Game: Numerity

It's funny how much money some companies will spend making complex video games when so often, simplicity is best. Then again, making something simple that's also sophisticated and entertaining isn't exactly easy. Zedarus Games' new number-based search game Numerity is a prime example of sophisticated minimalism—part math drill and part hidden object game, it spins an amazing amount of fun from some very basic elements.The main idea in Numerity is to find specific numbers hidden within a complex jumble of them. To begin with, the game assigns these to you and you simply locate and tap them. Tapping makes every instance of the number, wherever it's located within the numerical medley, appear highlighted in black. You continue doing this as an on-screen counter tracks your progress all the way to 100%, and then you watch in delight as the camera moves back and reveals the image you've been building. It's kind of ridiculous how satisfying that is, reminiscent in a way to finally seeing the image appear in those infuriating stereogram things."Anyway, at first the images are of famous faces like Audrey Hepburn and John Lennon; then they move on to animals, famous landmarks (like the Eiffel Tower), lifestyle imagery, and gadgets. Each category has ten levels (that's fifty levels total) and the game changes and becomes more difficult from one category to the next. Where at first you're merely given numbers, you're then asked to do simple math problems to arrive at them before being able to search. Before you math-o-phobes out there run away screaming, the problems here are no harder than 29 + 10, 91-17 or 3 x 5, a setup that's accessible to players of basically all ages.