scoring game that was similarly too easy to lose called 5+ (five plus) and it has maybe 30,000 people playing it.  So obviously games of equal skill/value/fun are not marketed in the same way.

If Colorzam used 1 extra color, it might be perfect. Alternatively, instead of all the tiles of a color disappearing when a group of 5 is formed, 6 would be more challenging.

https://itunes.apple.com/sl/app/colorzam/id1261918300?mt=8

Announcement: Open Bar - Keep 'em Coming! is temporarily free. 

Other Point Scoring Games Worthy of Your Time (Some are no longer available.)
NumberMania
Four Straight Lines
Pushopolous
Stickets
Folt
Nineout
Nineout II
BeeCells Lite
Kindly Colors
HexAgony
Domino Drop
Put Number
Tripevo
Triple Town
Kindly  Colors
COLORswipe
SubaraCity
Virus Pop Smash
+1 Number
4 Way Puzzle
Merged!
Enso

Politaire

Treple

numDance

Black Boxes

o:anquan
Levels

Buckets

Hit N Run

Puppo!

Omino!

Super Swipes

Make Square

Loopse by Ruff Robot FREE

   

Loopse is a point scoring puzzle app game from Ruff Robot. The object is to form closed loops and score points.

  

Pieces are given 1 at a time. They are either 1x1 or 1x2 in size.  Sometimes you can use a piece to eliminate a row or column.  The game ends when there are no more empty squares in the grid.

I've played this game just once.  There's a bit of a gambling element: try for a bigger loop to get extra points, but risk losing.

http://ruffrobot.com/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/loopse/id1281858584

Box Home - Love to play every day by shanshan li FREE

The object of Box Home - Love to play every day is to move all the green dots onto the targets.  All the pieces move together at the same time. We've seen this concept many many times before. However, it's ususialy done on square grids. Hexagonal grids for this concept is rare.

There are 37 levels and at the moment I've solved 17.

I think this game is pretty good and I especially like that there are only 37 levels.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/box-home-love-to-play-every-day/id1276948244?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Similar games (this list is incomplete):

Movez  Pretty much the same as Block Mania but it has 1680 levels. I've solved 592 of them. That's probably enough.
Frozen Ice Cubes  What's different: there's a point of 'no return'
Escapology, reviewed by Nicola Salmoria. He told me about this game ages ago. I played it and enjoyed it, but never blogged about it.
Block Mania Similar to Movez
Move Puzzle - A Funny Strategy Game, Matching Tiles Within Finite Moves 
Zink
Vubu What's different: the vubu men have different powers. Very sophisticated, very intelligent. Possibly the very best in this genre.
Move: A Brain Shifting GameUnmind
Puzzle Dots Game

Announcement: 'kubic' is temporarily free. I thought it was okay, but never reviewed it. 

Smashy 4 by Funvelous FREE

  

Smashy 4 is a point scoring puzzle from Funvelous. Look for an adjacent pair that match. The pair could be both inside the square. Or, 1 could be outside. Tap on one of them. The other will disappear  and the row/column will shift in one specific direction.  If you tap on the other one instead, the row/column will shift in the opposite direction.  This element is key to keeping your game going for as long as possible. The game ends when there are no more legal moves.

  

Smashy 4 is a very solid game. The graphics are good. Good rules. Relatively fast game. However, I have noticed that the game often ends even though I still have legal moves to make. That needs to be fixed.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/smashy-4/id1260316703?mt=8

Roll the Dices by Kevin Chooramun FREE

  

Roll the Dices comes from Kevin Chooramun.  The object is to roll the two dice - separately - onto 2 squares in the checkerboard so that the numbers match on the top and sides.  Look at the first image.

Obviously, we need the 5 & 6 to be in the same column, but they must line up with the #s on the side.

 

Images 2 & 3 show blue squares which cannot be rolled on, and wormholes.

I think there are 30 levels. Of those, I've done more than half.

This happens a lot to me: I download an app, then play test it, but then cannot find it on the App Store. Such was the case when I searched Roll the Dices. Fortunately, Kevin's email was listed in the game itself. I contacted him for the link and he's thrilled that over 2000 people have played his game.

Overall, this is a nice first game. What would make this game very challenging would be if the dice (plural of die) would move simultaneously. That would make the blue squares even more important.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/roll-the-dices/id1249611969?l=fr&ls=1&mt=8

Colorist by Daniel Krautwurst

  

Daniel Krautwurst sent me a promo code for his game Colorist.  Thanks Daniel! The object is to drag the ribbons to fill the entire board.  We've seen this type of game before. Huebrix is the one that's most similar.  See link below.

  

Arrows must be landed on from behind. Once landed on, the path can go anywhere.

Look at the second image.  See the little blue square? The blue ribbon must traverse it.

There are 70 levels. I solved the first 30 levels in about 10 minutes. After that, things took longer. At the moment I'm on 65.

I like the graphics a lot. Good game Daniel.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/coloristic/id1264648057?mt=8

Very Similar:
Huebrix

Jerry Slocum's new book on ancient puzzle padlocks

Jerry Slocum and  Dic Sonneveld  just finished their new book that tells the story of the oldest secret-opening puzzles ever found, from the 2nd century BC to the 4th century AD. It shows high quality sets of photos of 156 Mask Padlocks that we found in Museums, Libraries and private collections. This is the first book about these incredible puzzles.

Interesting Links

https://eyemind.quora.com/Why-have-humans-loved-doing-puzzles-through-the-ages-What-social-psychological-function-do-they-serve

Fun With Hyperbolic Space Video from Vi Hart

Crossy Path Puzzle by ZhengTao Xing FREE

  

Crossy Path Puzzle comes from Zheng Tao Xing.  It's very similar to Hocus from Yunus Ayyildiz. (See link below.)

What's new: wormholes.

There are 48 levels and they go very fast.  The only issue: lots of ads. But they are not the 30 second variety. More like 5 seconds.  I did all 48 levels in about 20 minutes.


http://www.jianshu.com/p/f9f623136eaa
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/crossy-path-puzzle/id1202074023?mt=8

Similar games
Hocus The Original
Hocus Valley okay clone
Illusion Maze  nice graphics

0h n0 by Q42 B.V. FREE

  

0h n0 comes from Q42 B.V.  The goal is to fill the board completely with blue and red circles. A number in blue refers to how many blue dots it can see in the horizontal & vertical paths.  A red circle blocks the view of the blue circles beyond it.

  

This concept is not new. There was an old game from a Rubik's CD game that was similar called Lighthouse.

I've done 1 or 2 puzzles in each grid size. This game is fairly easy. But the graphics are good. And it's good for young puzzlers.

http://0hn0.com/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/0h-n0/id957191082?mt=8
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.q42.ohno

Puzzle Dots Game by Kejia Li FREE

  

Puzzle Dots Game comes from Kejia Li. It's one of those 'all the dots move in the same direction at the same time' type games where the object is to get the dots to their respective rings.

  

The graphics are excellent. The level of difficulty does not seem to vary very much.

I did the first 100 in about 10 minutes and part of those 10 minutes was used to fast forward through tv commercials.  I did the last 100 levels in about 20 minutes. Altogether there are 1200 puzzles.

If you like this genre, definitely try the harder games listed below.

https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1279626780
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.top.puzzledots

Similar games (this list is incomplete):

Movez  Pretty much the same as Block Mania but it has 1680 levels. I've solved 592 of them. That's probably enough.
Frozen Ice Cubes  What's different: there's a point of 'no return'.
Escapology, reviewed by Nicola Salmoria. He told me about this game ages ago. I played it and enjoyed it, but never blogged about it.
Block Mania Similar to Movez
Move Puzzle - A Funny Strategy Game, Matching Tiles Within Finite Moves 
Zink
Vubu What's different: the vubu men have different powers. Very sophisticated, very intelligent. Possibly the very best in this genre.
Move: A Brain Shifting Game
Unmind

English Country Tune by increpare $.99

English Country Tune came out in 2011 and I didn't learn about it until about a year ago.

The game is similar to sokoban.  The first series of of puzzles introduces a 3D field where the object is to push balls onto their targets.  Gravity is a factor, which means a ball can travel far. What makes it confusing is that gravity does not necessarily work in a consistent direction. It depends on the orientation of Your Man moving the individual balls.  I was stuck on one level forever. Until this weekend when I thought about finding a solution via a youtube walkthrough.

My favorite section of puzzles is the one depicted in the first image. Your Man does not push the actual cubes. Rather, Your Man pushes the horizontal & vertical light beams that emanate from those cubes. Fantastic concept and challenging and fun.

I slowed down considerably on the more advanced levels, primarily because of the 3D graphics.


https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/english-country-tune/id476962614?mt=8
http://www.englishcountrytune.com/
Not available for android devices.

YANKAI'S PEAK by Kenny Sun $2.99

  

YANKAI'S PEAK comes from Kenny Sun. At first I thought that it was merely a triangular version of Sokoban where the object is to push the triangles onto their targets.  It's much more.

  

The blue triangle is Your Man.  The first levels are fairly easy.  Then things get seemingly impossible until you discover an alternate way of pushing/moving.

There are 130 levels and I've spent a lot of time solving maybe 50 puzzle levels.  Many levels require a lot of trial and error and discovery.

New elements are added in the second round including green triangles & orange triangles that have their own properties.

$2.99 is a bargain. The graphics are outstanding and the levels were created with devilish care.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yankais-peak/id1139603153?mt=8

GyroCube - Time Attack by Anders Schou FREE

A few weeks ago I wrote about GyroCube and was just plain wrong.  I though that the cube could not be rotated and that in order to solve it, one must memorize the unseen portions.

The reason I thought that was the case was because I held my ipad in a stationary position. In fact, the ipad should be rotated in all dimensions to see everything.

I still haven't solved it, but marvel at the concept and implementation.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gyrocube-time-attack/id1236499766?mt=8
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trixxr.cube

Causality by Loju $1.99

Causality comes from Loju and was featured prominently by the App Store Editors.

The object is to get the astronauts to their portals.
* They mustn't bump into each other.
* Arrows must be rotated.
* There's a limited # of moves.
* Portals

What's most interesting is that there's a time-travel component.

There's a clunky element that's a bit annoying: every step of the journey must be swiped singly.

I can see people really getting into this game. But I'm not feeling it.

I've solved about 15 of the 60 levels.

Lojo made another game Transmission which I reviewed about 2 years ago.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/causality/id928945016?mt=8
https://loju.co.uk/