If you’re a puzzle game fan, you’re in luck this week. We’ve got several 2-D and 3-D offerings that definitely deserve space on your home screen. Leading the charge is EDGE Extended, a reworking, re-engined version of the critically acclaimed puzzle-platformer EDGE. Read all about it below, but make sure you check out our other intriguing and sometimes beautiful offerings as well.
EDGE Extended (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
A follow-up to the critically acclaimed geometric platformer EDGE and complete with a new 3-D engine, EDGE Extended packs the same quality platforming experience that came from the original EDGE, but more than 40 new levels and a new soundtrack to go with it. The game uses simple touch controls to guide a cube around geometric levels, and you’ll need to climb up structures and avoid falling off ledges while getting to the end of each stage as quickly as possible. EDGE Extended packs a simple but compelling look and some innovative, interesting stages.
Contre Jour (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
You’ll see elements of games like Bumpy Road, World of Goo and Cut The Rope in Contre Jour, but this beautiful and simple little puzzler manages to innovate on all three. Your goal is to move a round character through a stage to pick up three lights and then exit through a portal. To move it around, you can manipulate the ground by raising it or lowering it to give the character momentum, or attach it to ropes to swing it back and forth. With lots of innovative puzzles that combine several elements, as well as a great art style and haunting soundtrack, Contre Jour is a puzzle game that’s hard to put down.
iBlast Moki 2 (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
Speaking of hard-to-drop puzzlers, iBlast Moki 2 falls squarely into the same category. Your job is to move the Moki, a bunch of legless, smiling round guys, through levels basically by blowing them up. You’ll position bombs around each stage in order to give the Moki momentum and throw them into a portal at the end of each level. You’ll need to use various kinds of bombs to accomplish the task, bombs that drop glue or grease to affect the way the Moki move, for example. All those different elements and options make for some tough, compelling puzzles in which you’ll be slightly repositioning bombs to make sure you get the highest score in each.
Cubes vs. Spheres (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
And now for something different. Cubes vs. Spheres is an action defense game in which you are defending yourself from groups of advancing enemy cubes in a 3-D environment. Your weapons are various types of spheres, which you can call up and then flick at the approaching enemies to destroy them. You start with the simplest of spheres – just a ball that rolls or bounces – but over time, and as you clear out more and more cubes, you can unlock more spheres that have different properties in order to better defend yourself. It’s a simple game with a cool, refined look and some tense defensive moments.
Sprinkle (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
Sprinkle takes the heavily used concept of shooting things in a 2-D physics game, kind of like Angry Birds, but reworks the concept to make something different. You’re still shooting things by directing a launcher up and down in order to make arcs and get angles, but what you’re shooting is water, and it has a life of its own. The goal in Sprinkle is to put out fires before the village burns down. You’ll need to not only spray water from your hose to the right places, you’ll often have to manipulate it to make sure it puts out all the fires scattered around each puzzle level. That means redirecting water off surfaces, manipulating objects by using it for pressure, and firing blasts of water so that the gushing liquid doesn’t fill a space and slow itself down. Mixing the familiar with new concepts works in Sprinkle, making for some tough, elaborate levels.
Download the free Appolicious iPhone app
