From the Dark Side
by Tiny Ruisch
I was trying to decide on a subject for this month’s column by doing what I often do. Almost always, I review previous columns and see if there might be a good follow up article. I noticed that I have done quite a few game reviews. This month, I thought I would recap them. I hope you enjoy my reviews and that you might give one of the games a try. All of the games except The Room Series are free from the Google Play Store. Many have upgrade options to remove advertising, buy upgrades, etc. In each application, I’ve included the month of my original review in case you want to reread it in the club newsletter or on my website. I’ve also included the Play Store rating (as of this review date)
FEB 2014 (4.6) – Wordiest is a Scrabble like word game where you try to beat 100 other players by making two words out of fourteen tiles. I still have this game on my phone and play it several times a week.
APR2014 (4.7) – 7 Little Words is a game that Tom recommended I try. Thanks a lot Tom! You’ve cost me more than $20 for puzzle packs I’ve purchased. Each puzzle consists of seven clues for seven different words. There are twenty letter combinations for you to put together that fit the clues. I play this game every day.
JUL2014 (4.1) – Red Herring is a word game where you try to fit words into categories. I thought it was a fun game, but not very challenging. After playing the fifty free games, I uninstalled the app.
MAR2015 (4.1) – Trainyard Express is a puzzle solving game where you have to get your trains from their departure points into the correct station by drawing track on a square of grids. The only real problem with the game is that the advertising is pretty intrusive. I long ago purchased the ad free version for $1.99. The paid version is renamed Trainyard and has a 4.8 user rating on the Play Store.
AUG2015 (4.2) – Shikaku is a game where the objective is to place rectangles (boxes) all over the screen such that each box contains a single number and has an area equal to that number. I forgot all about this game, so I must have thought it wasn’t that great. Now that I’m looking at it again, I may download and play it again.
MAR2016 (4.9) – The Room, The Room Two, The Room Three and The Room: Old Sins all have high ratings on Google Play. They are all larger games that combine many different types of puzzles that the player must solve. I keep them installed on my tablet. When I finish the series, I start over again. Just to be completely honest, I fudged a little on the Play Store ratings. The Room was only a 4.8 rating.
MAY2016 (4.7) – Monkey Wrench is a word search game where you have to find the words to fit various categories. The game is OK, but can get a little repetitive. I still keep it on my phone just to play the free daily games.
DEC2017 4.5) – Block! Hexa Puzzle is a game where you have to fit small block pieces nicely into a given shape. I really like this game because it gets more challenging to more you play. Even so, I haven’t played the game for a while. When I downloaded it to my new phone, I had to start playing from the beginning.
OCT2018 (4.6) – Crossword Puzzle Free is a nicely laid out puzzle game that is easy to play. This has become one of my favorite games. I’ve played it enough that I know which of the many puzzle authors to avoid. There are a lot of crossword games on the Play Store. I haven’t looked at any of them since I installed this game.
I also looked back on my app history and realized that there are a lot of games (and other programs) I’ve installed over the years. Some I still use on a daily basis and others have become obsolete. There might be a future article on these.
Thanks for reading.