Puzzlings (iPhone) Review

Costas Stephanides’s Review

A worthy match three game that uses almost everything that the iPhone has to offer.

Match three games are extremely common on the App Store and why not.
Most people will be generally aware of the basic concpet and if not, it's pretty easy to pick up anyway. To stand out from the crowd though, you either need a big brand/PC title behind you or come up with something pretty original.

Well, Puzzlings does stand out from the crowd and as I've never heard of it before you can guess that it must be pretty original. It does take some inspiration from Little Big Planet with the main character being a cross between Sackboy and Morph. As you travel across the 8 lands, completing challenges, outfits are unlocked to customise your character. This customisation is a big part of the game; there are plenty of different eyes, noses, clothes and accessories to personalise your otherwise naked dude/dudette. Life is all about sharing, so Puzzlings lets you pose your character and take a snap to save to your photo roll to stick on Facebook. It is silly but even a grown man like me found it fun.

That is all really a side issue, if the puzzle aspect isn't enjoyable, then the game loses straight away. Thankfully the game is great fun to play with a teasing difficulty level. The aim is to fill the bar at the top of the screen by matching three or more like blocks and hopefully build a few chains as well. When the bar is full, four quadrants of a broken circle will appear within the grid and you have to move the pieces to complete the circle - complete two circles and the level is complete. Completing a circle will unlock an item and if you manage to complete the level in a fast time, a bonus item is unlocked. Each of the 8 lands has three of these levels, a challenge level (where you need to complete four circles) and finally a puzzle level. This one is similar to Bejeweled where you have a set number of moves to clear the screen.

The graphics throughout are excellent and the overall fun theme makes it a joy to play. The controls are also very nice and it's just a simple touch and drag to select two blocks to swap. The game also lets you rotate sections of the area by drawing out a box. Later levels have more colours and differently sized blocks and the rotating becomes a useful tool.

Making your way through to the last land is not problematic as you can skip a few levels in each land. However, if you want to unlock every accessory, a perfect game of speed and skill is required. It's a toughie but you will be rewarded with plenty of bragging rights.