iPhone Apps

Ok, I know this supposed to be a blog on PC games. But for the last month and a half, I have been playing logic/puzzle games on my iPhone. These games are a great way to kill a few minutes, and the iPhone is a convenient platform. You can get a level or two in anytime or anywhere. Also, the iPhone allows for simple intuitive interfaces.

Here are five games for the iPhone, ordered from great to good. One interesting thing is that many of them are ports from PC versions which I have already reviewed.

Masyu


This is my favorite iPhone game so far. Masyu falls into the class of so called Japanese puzzles. The goal is to form a loop which goes straight at each white circle and makes a turn at each black square. There are some additional constraints so read the instructions. This is my favorite game so far. There are 60 puzzles, they are great, and I wish there were more. There were even two puzzles which I thought were impossible. I highest complement possible for any level designer.

Enigmo



I had previously reviewed the PC version of Enigmo. The port to the iPhone is very faithful. I have not played all of the levels, but it plays very similar to the original. The iPhone interface is perfect and has made this one of the most popular downloads at the apps store. Add to that, the graphics and audio are top notch.

CubicMan




This is a Bloxorz clone. You have to roll a 2x1x1 object to the target tile. They add a couple of twists. For example, there are triggers which raise other tiles allowing passage to the target. The puzzles are good, but you have to complete them in order.

The interface on CubicMan is odd. You zoom by touching the the screen with 2 or 3 fingers. I can never remember which is zoom in and which is zoom out. Panning is similary odd. It makes playing the game difficult. With a better interface, say use the accelerometers to rotate and pinch to zoom, this could have been a great game.

Lumen



Lumen is a puzzle game in the class of Aargon Deluxe and Chromatron. I played the demo version of PC version of Lumen a while back, but did not think it was worth $10. However for $2, I was willing to try the iPhone version. I was underwhelmed with this version. First, the iPhone port supports only 7x7 boards. Second, the colors are hard to make out which can be annoying with games of this nature. Still there are ton of good puzzles available.

PuzzleManiak




PuzzleManiak has ported many of Simon Tatham's Puzzle Collection to the iPhone. Simon Tatham is not directly involved and is not getting any of the money from sales of these games. In a quick email exchange, Simon indicated that this is allowed by the MIT License under which he released his collection, and he does not seemed bothered by it. To be fair, PuzzleManiak gives him credit for the writing the "game engine" on the about screen. However, they did not include a copy of the license as required.

I have only purchased two games from the collection: Galaxies and Unequal. Both are very good ports. PuzzleManiak added a couple of nice features to both game. One being a daily web challenge. Your score on the daily puzzle can be uploaded, and you can see just how good you are. I am not very good at either game.