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Tag: Puzzle

  • In Fear I Trust Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    In Fear I Trust Review

    By

    I've seen some reviewers refer to In Fear I Trust as a survival horror game. I've also seen the App Store's description describe it as "polished, compelling, and instantly unsettling."It is none of these things.The game does nothing to dispel the rumors of its horrific nature, but I can assure you that this is a visual novel at heart. Personally, I like visual novels quite a lot (Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward has one of my favorite video game stories of all time and Device 6 proved that the genre has a place on iOS)."Perhaps Chillingo and Turn Me Up Games didn't think a Western audience would be receptive to a game marketed as such, because the app's page is quick to point out the "danger" and "creepy jump scares" found in the game. Unless you count the danger of encountering one of several dozen bugs and glitches in the game's decidedly unpolished first two chapters (the game is episodic and, at the time of this review, only the first two chapters are available) you're in no threat of dying - ever.Rather, the game is presented as a series of locked rooms and the illogical puzzles needed to open them. Occasionally, you'll encounter a tape recorder or journal to fill out the story or trigger a flashback cutscene. That's pretty much the whole game, and if the puzzles weren't so poorly designed, the story so disjointed and confusingly written, and just about everything else riddled with technical issues, that would be enough.
  • In Fear I Trust Walkthrough
    Walkthroughs
    • iOS
    In Fear I Trust Walkthrough

    By

    In Fear I Trust is a first-person puzzle adventure game from Chillingo in which you must explore and solve puzzles to progress through a horrific environment. Gamezebo's walkthrough will provide you with detailed images, tips, information, and hints on how to play your best game."
  • Doodle Kingdom Review
    Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    Doodle Kingdom Review

    By

    After several games and several million downloads under their belt, JoyBits has returned with their first new game in the Doodle series in over two years. The original Doodle God staked its claim in the gaming world by having players combine two different elements in order to create a third, and then using that third to create a fourth, and so on until a rich and resource-filled world materialized right before their very eyes. While Doodle Kingdom builds upon this tried and true formula with a fresh thematic twist, the game also tries a few new things to usher in this latest era in the Doodle universe as well.This time around, there are an initial 116 elements to discover across 13 different categories, and if you're a fan of any Doodle game before it, then the odds are you'll feel right at home in this one. Things start out simple enough, with your typical "Human + Forest = Berries and Lumber" equations, until the main draw of Doodle Kingdom begins to kick in: the medieval fantasy elements! Given its name, the game has an inherently medieval theme, and a lot of the elements you'll discover fit into this mold perfectly: from Golems and Dwarves, to Catapults and Forges, to even Unicorns and a Pegasus. It's certainly a breath of fresh air for the game and the series, and one that really ramps up the challenge by forcing you to push your imagination to its limit (related: if anyone knows what the heck a Unicorn can be combined with, you know where to reach me)."Luckily, Doodle Kingdom implements a fairly attractive hint system so you're never stuck for too long, with lots of good incentives to spend currency on more of these nudges in the right direction, but never any hard requirements to do so. There are three different forms of hints you can choose from in the main game: ones that reveal an element that can be created from your existing ones; another that shows two categories which currently have an undiscovered reaction between them; and a third which automatically makes a random elemental pairing for you. Each one has its own addicting benefits, and daily rewards for playing will keep your pockets full of currency to purchase more by the bundle.
  • Lost Yeti Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    Lost Yeti Review

    By

    Italy's not exactly considered a hotbed of video game development, but if Lost Yeti is any indication, it should be. This adorable retro puzzler hearkens back to a time before boob physics and ultra-realistic violence, when games were made for and played by everyone. With its pixelated, primary color approach and simple but challenging mechanics, it's like the charming descendant of games like Dig Dug and Burger Time. If not for its maddeningly repetitive (although admittedly fitting) music score and cruel "coming soon" level tease, it would get high marks all around.Lost Yeti begins as a troop of yeti (yetis?) is crossing the glacier-scape doing whatever it is yeti do. Among them is a wee, easily distracted, buck-toothed youngster. He spots a tasty popsicle, veers off the path, and—the horror!—finds himself lost. Fortunately, he has you to guide him back to safety. The gameplay here is based on three precepts: 1. Get the yeti (within an enclosed area) from his starting area to a safe zone; 2. Once the yeti starts moving, he doesn't stop until he runs into an enemy or reaches the safe zone; and 3. Every time the yeti hits a wall, he turns ninety degrees clockwise."These rules couldn't be simpler, but it's amazing how much gameplay developer Neutronized gets out of them. To start, things are fairly simple. You're given time to get your furry feet wet traversing very basic levels by manipulating ice blocks positioned within them. Even better, you get to tromp around picking up tasty popsicles before skipping along to safety. Soon enough however, you're faced with nasty things like pointy-headed blobs and fire-breathing mini-dragons who seem to have it in for you, not to mention tricky burrowing creatures and pits full of spikes. If you manage to get your baby yeti from point A to point B, you're allowed to move on; collected popsicles can be hoarded and used to buy your way past the more challenging levels.
  • ALPHA 9 Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    ALPHA 9 Review

    By

    Alpha 9 is a new grid-based word-spelling game with a sleek minimalist design and a vast dictionary full of fun words that are just waiting to be formed to score the biggest point clusters. Because why spell things at all if you don't strive to make those impressive eight-letter beasts, am I right? But despite showing off a few neat gameplay mechanics and a calmingly cool atmosphere, the lack of progression or long-term playing incentives leave this one feeling more like a breezy spelling test, rather than a full-fledged spelling bee championship.Think of a giant board of Tetris, only with each tiny individual square containing a letter that you'll need to use in order to form all of the words that your brain can possibly muster. Making words of four letters or more will clear out an entire horizontal row, while lining up three of the same letter in a vertical column will create a wildcard tile that can be used as any letter when creating your words for big points. When you're really on a roll and have cleared away more letters than you have new words to spell, you can always hold two fingers on the screen to make more letter blocks start piling on from the top at a much more rapid rate."But now the catch is that you're only ever allowed to make words horizontally, which is done by holding down on a letter and dragging your finger sideways until the word is fully highlighted. Luckily, you're also able to vertically move a single letter block up and down to whatever position you like, so long as you stay within the same column it started in. It's certainly an interesting mechanic, and one that can almost feel a little jarring at first: not only do you have horizontal words to be matching, but you also need to be mindful of all the new words that you can potentially set yourself up with by using vertical maneuvers at the very same time.At the end of each play, you'll be presented with your wordlist for that game, your highest scoring word, and how many points you scored overall. Unfortunately, the game as a whole just doesn't have enough features or long-term incentives to keep players spelling for very long. Alpha 9 currently features two different game modes: Wall and Clock. The Wall mode is easily the more exciting of the two, with flurries of letters constantly falling from the top of the screen, and players spelling until one of their vertical columns gets too tall and results in a Game Over, just like in Tetris.
  • LYNE Review
    Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    • PC
    LYNE Review

    By

    The core gameplay of minimalist puzzler LYNE is reminiscent of classic Arukone: connect two like shapes anchored at different spots on a grid via a single, unbroken line.  There are multiple shapes on the board that must be connected—triangle to triangle, square to square—without their distinctly-colored lines crossing each other.  But LYNE expands upon this basic rule in a number of ways to enhance the challenge, depth, and ingenuity of an initially simple puzzle foundation.   The most obvious of these changes is that LYNE takes place on a graph paper-like grid, allowing lines to be drawn diagonally.  In more standard Arukone games, such as Flow Free or Trainyard, each move fills an entire block and can only be dragged horizontally or vertically.  LYNE's added dimension doubles the potential moves and strategies available, creating seemingly endless options on even small game boards.To both challenge players further and guide them toward the correct path of the many available, colored spaces that match the end shapes are scattered about the grid.  Each of these must be passed through when connecting their related shapes, and can only be touched by their like-colored lines.  This means a blue square's line cannot intersect a green diamond's, but you also cannot block off access to the diamond since the green line must reach it.  The result is often long, roundabout loops where a line circles the screen before returning to an end shape only one block away, and unexpected solutions to seemingly simple challenges.
  • Monster Busters Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    Monster Busters Review

    By

    When a young boy or girl makes friends with a community of emotive gingerbread people, then you don't need me to tell you that this is a bond that lasts for life right there. So when said gingerbread friends get kidnapped and imprisoned by some evil monsters, you would naturally do anything to free your delicious pals, right? Even if it means matching hundreds of those quirky little monsters in an ever-changing castle setting. And so sets the stage for Monster Busters, a new match-3 puzzler from PurpleKiwii.In the game, players take control of a young hero with no mouth as they move up an enormous tower, making matches with colorful monsters, and saving legions of imprisoned gingerbread friends in the process. While Monster Busters might not bring that many new ideas to the genre as a whole, what it does have is a whole lot of heart, and a lighthearted design that makes playing through its some-odd 500 puzzles just downright fun."It won't take you long to get accustomed to the world of Monster Busters, as the game's basic match-3 foundation is likely something that you've already played before. Each of the six main monster types on the game board has their own elemental matching effect, although these don't seem to have any influence over the actual gameplay: for instance, matching the blue monsters will sometime result in a watery splashing effect across the area. And in true Candy Crush Saga fashion, you'll have a number of different power-ups to use at your disposal, like increased moves or toy hammers that let you smash any given monster on the game board. In addition, making matches in clusters of four and above will result in your typical vertical and horizontal bomb bonuses, etc.The different level types are also pretty much par for the course for what you would expect from the new age of Candy Crush-style match-3 games. You'll need to clear a handful of designated spaces that have been covered in ice. You'll match a set number of specific monster types before the timer or your move limit runs out. And of course, you'll make matches to drop helpless gingerbread friends to the bottom of the game board, among a few other examples. But perhaps the coolest level type you'll come across in Monster Busters is the occasional boss fight, which places a giant green monster smack-dab in the middle of the game board and tasks you with chipping away at his health bar by making adjacent matches.
  • Detective Grimoire Review
    Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    • PC
    Detective Grimoire Review

    By

    There has been a murder.  Richard Remington, the owner of the swampland tourist attraction Boggy's Bog, has been killed in the murky, mushy trenches outside his office.  The only suspect to start is Boggy himself, the legendary swamp creature that inspired the creation of the vacation destination and who may or may not actually exist.  As the eponymous Detective Grimoire, it's your job to explore Boggy's Bog, investigate the murder, and nab the culprit—human or myth.Players familiar with SFB Games' (formerly Super Flash Bros) 2007 Flash game of the same name will recognize the gameplay in Detective Grimoire.  A simplified and streamlined point-and-click adventure, much of your investigation is spent traveling around the swamp, examining beautifully animated scenes, locating clues, and interrogating potential suspects. While both Detective Grimoire and its Flash inspiration revolve around solving a murder in an amusement park, this newest entry into Grimoire's case history presents an entirely new story, cast of characters, and challenges, as well as a different, larger, and more fleshed-out world.  All of the dialogue is charmingly voiced, backstories are deeper, and mysteries more elusive.  At the same time, Grimoire fans will be treated to playful nods to the original, from jabs at Officer James's facial hair to an uncanny red-headed sidekick.This successful combination of lighthearted jokes and a weighty murder mystery keeps Detective Grimoire consistently engrossing.  While Grimoire finds himself in a variety of scenic-yet-creepy locations, from a darkened office lined with shadowy animal heads to a teetering bridge supporting one lone house, the mood of his investigation is upbeat and often humorous.  His tone with suspects is more confused than accusatory, and their reactions are unperturbed caricatures.