Promo Codes for 10

Andrew Juell was the first to solve the secret ending of the game 10:

Andrew J. and Dallas Y. solved the final puzzle of 10! Who will be next? http://t.co/7l83wUNIBu -- pic.twitter.com/42W6xgkmVy
— 10 & 9 by IOJOE (@10TheGame) January 15, 2014

As a reward, Andrew got (not surprisingly!) ten promo codes for the game, and generously decided to donate them to the readers of this blog.

I haven't reviewed 10 yet, but it is very good and it's on the list of games I'll review in the future. If you don't have it yet, waste no time and take advantage of this opportunity.

Ten cheers for Andrew and his prowess!

Review: Cube Trick for iPhone and iPad

Cube Trick by the Russian (I think!) Rutony Studio has some challenging puzzles and nice, clean graphics, but it's difficult to forgive some major shortcomings in the user interface and design.

The mechanics are similar to other games I reviewed in the past, Escapology and Move, but unfortunately here the play area is 3D. You'll soon see why that's unfortunate.

Nontrivial Games on Twitter

The most attentive readers will have noticed the new gadget I added on the top right, showing my newly created Twitter account.

I needed some quicker form of communication for smaller things that can't qualify for a blog post, like sharing some interesting article that I read. It looks like Twitter would be the best option, so if you like this blog, please make sure to follow me on Twitter. Don't worry, I won't bother you with what I'm eating for dinner (pizza!).

Also if there's some puzzle game that you like and I haven't reviewed yet, don't be shy and tweet me about it—I'll consider all requests.



©2014 Nicola Salmoria. Unauthorized use and/or duplication without express and written permission is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicola Salmoria and nontrivialgames.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Review: KAMI for iPhone and iPad

When I originally downloaded KAMI by State of Play Games, I wasn't particularly impressed so I left it aside for the time being. Maybe I'm in more of a zen mood now because I picked it up again and enjoyed it—though more for the presentation than for the puzzles themselves.

The presentation is indeed gorgeous, which isn't surprising if you think that State of Play are the people behind the critically acclaimed Lume. As any origami folder knows, kami means paper in Japanese, and that's the theme of the game.

Nontrivial Games on Paper

The Italian magazine Amico Logico, which should be out today, contains a page of puzzles that I designed.

Amico Logico is probably the best logic puzzle magazine currently available in Italy. Its strength is variety: in 84 pages, it contains about 150 puzzles of more than 40 different kinds, and the editors strive to provide new kinds of puzzles in every issue.

Review: AntiVirus - The super duper accurate hacker simulator for iPhone and iPad

A reader of this blog kindly wrote to let me know of a few good games that I hadn't reviewed yet.
I had seen one of them, AntiVirus (also free) by Kevlanche, among the new releases, but I had skipped it because from the screenshots it looked like a quick two days work.

And it actually is! Because it was an entry in Ludum Dare 27 (it placed #47 out of 2213, so pretty good!). Ludum Dare is a competition where contestants are required to write a game from scratch in 48 hours.

Update: Help Me Fly 1.0.2

Help Me Fly, another of this humble reviewer's top 10 games of 2013, was also recently updated.

The meat of the update is 30 new puzzle (actually 26, since 4 are just instructions), which however have to be unlocked with a $1.99 in-app purchase.

The new puzzles contain four new elements. The first is a beam which powers pieces remotely:

Update: Sky Scramble 1.5

Sky Scramble, one (in this humble reviewer's opinion) of the top 10 games of 2013, was recently updated with major changes.

While the most obvious change is the addition of a title screen (above) and changes to the star graphics so that they are more colorful, the most important change is the order of the levels.

Review: LYNE for iPhone and iPad

As often happens for good puzzle games, one of my first thoughts while playing Lyne by Thomas Bowker was: why hadn't anybody thought of this before?

More precisely, since I've been thinking about path puzzles for several weeks now, my thought was why hadn't I thought of this?

Review: Comboline the Touch Action Puzzle for iPhone and iPad

Comboline (also free) is a match 3 game released in 2011 by the Italian indie studio Big Bang Pixel. Christian Costanza, the graphics and game designer, kindly sent me a promo code. He also had the honor of being the first person to reach 10th Dan in Zen Garden Puzzle, which is no small feat.

I'm not much into match 3 games, especially timed ones, but I liked the simplicity of this one: there are no silly powerups or other things you can buy, it's just you and the tiles.