90°: Turn the wrench to match the station, and get to the light at the end.
90° – $.99 (universal app)
90° reminds me a little bit of Trainyard, another great puzzle game with spare but elegant graphics, and a simple premise that leads to complex puzzles. On each level, you have a funny-shaped “wrench” which can turn 90° at a time. The wrench may have a number of different shaped holes in it, corresponding to the “stations” scattered around the level. Turn the wrench, fit it to a different station, and swing it around some more. The ultimate goal of each level is to turn on the light at the end, which requires getting to the switch and turning it to the proper orientation. Along the way, you can also collect energy units — these increase your score and the number of stars you’re awarded for completing the level.
The trick of 90° is that you only get a certain number of rotations to solve each level. Run out before you reach the end, and you lose. The beginning levels are fairly easy to solve, and only require a little more extra thinking to collect all the energy units. But on later levels, you’ll find yourself spinning in circles to get all the intermediate switches turned on. There are stations which can only be turned in one direction, or stations which require you to spin 270°, using three of your rotations at once. There are even stations which will self-destruct if you stay connected to them for too long.
The app includes sixty levels, and although I’ve been playing for a while, I’m still five shy of completing the game. There are a couple that are maddeningly difficult, and I should probably get out paper and pencil to work out the directions I’ll need to rotation various switches. If you like challenging puzzles, 90° is a treat.
Fractal: make "blooms" to clear the board, but don't run out of moves.
Fractal: Make Blooms Not War – $2.99 (iPad only)
Fractal is a little hard to explain, but it’s a puzzle/arcade game from Cipher Prime, who specialize in games that are beautiful both visually and aurally. In Fractal, you have an area of hexagons, randomly filled with little colored hexagons called “fractals.” Whenever you tap an empty space or a space on the perimeter, everything is shoved outwards one space from where you tap, with new fractals appearing. When you get a “bloom,” a flower-shaped patch of seven fractals in one color, then it disappears, scoring you points. The blooms explode outward, which means you can set up chain reactions for lots of points.
There are three game modes: campaign, puzzle, and arcade. In Campaign, each level gives you a limited number of pushes to use, with which you need to achieve a certain score to pass. Puzzle has specific objectives to accomplish based on the set-up of the level. Arcade gives you unlimited pushes, but a limited amount of time, and you only get more time by passing levels or getting the time powerups. You can see a more detailed description here on Cipher Prime’s website.
It took me a little while to figure out exactly what was going on, since there aren’t any explicit instructions. There are little doodles and sketches that nudge you in the right direction. Even knowing how the game works, it’s still not easy to figure out the best place to tap for the most effective push. And trying to do that with a short time limit in Arcade mode is pretty crazy. But if you’re up for an interesting challenge, give Fractal a shot and see how far you can bloom.
Piece Me Dinosaurs: the third installment of the art-focused puzzle app for kids.
Piece Me Dinosaurs – $.99 (universal app)
Ok, here’s an app that is literally puzzles. It’s not a mind-twister; it’s just a jigsaw puzzle for kids. But it’s still pretty cool.
I previously wrote about the Piece Me series of puzzle apps, which are simple puzzle apps aimed at young kids. What’s cool about them is that there’s a focus on the artwork and the artists behind the visuals. Piece Me Dinosaurs is the third in the series. You get puzzle versions of seven different dinos, mostly the well-known ones like triceratops, T. Rex, and stegosaurus. The artwork is by Benjamin Burch, and I really like the style. Each dinosaur comes in several pieces, with faint outlines showing where the pieces will go. The pieces click into place when you get them close enough to the right spot, and once the puzzle is assembled the name is displayed and announced out loud as the dinosaur moves around. The triceratops even shakes the whole screen as it stomps its foot.
There are tons of puzzle apps for kids out there, and many of them are about equivalent as far as the interface and controls go. I’m a fan of the Piece Me apps, though, because of the descriptions of the artists, giving them a face and a story.
Disclosure: GeekDad received review cords for Snake Slider, The Lost Shapes, 90°, and Piece Me Dinosaurs.
