Automachef is one of these factory-type game where you place structures and mechanisms around to solve puzzles, using conveyor belts, resource generators and combiners in order to fulfill specific requirements and move to the next stage. In this case the theming is around food, having you cook meat and combine it with bread and cheese in order to deliver burgers, for instance. I really didn’t have a good time with it, I found the mechanisms to be a bit too finnicky and the tutorial didn’t prepare me adequately for the rest of the game (or the game just wasn’t clear about what it wanted).
Islands of Insight is a really interesting idea, what if you played a big puzzle game, with a ton of different puzzle types, challenges, exploration and progression, but it also was massively multiplayer, somehow? Moving a character around the environments, looking for puzzles to complete, discovering new puzzle types, acquiring skills and cosmetics and solving more complex and difficult versions of puzzles you’re used to. It’s really interesting, and it kinda works! Not a hundred percent, but I had a really good time with this one.
Patrick’s Parabox is an amazing puzzle game with a simple concept that grows over time in complexity, but always in a fun, logical way. I had a blast with it, almost beating all the included puzzles in the game and thinking about it for a while after the credits were over. It wasn’t -perfect- perfect, but it was damned close and I almost only have good things to say about it. Really good music and sound design too!
Exapunks is another neat little Zachtronics game about programming and solving complex puzzles through an interesting storyline about hacking, capitalism, physical media and the like. Much like their previous games, such as TIS-100, you’ll tackle challenges, write code using a small vocabulary - that still allows a lot to be done - and get ranked amongst your friends and the global player base. I had a good time with it, although I found the back-and-forth between a PDF and the game a bit tedious and got stuck fairly early.
McPixel 3 is the sequel to a puzzle game I really enjoyed back in the day; McPixel 1. Filled with humor and surprising nonsense, you had to solve a bunch of levels where there was some danger or situation that needed to be defused, oftentimes in strange ways. There was a great element of replaying levels in order to find all the gags hidden away. The sequel fares really well, but adds a few systems that I didn’t particularly enjoy and fumbles on a few minor things, which luckily doesn’t make a big hit on my overall appreciation. I did everything there was to do in McPixel 3 and I strongly recommend it!
Square Valley is a solid puzzler for iOS where you place tiles around a map, draw roads and rivers and try to maximize your score to hit a certain target with the constraints of the level you are in. I had a lot of fun with it, even tho I feel like the game could’ve worded some stuff a bit better and surfaced more data overall. It was still a pretty inventive and interesting game!
Knotwords is a little crossword puzzle-like game on iOS where instead of finding words using hints for lines and rows, you have to ‘untangle’ weirdly shaped ‘knots’ of words on a big grid, which ultimately leads to words appearing on lines and rows. For a free game with a premium unlock, I had a ton of fun, but only when I finally activated a feature that helped me know if my words were correct - the game was a bundle of knots before that! Aha.
Tetris on iOS, it’s not that great. The controls are fine, but it’s just another free to play game filled with everything you’d expect that really does detract from the fun of playing Tetris. I would’ve gladly paid 5 dollars to play some Tetris in peace. Maybe I should just dig up Tetris DS again!
DEATHLOOP is an interesting first person shooter based around the concept of all taking place around one single day where your character is trying to break the loop by finding and killing 7 specific people. Combining puzzles, exploration and combat, it is a fine experience that I almost dropped because I wasn’t sure how to proceed, but I’m glad I stuck with it. The more interesting elements of the game were definitely its lore and puzzles, and I’ve found the combat and character upgrades/customization to be a bit lacking.
Minit is a pretty cool adventure/puzzle game inspired by some of the classic Legend of Zelda titles with a very interesting twist; What if your character could only be alive for 60 seconds before automatically dying and respawning at your house? Playing with this core mechanic to create a really interesting puzzle game that does not overextend its welcome, you go around the map, collecting items, figuring mysteries around, fighting some foes and ultimately get rid of the curse that makes you die constantly. I really enjoyed it!
At the core of Outer Wilds is a very interesting and unique idea about exploring space, figuring out clues, solving puzzles and ultimately making sense of the whole universe. Playing as a newly minted astronaut in a colorful, rich world, you visit many planets in a solar system trapped in a time loop, visiting ruins, absorbing lore and hints, working strange machines and dodging danger along the way. I really like the idea in theory, but what I ultimately played left a sour taste of confusion in my mouth, probably due to my own lack of spatial coordination.
Bleentoro is a strange, yet interesting puzzle game inspired by Factorio playable on iOS. In each level you need to create factories in order to meet specific objectives, usually related to creating a certain number of a specific resource under a certain time. Starting simple enough with a bunch of new mechanics getting added as you progress through the levels, poor controls and confusing inconsistencies prevented me to fully wrap my head around the game, even if I did have a good time with it.
The Chronos Principle is a real neat little puzzle game based on sliding a square around increasingly complex levels in order to reach a goal with the twist that levels have a number of “tries” that you get and that each previous try affects the game area while you’re trying to reach the end. Moving squares in specific positions to act as stoppers for your following tries, so you can get in different places. You’ll also have barriers that can only be traversed by your previous tries, and other puzzle elements such as these. I quite enjoyed it, even if the core idea of having multiple tries being tied to real time.
Dungeon Falan is a game I feel like I’ve played a dozen of times so far in my long iOS journey; You fight enemies by sliding your finger across tiles that can be swords, shields, money or potions, accumulating resources, leveling up and damaging foes along the way. You have a wide array of stats, skills and items to help you, but ultimately your foes will overwhelm you and you’ll have to start over. This is an okay one of these, which in those times of idle games is a breath of fresh air, but some of the design decisions they took were a bit weird for me.
Opus Magnum is a wonderful puzzle game by Zachtronics about creating alchemical products using reagents and tools that you can program. I didn’t get too much into the whole ‘optimization’ thing this time around, but I did beat the game and some of the optional puzzles. It was a ton of fun and I would 100% recommend it to everyone who enjoys puzzles in the slightest. The export to gif feature (which allows you to create animated gifs of your solutions) is also genius.
VMOD is a simple little puzzle game for iOS where the goal is to activate all buttons on each level. The game goes through a bunch of new mechanics up until the end, so it never gets too boring, but after a while I’ve found that it became difficult for me to properly solve the puzzles, so I did a bit of mindless mashing in some instances. Nevertheless, it’s an okay game and I had some fun with it.
Miracle Merchant is a quite simple puzzle game about brewing potions using cards from four colored decks in order to meet the specific requirements of your stylish clients and get enough points on each turn to continue until you eventually run out of cards. To make things more difficult, you have cursed cards that remove points when you play them - but you sometimes need to - and a few more special cards effects to consider in order to maximize your potion-brewing capabilities. I had a good time with this game, feeling like the great core mechanics weren’t supplemented by enough meat around the bone.
Lucifer Within Us is a puzzle game that delivers a twist on the Phoenix Wright style of investigative mystery inside a strange cyber-religious setting where you play an inquisitor tasked of finding demons possessing. The game has some neat aesthetics and good writing, but it overall left me a bit perplexed, as much on the ultimate finer points of the story, the difficulty and overall length of the game and the core mechanics that bring everything together. I still had a good time with it and blasted through the whole thing in one sitting, so I’m overall appreciative of what they did with it.
Wilmot’s Warehouse at first felt like it was supposed to be a zen game about re-organizing items in a warehouse and trying to figure out the optimal ways to place your stock, but it just devolved quickly into a stressful mess for me. I really enjoy the minimalist style and the core idea of what the game is trying to do, but I dropped it off quickly because being under time pressure to fulfill orders just wasn’t for me.
Gunhouse is a very strange mix of tower defense and puzzle game about matching blocks and using special weapons and abilities to protect your house from wave after wave of strange and unique enemies. With a very interesting visual style, great music and solid mechanics, I had a good time with this game, even if the core of the puzzle system felt a bit hard to grapple with for a big chunk of my time with it and the variety of weapons and powers left me more perplexed than anything else. I finished this one, so you know it’s at least up there in my book!