Puzzle Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Daily iPhone App: The River Test

by Kelly Hodgkins (Dec 7th, 2011)

The River Test is an iPhone app that's part game, part logic puzzle and a whole lot of fun. It's based on a Japanese IQ test that supposedly given to job candidates. It's believed that only 10% of the population can solve it without assistance. The idea behind the puzzle game is ...

Trine 2 will be available for Mac on Dec. 7

by Mike Schramm (Dec 6th, 2011)

Puzzle-based action/platformer Trine 2 is coming out this week, and developer Frozenbyte has announced that the Mac version will drop alongside the Windows version on Steam. If you want to get a copy outside of the Steam system, you'll have to wait until sometime next year, but even with the ...

Get Where's my Water free from Apple's Facebook page

by Mike Schramm (Nov 30th, 2011)

Apple is apparently giving yet another popular game away using its Facebook page -- this time, it's Disney's Where's my Water up for grabs. To grab your free copy of the great water-guiding physics puzzler, just head over to Apple's App Store Facebook page, become a fan, and you'll get a free ...

Daily iPhone App: Pop Kingdom

by Mike Schramm (Oct 26th, 2011)

Pop Kingdom is a delightful game and similar to Bubble Bobble and Snood. The goal is to shoot orbs to the top of the screen, matching colors in chains of three or more before they fall to the bottom. But there's a twist, in that Pop Kingdom offers RPG elements. You play as either Will or Kate ...

Daily iPhone App: Sprinkle

by Mike Schramm (Sep 26th, 2011)

Sprinkle is a physics-based puzzle game that's centered around water. You control a spigot that's mounted on a crane, and then you blast water to interact with various items in the environment, such as boulders (that actually light on fire, sometimes trouble) and blocks. The overall goal is to ...

Daily iPhone App: Galaxy Express

by Mike Schramm (Sep 13th, 2011)

Galaxy Express is a fun little puzzle game that's similar to Chu Chu Rocket or Chuck the Ball. There's a cute metagame story in this app with some well-written dialogue, but the core game has you pushing a little astronaut around a starfield using some arrows that you place out on the game ...

Daily iPad App: Machinarium

by Chris Rawson (Sep 12th, 2011)

Machinarium is a charming game with an arresting and engaging art style; it debuted on the Mac and PC platforms a couple years ago. It's very similar to the point-and-click adventure games that saw much popularity in the late 80s to early 90s. You must guide a robot character through a rusted, ...

Daily iPhone App: Radballs

by Mike Schramm (Sep 7th, 2011)

I can't say I'm really a fan of the name, but Radballs is a solid music puzzle app for iOS that reminds me a lot of Lumines (definitely not a bad thing). You need to match up little orbs in sets of 4 or more to make rounded-off rectangles, and then, just like in Lumines, a "beat bar" comes by ...

How Godzilab created levels for iBlast Moki 2

by Mike Schramm (Aug 31st, 2011)

I really loved iBlast Moki 2, and I feel like since it hit the App Store, the app hasn't quite gotten the recognition it's deserved. If you enjoy a good puzzle game, this one has you covered -- it's a really complex and interesting title that's wrapped up in a cute and easy-to-understand skin. ...

Daily iPhone App: A Game With Balls

by Mike Schramm (Aug 12th, 2011)

This game's title isn't just cheeky -- it's pretty literal. A Game With Balls definitely has lots of balls in it -- you play as a sort of cannon that shoots balls, and there are various balls and other shapes slowly floating down the screen towards you. The balls you fire have a little bit of ...

TUAW's Daily iPhone App: Continuity 2

by Mike Schramm (Aug 2nd, 2011)

Continuity 2 is another fun puzzle/platformer that the iPhone has inherited from Flash -- the original title also had you sliding various parts of puzzles around in order to get a little stick figure from one side of the level to the other. But Continuity 2 ups the ante, introducing new ...

TUAW's Daily iPhone App: Legacy: Mystery Mansion

by Mike Schramm (Jun 29th, 2011)

It's been a while since we've covered a solid match-three game in this space, and Legacy: Mystery Mansion is exactly that. It's similar to Puzzle Quest in that it puts an overarching storyline in the form of a match-three puzzle title, but it's a little tougher than the more casual entries in ...

TUAW's Daily iPhone App: Shape Shift

by Mike Schramm (Jun 20th, 2011)

You probably know Backflip Studios from its many popular titles on the App Store already, but Shape Shift is a relatively new title from Julian Farrior's company. It's a puzzle game, sort of in the vein of Bejeweled, with a grid of icons that you can switch around to match up four or more in a ...

TUAW's Daily iPhone App: Feed Me Oil

by Mike Schramm (Jun 9th, 2011)

I'm going to see what Chillingo has to offer here at E3 later on today, but in the meantime, this recent release on the App Store is gaining some popularity (and has been featured by Apple as iPhone game of the week this week). It's sort of a liquid physics puzzler -- there's oil coming out of ...

GDC 2011: Tatem Games' Carnivores and RoboSockets

by Mike Schramm (Mar 3rd, 2011)

Tatem Games is a mobile games studio out of Ukraine that's been making games since the mid-'90s. They originally started with PC games, CEO Igor Karev told me here at GDC 2011, but lately the company's focus has been on the iPhone and the iPad. "It's about timing," Karev says, "we can make ...