Another point and click release by Telltale Games, the masters of the genre. This time they delve a little into the more out of step area with logic puzzles taking presidence and frequently too. How does this game fare? Watch our video review.

Indie games seem to be the current vogue. With the rise of online content such as Xbox Live Arcade and Facebook applications it’s not hard to understand why new developers are dipping their toes in the water. Some indie titles have even been put up against their multi-million dollar contemporaries in recent award shows.  And in that respect it’s just as easy to understand why the competition is feral.

Enter Astroslugs. Created by Munich-based developers Bit Barons and released on January 27^th 2011 Astroslugs is a puzzle game in its purest incarnation that takes simplicity to an art form. This is a first release for Bit Barons which is evidenced in the titles modest budget, but the main focus of a game such as this is to not only allow the developers to get their name out into the community by having something cheap and simple, but to also instil that age-old philosophy of games being instinctively fun.

It's no 'Halo 3'...but look on the bright side...it's no 'Halo 3'!

Astroslugs does have a story, though. Maybe developers are frightened that people will be put off purchasing their digital offspring unless there is some plot or incentive. This works for just about every current generation game but the prospect of a good old-fashioned puzzler in the vain of something PopCaps-esque doesn’t seem to warrant a story arc.

However, that’s not to say the story is out of place. It ties in nicely with the theme and in some respects gives the impression of some design integrity. And if it does serve as an incentive for people to purchase the game then who am I to argue? (An unemployed alcoholic is the answer to that folks!)

The story goes thusly: Rather incompetent, yet apparently evil, alien slugs make haste to try and leave their home planet in order to conquer the universe (oh, those precocious alien types!).  But in order to leave in their ship it must be re-fuelled. You play as a young slug archaeologist set with the task of solving the enigma of the slugballs and to also ponder why there isn’t a Texaco garage anywhere on the planet.

The game is split into different worlds which must be unlocked, each with a certain number of levels. Levels consist of a series of slugballs arranged in a particular pattern on-screen. The object is to then draw the required shapes into the grey slugballs to colour and light them up. Left-clicking and dragging will form the shape. So for example, dragging down four slugballs will make a straight line four slugballs in length and drawing an L-shape will create that particular shape.

The level is complete when all the slugballs are coloured with each shape that needs to be drawn, leaving no grey slugballs in place. Completion of each round counts towards the goal of filling up the ship with fuel.

From a distance you could almost fool your boss into thinking this was a spreadsheet...

It’s quite a challenging little game but without the usual pitfalls of seething frustration that a lot of other puzzlers tend to come with. And I think that’s because of Astroslugs’ innocence factor. Simplicity works best in this instance and it doesn’t seem to boast any hidden agendas or themes. It might not be as slick or as innovative as something like 2D Boy’s 2008 title World of Goo but what it lacks in pretentiousness it more than makes up for in terms of fun and quick entertainment.

And for that reason I feel that the game verges more on – what I like to call – a ‘tea break’ game. The kind of puzzle adventure one can load up and play a few rounds of whilst the (evidently rather slow) kettle boils. It is to quick-gaming that crosswords and Sudoku puzzles are to coffee breaks at work.

This is, unfortunately, where the game falls down slightly. With the budget as minimal as it appears and its design toned down to meet the requirements of a simplistic game it does raise a red flag at all the loading screens that dominate in-between levels. There are no cut scenes and the game runs directly from my HDD and given the low hardware spec that is required it’s hard to envisage what is actually loading during these down times.

Also, if you’re like me (pray that you’re not!) beware of running the game in windowed (rather than full-screen) mode. Clicking off the window to check on background progress (don’t ask, don’t tell) will pause the game automatically for you. This is a neat feature but it’s worth mentioning that it also pauses during the loading screens. Something which says to me that nothing is actually being loaded in the background if it can be paused like that.

That aside, for a meagre price of £8.99 (EUR 9.99 and $13.99), Bit Barons have still got some potential for future products and Astroslugs is something that can easily stack alongside already available titles such as PopCap’s Bookworm or Bejewelled series. Give them a greater budget and some faith and they will scale grand horizons to find their own feet.

Astroslugs is available for download at http://www.astroslugs.com

Find more info about Bit Barons at http://www.bitbarons.com

Quicklik is a gorgeous little Korean puzzle game in which you match corresponding images to whatever you’re tasked with.

The game has two modes; Classic and Crazy Mode. The second comes with a warning that it is meant for experienced players only and starting this mode you’ll see why.

Classic Mode is slower paced than Crazy. Atop the screen will be a bar with a Kitten’s face or a picture of a Peach with “x X” where X is the number you have to reach to move on to the next level. “Kitten x5” obviously means tap 5 kittens, just thought I’d explain that for you slower folk.

The classic mode will try and throw you a curve ball occasionally and instead of showing a picture it will just give the word. When you tap an image, it’s removed from the board but always replaced with another, sometimes the same image.

Crazy Mode is a little more intense. It will do things such as show a color and you must tap everything with the requested color to move on. Sometimes the word will pop up but with a letter missing, it isn’t hard to figure out the word but if you’re going on a diminishing time limit, it can throw your concentration off. The more common ones are just a word like “Animal” or “Glasses” and well, you know what to do.

It IS a puzzle game, which means there will be items both good and bad.

Time will do just as it says, gives you more time.
Find will show you the images for the current mission.
Arainbow star will reduce the number of images, making that round easier.
A skull and cross bones with a red X will remove any bad item.

What are the bad items you ask?
A cloud will show up on the screen and you’ll have to drag it away in order to continue.
Blackened graffiti will cover areas and you’ll have to quickly rub it away.
Ice is probably more annoying as you’ll tap this item several times to finally break away.

As fun as this game is, its cutesy art style, music, and sound effects will make you feel like a prepubescent Japanese girl when playing. Besides the art direction which will throw your gender into question, the simplicity of the game is what makes it so addicting.
The images will shake and dance as you tap them out leaving a cloudy effect and a satisfying “Combo!” with each match and “Lucky!” when you complete a match. Continuing a chain will cause the overly cute voice to shout out “Nice!” or “Excellent!” It’s nice to play a game that’s actually boring without the sound.

At only $1, this is a great buy and is one of my favorite puzzle games on the app store. I’d highly recommend it if you’re looking for something fast paced with little learning curve to just pick up and stop whenever you’re on the go.

One of my favourite games on the Amiga and Atari ST was this cute addictive action puzzler called Pang. The premise of the game was simple; you shot harpoons vertically up with your character at a bunch of bouncing balls. They would pop into smaller balls until they eventually disappeared through continual popping. Sounds like a very basic game but it had layers of strategy, had us touring famous landmarks as we progressed and also had an amazing soundtrack. Much to my surprise the game has a rebirth on the Nintendo DS.

This time round we meet an all new character called Michael who has been stylised to look like a cross between Willy Wonka and a pimp. It is an odd choice of character that doesn’t add to the games likeability one iota. Couple this with the irritating sound and unfunny one liner’s and you already have the workings for a revival that has put me off. In the original pang you play a small kid that looks to be wearing a type of Safari uniform, end level screens will show the character very happy at your progress with his overly anime eyes bulging. It was an endearing character that had attention to detail. Why the developers felt the need to toy with the original creation seems a little absurd and to completely ruin the character re-design really lets the game down in the overall picture.

Much of the core game play remains unspoilt and instead of your character using harpoons they’ll use magical spells that can vary from twenty different available options. Throughout our time playing the game we witnessed fire, vines which would stay on the game area, a slow down power-up and a very cool card fanning trick which really helped you out under pressure. These power-ups could be used consecutively to further the strategy within the game. The main appeal about Magical Michael Pang is the gameplay elements themselves. If you think just bursting balls as fast as possible is the best way to go, you will die easily. As you pop the balls they will multiply into smaller balls and the game area can really become rather intense. Given that you will die if any of the balls touch you, really makes this action puzzler a thinking mans game, but one that can be played by all ages.

One new welcomed addition is the fact that play will take place on both of the DS screens on the majority of levels, as you progress you’ll be climbing ladders attempting to pop balls from two platforms. Balls have their own variety and physical properties too which you’ll need to learn over time. The games tour mode does set you going through major continent landmarks. Unfortunately the cheap presentation style does not help tour mode’s appeal but you will unlock the hair tearing difficult hard mode if you persist. Graphically the game is very weak indeed, landmarks are badly stylised and lack real colour depth creating in an experience that you’ll really struggle wanting to complete as even the grading system fails to ignite the interest either. The game does have quite a ‘bang’ for its £20.00 buck though, 40 tour mode levels, 99 levels in panic mode and then you have the single cart and multi-cart multiplayer.

The multiplayer offers competitive play in abundance, we really enjoyed putting the pressure on the opponents screen with a continual assault of ball popping and panic mode is great if you want a long session. Pang also offers the same addictive co-operative play the original had, though the levels created were not so much created with co-operative in mind, so there is no real rewarding experience for playing this game in a co-op manner.

Magical Michael Pang for the DS is a good game but one that lacks the polish both in the audio and graphic department to become a true DS classic, more attention to detail in this department (in particularly finding a voice over artist that you don’t want to punch in the nose) and it could have been our crested four star mark, as it stands it just falls short.

Get lost in Limbo!

Dark, gritty and an art style that could only be described as the end product if Tim Burton and a 1920’s film maker were to copulate, Playdead’s Limbo XBLA puzzle plat former is one heck of a game. Clocking in at around 3-5 hours completion time, this game has so much charm and unique character that it’s worth every penny of your 1200 Microsoft points. Limbo is one of the most unique looking games on Microsoft’s downloadable platform since Braid, some are describing it as the 2010 Braid, I’d like to think of it as better than Braid myself.

Limbo’s game play doesn’t use any special fandangle concept. It’s game play is simple by design. You can jump, push and pull objects and move your character. Where the games challenge lies is that there are no screen prompts, no hints on how to progress but instead the game relies on you dying to figure out the best method to get past all manner of Spiders, flaming bows and crumbling chasms. Constantly dying is rewarded with painful deaths that aren’t as gore ridden as everything is in black and white. Where the game doesn’t frustrate is the fact that when you do die a painful death you are taken back within yards of where you actually died, no punishment for the learning the error in your ways.

Everything in Limbo is grey and black and the artist has used some blurring to create partial foreground and backgrounds to create a sense of entrapment. The puzzle elements are rather clever, in the opening stages to the game you’ll have to experiment with bear traps to chop the spiders legs or use them to propel you to a higher platform by setting a trap under a bending branch. These elements are very clever to say the least. The game also uses your dexterity by testing your reflexes and quick reaction skills to falling objects, set traps and breaking platforms.

Concept for the Sewer

One of the most impressive elements in the game is the sound. It creates an atmospheric experience using a minimal amount of score. The spiders sharp feet crashing down on you is a jumpy moment, but these subtle touches will be wasted on you if you don’t wear some form of headset or surround sound system. Independent developers never cease to amaze me, without them we would have some very dull experiences indeed. Limbo has given the XBLA platform a real fresh vibe this year and hopefully with any luck we’ll return to Limbo or another world in some fashion by the developers Playdead. If the game lacks anything, it’s a sense of story. Your character wakes up from the ground nursing its head in wonderment of where he is, your job is to find your sister upon the Limbo world but that never seems apparent throughout. Is it that big of a deal? Definitely not! I’d be happy to play this game and not have a single clue about my character. Just to play in this dark and sordid world is a pleasure in itself. Cliché as it sounds your money will not be in ‘Limbo’ by buying this title!

If you’re bored of generic puzzle games on the iPhone like myself and are in seek of something new, then developer Handy Game’s “IQ Knights” might catch your eye. Moving away from the exhausted Match-3 games genre, IQ Knights is a game that will really test your intellect and give your brain a workout.

The premise of the game is that you are a Knight in a castle and start in the lowly ground of the Courtyard. Solving 8 puzzles successfully moves you to the next room, with each room upgrading your status until you eventually reach the Throne room and battle to become King of the castle. With each new room you enter, the difficulty of the puzzles rises.

The puzzles themselves have you moving a dice through the castles “battlefields”, in other words a grid, guiding the dice to an indicated tile to win the puzzle and progress to the next level. The catch is that you can only move the dice the number of tiles shown by the number that is currently displayed on the dice; for example, if 6 dots appear on the dice, you can only move your dice 6 tiles horizontally or vertically. To make the situation harder, enemy foes are added to the game that can eliminate your dice from the board if you land close by and the number on their dice exceeds yours. Having to take this dilemma into account whilst thinking your next move adds to the difficulty of the game. Having to guide multiple dice at the same time aswell as other small tasks such as freeing shackled dices and landing on certain tiles to free a path all provide nice twists to the gameplay.

The game contains 56 puzzles to solve, with the first 8 of these introducing you to the game and acting as a tutorial. IQ Knights can be seen as quite a complex game so it’s fortunate that these tutorial levels are well made and introduce you to the game at a steady pace. A few more simple levels follow and then the difficulty level seems to rise dramatically. I had a hard time completing the first 20 puzzles in the game, let alone solving all 56 and becoming the King of the castle! Using logic and thinking a couple of moves ahead is the key to success in IQ Knights. Trial and error will get you through the first couple of lives, but to solve the more complicated tasks in the latter stages, you’ll have to get your Chess brain in gear.

The replayability of the game is good due to a scoring system being implemented similar to the sport Golf’s scoring system. A par is set for each level, and if you complete the puzzle below the set par, you will get bonus points for that puzzle. Once you have completely the game or get stuck on a certain puzzle, you can always go back to previous puzzles and try to better your score. You can upload your highscores to online leaderboards and see where you rank amongst the best Knights in the world; higher than myself, I bet!

The graphics are sharp with some nice textures on show. The whole style of the game fits well with the theme Handy Games have aimed for. The animations are smooth and the menus extremely easy to navigate. Visually, my only negative comment is the lack of originality throughout the game. The puzzle backgrounds stay the same throughout each room you visit and this can become a tad tedious after a while. A small variation once in a while wouldn’t have hurt the game and possibly made it a bit more entertaining to play; over longer periods certainly. The audio fits in well with the game and can be turned off at both the main menu and in-game if you prefer to solve in silence. Unfortunately you’re not able to listen to music from your iPod whilst playing the game which is a shame; but to be honest, blasting out some heavy metal and attempting to divulge some tricky puzzles doesn’t really go hand in hand.

IQ Knights is priced at $2.99/£1.79 which seems just about right for the amount of content and replayability the game has. If you’re looking for a puzzle game different to the rest and something to give your brain a good workout, I recommend checking out IQ Knights. However, if you’re a casual gamer and have a short temperament and concentration span, stay well away.

Puzzle games seem to be dominating handheld gaming consoles in modern times due to allowing short and sharp gameplay sessions and generally providing fun and addictive gameplay. Match-3 games in particular, where you have to move pieces around screen and match 3 in a row in order to progress, have been extremely popular on the iPhone with fantastic games such as Bejewelled 2, Tetris and Trism having already been released for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s now Paradise Quest’s turn to step up to the plate. How does the latest Match-3 game from developer I-play compete in an already crowded market?

The goal in Paradise Quest is to restore an exotic island called Isabella to its former beauty by reviving the eco-system and attracting back the wildlife the island once had. You do this by collecting vital resources such as water, wood and food via swapping and sliding 3 identical tiles to form a line with each other. Sounds the same as any other Match-3 game except pictures instead of generic shapes you might be thinking? The main ingredient which sets Paradise Quest and other Match-3 games apart is the exploring aspect of the game. Everytime you successfully collect some vital resource and make a match, the board glides in the direction of the match you made and reveals another part of the map. This feature makes you think about your next move to ensure you don’t get stuck in certain parts of the map and explore everything the island has to offer.

Collecting certain amounts of objects and creating large matches awards you with special powers such as tornadoes and earthquakes, which when unleashed, remove a significant amount of tiles from board. These “power-ups” add a nice twist to the gameplay. Speaking of nice twists, night time levels provide a welcomed change and make exploring the map a challenge.

Paradise Quest contains 40 levels for you to play through and fully revitalise the island Isabella. As you complete these levels and revive the island, you’ll attract back wildlife to Isabella. You can view pictures of the animals you’ve attracted by opening a journal find near the main menu of the game; a pointless feature, but a nice one at that. Also in this journal you can view your highscores and any artifacts and achievements you have unlocked through playing the game.

My main concern with Paradise Quest and one which potentially puts me off playing the game is the lack of a clear objective to complete each level. I must have spent at least 30 minutes on a particular level making matches and collecting tons of resources without progressing to the next level or a new area. There isn’t an objective screen in the game and this left me thinking what to do next? Boredom and frustration eventually set in which led me to switching the game off. This is a huge shame because Paradise Quest provides some addictive gameplay, but if there is no progression in the game, it might put a few people off.

If I-play’s Paradise Quest does draw you in and leave you wanting more after you’ve completed all 40 levels on offer and restored the island to it’s former beauty, you can make an in-game micro-transaction purchase of £0.59 which adds a further 20 levels to the game; 11 of these levels set in the daytime and 9 at night. Multiplayer co-op mode via Wifi and Bluetooth has also been promised via a free update and is likely to arrive later this month (February). I can imagine playing Paradise Quest with a friend will be great fun and this supposed update will definitely bring me back to the game.

If Match-3 puzzle games are your passion, Paradise Quest is worth checking out at its current price of £1.19. Some addictive gameplay is coupled with a new navigation system which works well. 40 levels should provide a decent amount of gameplay, and a free multiplayer update is due out soon. Recommended if you’re a keen puzzle game fan.

3.8/5 stars

Everybody loves a puzzle game, right? Afterall, it’s nice to have a break from all of the mindless violence associated with the majority of mainstream games these days. The Appstore contains hundreds of puzzle games to give your brain a workout, but how does developer CandyCane’s game called Fling compare to the rest?

Fling consists of thousands of small puzzles where you must “fling”, meaning to flick or push, cute ball-shaped characters called furballs into each other and knock them off the screen. The puzzle is successfully completed when only one furball remains on the screen. To make proceedings slightly harder, the furballs can only be flinged in straight lines, and you are not allowed to bump neighbouring furballs together.

3 game modes are offered in Fling. Free Play allows the casual gamer to solve the puzzles at their own leisurely pace. The game keeps track of which puzzles you fail to solve and allows you to come back to them at any time, helping to avoid the frustration of being stuck on one particular puzzle for too long. In Arcade mode, you are rewarded with time bonuses and points everytime you complete a puzzle. The aim is to crank up your highest possible score before running out of time. As you solve more puzzles, the difficulty level increases which will more than likely have you spending more time on each level; nervously trying to work out the puzzle as you watch the circular timer swiftly running out.

Challenge mode gives you the task of solving a certain amount of puzzles before a time limit runs out. For example, you have 3 puzzles at level 3 difficulty to solve in 2 minutes. The further you progress in challenge mode, the harder tasks you are set, with an example being you have to solve 5 puzzles at level 6 difficulty within 3 minutes. The 3 game modes offer a great variety of gameplay for whatever mood you’re in. You can play Free Play for a relaxing game or choose one of the other two modes if you feel like a challenge and pushing yourself, beating your friends and your highscores and giving your brain a great workout.

If you’re struggling to find the solution on a certain puzzle, you can use a “hint” which provides you with the next correct move to make. To avoid you constantly using hints and cheating your way through the levels, you are limited to the number of hints accessible to you during Arcade and Challenge game modes. Using a hint in Free Play will make the puzzle class as failed, but allows you to see the solution so you can easily complete it at the next attempt.

The game is extremely accessible to all due to hints and a good variety of difficulty levels and therefore the game acts as a terrific pick up and play when you have a spare few minutes to kill. The gameplay reminds me of chess, due to you having to think a considerable number of steps ahead in order to solve the harder puzzles. A lot of trial and error will be needed, with an undo button being available if you take a wrong step. The undo button is a fantastic feature in my opinion as it keeps the momentum of the game flowing nicely and allows you to backtrack quickly instead of having to start a puzzle from the beginning.

Fling’s graphics are beautiful and suit the genre of the game perfectly. The textures in the game are brilliant and you can noticeably see that the furballs are made of fur and the grass which they sit on has grown in different directions. The animations are fun to watch, and you will notice furballs which aren’t in use blinking their eyes which is a nice little touch.

The audio in Fling is bearable and a decent soundtrack, but as with any puzzle game, the music can become annoying when heard over a long period of game time. CandyCane have thought about this and allow you to listen to music from your iPod whilst playing Fling so you can solve puzzles and listen to your favourite tunes simultaneously.

Fling is currently available for a mere £0.59p and I highly recommend picking the game up if have even the slightest of interest in puzzle games. The beautiful graphics and solid gameplay mechanics mould together to make EASILY one of the best puzzlers available on the iPhone. There is a free version to try before you part with your pocket change. You owe it to yourself to at least try the free version! Highly recommended.