Bulkypix recently announced that their new action-puzzle game, Saving Private Sheep, has just hit the app stores.

Check out the trailer:

Tumbledrop is a physics based puzzle game from Starfruit Games.

Physics based puzzle games are not exactly uncommon, especially among casual game markets like the App Store, so when I first took out my iPod Touch and loaded up Tumbledrop I honestly didn’t expect it to stand out that much.  I also didn’t expect it to become one of my favorite games on the platform.  Damn I was happy to be proven wrong.

Completing a level with only one move is a real challenge, and super satisfying!

You only have one goal throughout the entire game: get the pink star to safety.  On every level you’ll have some sort of arrangement of yellow blocks with the pink star somewhere on top.  You’ll tap on yellow blocks to eliminate them and that’s where the physics come in as the whole structure starts to tumble, hence the name.  In order to pass each level you’ll need to ensure that your pink star lands on solid ground and doesn’t plummet into the pools of water on either side, a task rendered even more challenging by addition of a cooldown period between each block elimination.

I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking that until now the game still sounds pretty run-of-the-mill because everything I’ve talked about up till now kind of is, but that’s only because I haven’t mentioned how amazingly charming this game is.  Every piece has a cute little :3 emoticon face on it and when they are about to fall into the water their expression changes to one of absolutely silly terror.  It just adds so much fun to the game when you remove a wrong piece and watch as a whole pile of totally freaked out little block fall slowly to their doom, and it almost makes you want to fail levels on purpose just to get a laugh.  Every level ends with a big smile on your star and a giant screen filling rainbow just so you know you did well.  All in all it just oozes with so much charm and silliness that the only people it wouldn’t make smile are the same kind of people who punch babies.

The main mode in the game simply tasks you with completing various sets of levels that increase in difficulty as you progress.  You can earn medals on each level by either completing if with very few turns or with as many as possible.  It’s actually quite fun to return to a previously completed level and try to figure out how to get these different medals; believe me it’s way harder than it sounds.  Normally I would have to knock Tumbledrop for the fact that its gameplay can start to rely too much on trial and error, however the developers included another game mode called quick play that throws that complaint out the window.  In quick play, you’ll complete randomly selected levels and try to rack up as many points as you can.  The catch is that if your star falls into the water once you have to start back at 0.  This forces you to really think about what you do and try to predict how the physics will react.  Overall I thought it added a great level of replayability and a lot more challenge to an already great game.

Watching the pieces freak out when they're headed for the water is absolutely hilarious

If I were to rate this game on the quality of its rainbows alone I would give it a perfect score.  But light spectrums aside, this is honestly an amazingly fun, charming, and challenging game that everyone should probably buy.  That’s why I give it the only rainbow-filled rating we have, a Golden Tap.

Score

MustTap Score: Golden Tap

The best of the best; everything about this is perfect.

Bottom Line
Tumbledrop is just a perfect package. It's fun, it's got charm, and it's infinitely replayable. This is a must have game for anyone.

Screenshots

Cogs is an incredible machine-type of puzzle game from Lazy 8 Studios and published by Chillingo.

I am a huge fan of Incredible Machines. I played that game non-stop when I was a lot younger, all the way up to just about last week! Well, Cogs isn’t exactly Incredible Machines, but it certainly does bring up quite a few memories of Incredible Machines.

Cogs is a great puzzle game where you are tasked with solving the problem at hand: you need a bell to be chimed, you need to redirect gas from the source to the balloon or output or whatever, or you need to crank the Jack-in-the-box to come out of his damned hidey hole. Regardless of the task at hand, you are judged by your solution, the time it takes to find that solution, as well as the number of moves it took you to find that solution. Just keep shifting those tiles!

This blue gas tastes funny.

To shift a tile, you just tap on it and it moves to the open space. You can also shift multiple tiles (Which counts as one move!) if you have more than one or two in a line that you want to move. There are also little dynamics of moving around gears and possibly other items, where if you move a gear into other gears, you are probably going to cause the other gears you are touching to spin. Usually not a problem, until you find a puzzle where you have to do things in a synchronized fashion – pain in the bum.

The mechanics of this game are fantastic – you are either working on a flat board, or a cube that you can rotate by tapping with two fingers and dragging. It really takes this type of puzzle game to the next level, making you keep tabs of ALL of the sides that you need to solve as well as making sure you do it in a timely and minimalistically as possible. The art is great – completely 3D and very well done graphics which ran smoothly on my 3GS.

I would do this naturally anyway!

If I could complain about anything, it’s the rather unimaginative achievements available on the Crystal platform, but that’s not really a fault to speak of. Speaking of which, and this doesn’t count toward the review, this was my first interaction with the Crystal social gaming platform. I have to say, it is incredibly polished and definitely a contender for OpenFeint and Plus+! Actually, there are only 10 puzzles available to you when you first purchase the game. That seems pretty short for a game like this, and that is a rather silly problem.

Overall, Cogs is a brilliant game – I’m still trying to finish all of the puzzles in Inventor mode, and then I’m going to run through Challenge mode and try to get this brain thinking again. There are no real shortcomings to speak of, it’s a load of fun that works your brain, it looks great, and the game mechanics work brilliantly. Unfortunate that you have to purchase the puzzles outside of the first 10 that they include, but definitely still gotta check it out.

Score

MustTap Score: Silver Tap

Looks great and gives out some quality stuff!

Bottom Line
Brilliant puzzle game through and through, mixing traditional tile sliding action with objects that interact with each other on a 3D grid. Challenging from the start with so many different types of objectives, puzzle fans, definitely grab this game!

Screenshots

IUGO Mobile Entertainment recently announced a great puzzle game called ESCAPE: Norm’s World, and we have screenshots and video!

Here is the description:

Zone out on limitless Zen puzzles with ESCAPE. Jump the little guy from stone to stone to eliminate all and solve the puzzle. Escape features:

- Endless levels and gameplay
- 2 additional unlockable difficulty modes introduced through DLC (iPhone only)
- Simple controls for all ages
- Minimalist graphics for maximum appeal
- Unique cerebral game play complimented by relaxing audio and visual effects
- Surprisingly addictive!

Here is a gameplay video:

And here are screenshots:

Looks great! It will be released for both the iPhone and Blackberry devices, stay tuned for more information.

Dracula: The Path of the Dragon is a point-and-click adventure game from Tetraedge Games and published by Chillingo.

Boy, it sure is foggy in ... Transylvania.

Dracula: The Path of the Dragon is the first in a three game series that originated on the PC as a point-and-click adventure game similar to the vein of Jules Verne’s Return to Mystery Island that we have also reviewed. With that said: there isn’t much of a difference.

Sure, there’s a different setting and storyline, but it’s a simple point-and-click adventure game where you go around talking to people, taking objects, and using those objects on those people you have spoken to or on other objects. The storyline itself is pretty gripping though, here’s a sneak peek:

Dracula: The Path of the Dragon is set in 1920, casting you in the role of Father Arno Moriani, who is sent to investigate a potential candidate for sainthood in Transylvania.

A saint! In Transylvania! Oh for sure she’s a vampire. Chillingo sent over a game walkthrough that I didn’t end up using because I didn’t want to spoil the story for anyone – but I’m pretty sure she’s a vampire. The gameplay mechanics are pretty simple – touch and drag to look around, tap to interact, and… well that’s about it. You have a pretty robust inventory full of items (Eventually) that will be able to interact with a lot of different things.

Check out that hot stud... oh wait that's me!

The art of the game is beautiful – beautifully rendered 3D-ish settings with well animated sprites of all of the different characters in the game. The music fits the mood very well and the port over from the PC was done pretty darn flawlessly.

Overall, Dracula: The Path of the Dragon is a pretty average game – nothing blew me away and there wasn’t really much to review other than the storyline and gameplay mechanics. The story will definitely keep you interested if you’re into these sort of games, so definitely check it out!

Score

MustTap Score: Iron Tap

It's technically solid, but what comes out is pretty plain.

Bottom Line
Wonderful port of a great point-and-click adventure game from the PC and has great artwork and story behind it. Other than that however, just an average game.

Screenshots

A very nifty puzzle game, Project Void from IGotItGames, has recently hit the app store. It’s pretty unique, check out the description:

The goal is to use Tetris-styled pieces to cover randomly generated game boards. Along the way to the finish line you’ll encounter colored voids, tools and more. There are two game modes to experience – a more casual, friendly mode, and a hardcore timed mode. In the end, post your score online to give somebody else a run for their money!

Here is a gameplay video:

The game looks pretty challenging, and apparently the stages are randomly generated! We’ve added it to our review queue, so be on the look out for it.

Chillingo has let us know that Cogs, by Lazy 8 Studios, will be submitted very soon to the app store. Here is the description of the game:

Cogs is a groundbreaking puzzle game, where players build increasingly complex machines using sliding tiles in 2D and 3D environments. Multiple gameplay modes and difficulty levels are available. New puzzles are unlocked by building contraptions against the clock with as few moves as possible. This visually stunning and fantastic sounding game is perfect for puzzle fans of any age and ability!

And they even included a great gameplay trailer:

The game looks magnificent – maybe it’s just the inner Incredible Machines fanboy in me talking, but the game looks amazing. It looks like Pipe Dream and Incredible Machines had a love child, and the love child was dipped in holy water. We can’t wait to get our hands on it, and we’ll hopefully have a review up as soon as it comes out!

This weekend, a great puzzle game, Alien Glyphs from Viacheslav Klimov is free! We gave you a heads up about the release of his other game – Secret of Lost Pyramid, and Alien Glyphs looks just as good!

Here’s a gameplay video:

Grab it while you can!

Chillingo just gave us a heads up that Dracula: The Path of the Dragon, the third in the Dracula series and first on the iPhone/iPod Touch, developed by Tetraedge Games has just hit the app stores!

The story is as such:

Dracula: The Path of the Dragon is set in 1920, casting you in the role of Father Arno Moriani, who is sent to investigate a potential candidate for sainthood in Transylvania.

Solving a series of complex and engaging puzzles based on medicine, history, and the occult, you follow a trail of evil through the World War I-decimated village of Vladoviste to uncover the secrets of The Path of the Dragon and come face to face with Dracula himself.

Here are some screenshots:

Looks like a challenging puzzle game, and we’re going to give it a review sometime soon – stay tuned!

A great looking block-sliding puzzle game has just hit the app stores – Blocks by Den Falske Zebra!

Here is the description from the app store:

Slide the orange block off the board by sliding the other blocks out of its way. The horizontal blocks only move left and right, while the vertical blocks slide up and down. Solving the puzzles can be very tricky, but don’t worry, the first ones are easy and will get you going quickly.

Features:
* 4 difficulty levels: easy, medium, hard and expert
* 100 carefully selected and fun puzzles
* Remembers which puzzle you are on, so you can just quit the app and continue later right where you left
* Very addictive!

Once you complete all the puzzles in a difficulty level, the next level will be unlocked. You might fly through the first puzzles, but you’ll be sweating over the later ones!

And here are a few screenshots:

Looks great! We’ve added it to our review queue, so be on the look out for it in the next few weeks.