The Italian magazine Amico Logico, which should be out today, contains a page of puzzles that I designed.
The best iPhone and iPad games for logic puzzles enthusiasts
Showing posts with label hamiltonian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hamiltonian. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Nontrivial Games on Paper
The Italian magazine Amico Logico, which should be out today, contains a page of puzzles that I designed.
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Review: Tricky Circles for iPhone and iPad
In a normal day, there can easily be a hundred new apps released in the Puzzles category. It's impossible to even check the description of them all, but I try to be as thorough as possible because often the best games come out of nowhere.
Tricky Circles by Dmitry Chalovskiy is one of such games.
After seeing the icon, I feared that it was just another clone of the boring Dots, but thankfully it's something completely different.
Tricky Circles by Dmitry Chalovskiy is one of such games.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Review: BlockPath for iPhone and iPad
BlockPath Pro (also free) is a fascinatingly minimalistic path finding puzzle which hooked me from the beginning.
It was created by Tehnio, a Latvian developer, which is an interesting thing in itself since Latvia is one of the smallest countries in Europe, with a population smaller than Houston, Texas.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Review: Monorail for iPhone and iPad
Glenn Iba recently wrote me about his puzzle game Monorail for iPhone and iPad.
There was no need to: that game was already installed on my iPod and it's one of the most interesting puzzles I know.
The goal of the game is deceptively simple. You start with a grid of points, with some pre-drawn lines connecting a few dots:
Starting from there, you have to draw a closed loop that touches all points and doesn't intersect itself, like this:
All the grids provided have a unique solution, which is somewhat surprising initially: the pre-drawn lines are such subtle clues that they almost don't seem to be there.
These puzzles are also known as "Round Trip", and have been published in magazines since the early 1990's. Glenn Iba has collected some of them in a book; an extended introduction is available on his web site. It is an interesting read and shows how to approach the puzzles with logical reasoning without trial and error.
The puzzles are similar to Slitherlink, the differences being that in Slitherlink the path doesn't have to touch every point, and the clues are numbers instead of lines. Due to the lack of numbers, I consider Round Trip a "purer", more elegant puzzle.
In addition to the traditional square grid arrangement, Monorail also contains puzzles laid out on a hexagonal grid, like this:
The game contains 50 free grids. If you want to play more, there are a few packs available through in-app purchases, for a total of over 800 grids.
The user interface is quick and easy to use, and it makes the game enjoyable. The only criticism I have is the same one that I made for CounterBalancE: there is no way to put a cross on the grid, as a reminder that a line cannot be in that position. This is odd since the use of crosses is explained in the book introduction I mentioned above, so the author clearly knows that they are useful. Annoyingly, the feature was actually available in an earlier version of the game, but was removed when the undo/redo functionality was added. It would be great if it could be reintroduced in a future update.
©2013 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.
There was no need to: that game was already installed on my iPod and it's one of the most interesting puzzles I know.
These puzzles are also known as "Round Trip", and have been published in magazines since the early 1990's. Glenn Iba has collected some of them in a book; an extended introduction is available on his web site. It is an interesting read and shows how to approach the puzzles with logical reasoning without trial and error.
The puzzles are similar to Slitherlink, the differences being that in Slitherlink the path doesn't have to touch every point, and the clues are numbers instead of lines. Due to the lack of numbers, I consider Round Trip a "purer", more elegant puzzle.
In addition to the traditional square grid arrangement, Monorail also contains puzzles laid out on a hexagonal grid, like this:
The game contains 50 free grids. If you want to play more, there are a few packs available through in-app purchases, for a total of over 800 grids.
The user interface is quick and easy to use, and it makes the game enjoyable. The only criticism I have is the same one that I made for CounterBalancE: there is no way to put a cross on the grid, as a reminder that a line cannot be in that position. This is odd since the use of crosses is explained in the book introduction I mentioned above, so the author clearly knows that they are useful. Annoyingly, the feature was actually available in an earlier version of the game, but was removed when the undo/redo functionality was added. It would be great if it could be reintroduced in a future update.
Summary
| Nontrivialness | ★★★★☆ |
| Logical Reasoning | ★★★★☆ |
| User Interface | ★★★☆☆ |
| Presentation | ★★★☆☆ |
| Loading Time | ★★★★★ |
| Saves Partial Progress | ✘ |
| Status Bar | ✘ |
©2013 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.
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