Qbism HD

Was $0.99 -> Now Free

graphics 4/5
fun 3/5
playability 4/5
overall: 4/5

pros: Bright and colourful
cons: A real toughie for the spatially-challenged

Qbism HD is going to be a real challenge for anyone that has difficulty with their spatial awareness. You are presented with the outline for a shape (in 3D) and a bunch of colourful blocks scattered around (in 3D) and you need to rotate through all 3 planes and move the available blocks to fit within, and form, the wireframe shape you were shown at the start.

The game is quite beautiful and the blocks are all nice vibrant colours, which makes it joyful to play. I wasn't getting any music out of my game, even though there was a mute button there, so I'm not sure if this was just me or not.

This is a novel concept for a puzzle, and it took me half-a-dozen levels to start to like it & get the hang of it. I found the puzzles presented quite a challenge and I'd generally considered I've got pretty good spatial awareness... I think you'll like it.

I will keep this one.

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BridgeBasher

Was $0.99 -> Now Free

graphics 2/5
fun 3/5
playability 4/5
overall: 3/5

pros: You get to build bridges!
cons: If you're not an engineer, you'll probably find it a bit dull

BridgeBasher provides a pretty nice interface for building bridges... and I don't mean fixing relationships, I meaning actually building bridges. And what do you want to do once you've built a bridge? Destroy it, of course!

The game is marginally fun in that you can try out your engineering skills, seeing which style of bridge will hold the most weight - the tutorial even provides you several design to try, but ultimately you'll end up building some sort of crazy Frankenstein of a bridge!

As you can probably imagine though, there is only so much fun you can have with a simple concept like this, so unless you're an engineer you may get bored after not very long.

I won't keep this one.

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Ship It

Was $0.99 -> Now Free

graphics 3/5
fun 3/5
playability 3/5
overall: 3/5

pros: Challenging from the start
cons: A bit hectic

Ship-it requires you to load various items items on to waiting ships; items such as oil, cars, grain, etc. The game makes your job a little easier by colour coding the items and the ships so you don't have to remember what goes in what ship, but rather just match the colours.

The instructions for the game were quite confusing & I found the game very hectic from the start of the very first level, so I worry about the higher levels... well I don't have to worry because...

I won't keep this one.

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700 Solitaire Games

Was $1.99 -> Now Free

graphics 4/5
fun 5/5
playability 5/5
overall: 5/5

pros: 700 Games in 1
cons: None in particular

What is there to not like about this game! Stop reading this review and go and get it now, lest they start charging for it before you finish the paragraph. This is 700 Solitaire games folks!!

For a start, I've got to say that I don't know how they fit this game under 4MB - amazing!  There really are 700 games - although they do cheat a little in that slight variants of a game that could be considered configuration settings are counted as a separate game.

When you're choosing a game you can, of course, read the rules but you can also see whether the game is based on luck or skill, see how long the average game will take and even see how likely you are to be able to complete it - this is a great way to try out new Solitaire games while staying away from the ones of the type you won't like.

Then there's the preferences: different backgrounds, animated backgrounds, different cards, differ... oh forget it, I'm not continuing - just go download it now!

I will keep this one.

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AR Invaders

Was $? -> Now Free

graphics 2/5
fun 3/5
playability 4/5
overall: 3/5

pros: Interesting, novel idea
cons: You can't play it in public without looking like a goose

AR=Augmented Reality. Augmented Reality usually means interaction between reality and computer graphics - I guess this qualifies, as you see space ships flying around on your screen with what your camera sees as the background - but there isn't actually any reaction between the computer graphics and reality.

So if you take away the fact that your camera's view is the background all tha'ts really left is a boring game where you shoot space ships.... in fact, that's what the you've got even with your camera's view in the background.

I won't keep this one.

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Magnetball

Was $? -> Now Free

graphics 4/5
fun 4/5
playability 3/5
overall: 4/5

pros: Plenty of different ways to play
cons: None in particular

The premise in Magnetball is that metal balls fall and you need to bounce (and sometimes push) them towards the magnets hovering around the screen.

You'll get bonus points for little tricks you can do (such as getting it there on the first bounce) whilst getting the ball to its destination.  Get enough balls to their destination without dropping them and you win the level!

The game feels pretty good, the controls are relatively simple to use and it looks pretty clean. I sometimes found the physics of the ball movement a little odd, but this could just be because I'm not familiar with the motion of bouncing metal balls around magnets.  I want to play this some more.

I will keep this one.

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Disc Pool

Was $0.99 -> Now Free

graphics 4/5
fun 4/5
playability 5/5
overall: 4/5

pros: Plenty of different ways to play
cons: None in particular

Disc Pool is an easier variant of the classic table game of Pool. You still shoot with a cue, but you're hitting discs around the table & these discs need to land in rather large holes placed near the corners of the table.

For those of you who, like me, think that the pockets on a pool table are too small and too hard to hit, you'll like this game as the pockets in this are huge and are hard to miss. For me, these gaping pockets make the game much more fun as a casual game because you can play it without too much thought or attention to detail.

The game also has many different game styles - as well as playing against the computer you can also play against a friend on your phone, over bluetooth with a friend or even against others over the Internet. There are also a number of challenge levels that you can play through to keep the fun going.

I will keep this one.

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