App of the Week: Puzzlejuice

This week I take a look at Puzzlejuice, a brand new puzzle game for iOS that will, as the developers say, punch your brain in the face.

Let me start off by saying, and I’m sure I’ve said it before, that I am not much of a gamer, at all. Yes, there have been a couple games on the iOS platform like Swords & Scorcery, Tiny Wings and Angry Birds that have grabbed and held my attention for a while and impressed me with their innovative take on the device’s controls and capabilities, but not many. To sum up, when I’m looking for apps to play around with to see if they’ll add value to my life, new games are usually the last apps that I check for.

Of late, the app store has been a bit dead in my opinion, seemingly due to the fact that developers are stumped with what to do next with an app, as pretty much everything has already been done. Granted, there are always newer apps on the market that come with new features and better looking UI’s, but generally, they’re nothing new. The new and what’s hot sections are not updated quickly enough in my opinion, but that’s neither here nor there.

To cut a long story short, I recently decided to buy a new game called Puzzlejuice. At $0.99, I thought it was quite fair and from the screenshots displayed on the app store, I was quite intrigued. The user reviews were great and the feedback was really positive so without hesitation, I clicked buy and waited for the app to finish downloading and installing.

Let me just say that what I expected, was a lot less than what I received. Puzzlejuice is seriously, jokes aside, the most addictive and mind bending game that I have ever played in my life. It’s difficult to explain but I’d say that it is a very clever combination of Tetris and Words With Friends, and as strange as it sounds, it really works, beautifully. Talk about under-promising and over delivering!

Multi-colored blocks fall from the top of the screen and much like Tetris, you have to make sure that you build lines. But unlike the all time classic and favorite, instead of disappearing, the lines are converted into letters! You then have to spell words with these letters in order for them to explode and take a couple neighboring blocks with them to wherever letters go when they’re destroyed. As you spend more time on the game and keep getting better, you level up and the blocks start dropping faster and faster, making it a lot more difficult as you progress.

To be honest I have only been playing for around 30 minutes total so I’m sure there are a lot more interesting aspects of the game, and I plan to check them all out. So let’s move onto my favorite part of any app, the overall design.

Puzzlejuice is absolutely beautiful to look at and work with. The colors used throughout the game are playfully retro and very comforting on the eyes. The music that plays in the background also conforms to that playful arcade game vibe and rounds out the entire experience perfectly. The menus and tutorials are easy to navigate and help to learn the game simply and in a ver short space of time. Full marks for design and gameplay, not bad, not bad at all.

To sum up, although I’ve only spent a few minutes with Puzzlejuice, I am already hooked and can see myself wasting many an hour on it as I progress through the levels and test out more of the modes. Do yourself a favour and get hold of this game now, I know it’s early but I believe that this could already be a contender for one of my top apps for 2012.

Name: Puzzlejuice
Developer: Asher Vollmer
Category: Games
Size: 17.5 MB
Price: $0.99

Available for iPhone and iPad