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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Daring Raccoon

Was $0.99 -> Now Free

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

pros: Has styling like an 80's style platformer
cons: The physics feels a little fake

Up until I started to write this review I had continually misread this game as being titled "Darrin Raccoon" rather than "Daring Tycoon".. personally I think "Darrin Tycoon" would have been a much better name.

The game itself reminds me of the old 80's (or earlier) platform games like Donkey Kong.

Your mission is simple, you just run around the screen collecting all the fruits whilst dodging the bad guys.

The similarities to old-style games like Donkey Kong don't end with the looks - when you jump it has that odd, non-accelerating/decelerating jump physics like Donkey Kong. Another strange thing is that if you fall even a short distance your character will die - this just doesn't feel right.

There is lots to like about this game though, including the ability to create your own levels which you can share with the world. I'll be playing this one a bit more.

I will keep this one.

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Doug Brown

Was $0.99 -> Now Free

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

pros: A great collection of different puzzles & games
cons: No particular story line

Doug Brown is setup as some sort of noir adventure, but when you actually play it there isn't much of a story to it at all, rather the game is just a series of different puzzles.

I've only played the game a little bit, but I'm really loving the puzzles so far & I hope they do start to get a bit harder or the game will turn out to be a little dull. Given that there are a good variety of different puzzles so far I have good hope for the rest of the game.

I would imagine that most puzzle players would really enjoy this game, even though it doesn't have a story line like the great puzzle-adventurer Puzzle Agent.

I will keep this one.

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Mayan Puzzle

Was $0.99 -> Now Free

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

pros: A good set of puzzles
cons: Seems bejewelled like

If you read these reviews then you know how I feel about Bejewelled clones - so this game wasn't looking particularly good to me when I first started playing it - but it turns out to not really a Bejewelled clone at all, it's just a puzzle that happens to involve matching rows of coloured blocks.

The puzzle are pretty similar to the challenge levels in Puzzle Quest - where you need to eliminate all the coloured squares on the board, leaving you with an empty screen. So if you've played this style of puzzle before you'll know that it can get pretty difficult.

The game is well implemented, with plenty of reward factors to keep things interesting (high scores, achievements etc) - but I've already got enough puzzle games & this didn't particularly stand out enough for me.

I won't keep this one.

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Chop Chop Soccer

Was $? -> Now Free

graphics 3/5
fun 1/5
playability 1/5
overall: 1/5

pros: Cute characters
cons: Really hard to get used to the controls

Chop Chop Soccer brings the Chop Chop characters that you've come to know and hate from other Chop Chop games to the soccer field.

I feel that the game isn't implemented particularly well - its difficult enough to move your character around the field let alone try to aim when you need to shoot or pass.

I couldn't tolerate this game for long before I had to delete it.

I won't keep this one.

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