I can get addicted to games pretty easily on my phone. I am very cautious about what I choose to download, because I know that it can quickly become a distraction. I don't know that I would have chosen this app, but now that it's on my phone, I'm glad it's there.
This app is completely free and available on many platforms including:
- Google Play (Android devices)
- Apple App Store (iOS devices)
- Facebook (Mac or PC web browser…Chrome and Firefox work best)
- Facebook Gameroom (PC . . . this is Facebook’s new PC game platform similar to Steam)
Each day a new puzzle becomes available to play for free. The goal is to solve your puzzle as fast as you can. Once the puzzle is completed, you’ll see a daily Bible verse. If you are faithful puzzle solver for a whole month, you’ll be rewarded with an extra beautiful photo and verse. If you miss a day (and a puzzle), you can gain access with the use of a few coins. Of course, the game is social as well. Playing via the Facebook platform affords you the ability to challenge your friends in a tournament. I was very skeptical about connecting my Facebook account, since one of my pet peeves is game statuses, but the app doesn't post anything for you, and honestly, I don't notice anything on my page.
There are few challenges to solving the puzzle quickly. First, and most initially annoying to me, is that you are not given a picture to guide you. This really irked me at first. Second, the pieces are not necessarily rotated to the correct orientation, so even starting with the edges can be a challenge if you don't know which edge you're looking for. The rotation was fine for me - after all, when you dump a puzzle out of a physical box, the pieces are jumbled. Of course, you get to look at the box. You aren't flying blind in every way.
At first I was pretty stubborn and tried not to use the tools, and I was able to solve the puzzles, but after a while, I felt I had more fun if I got off to a good start, so I put my coins to good use.
If you want to use the available tools to speed up your puzzle solving you need coins. Although you can earn coins for solving certain amounts of puzzles, beating specific times, and even just for connecting to Facebook, you don't earn many and it would be very difficult to build up a "stash". If you want to use tools, buying coins is really the only option.
These tools include the following:
Rotate – click this button, and all of the puzzle pieces rotate in the correct orientation. I use this one nearly every time I play.
Guide – click on this button, and you’ll get a glimpse of the finished puzzle. I know I said this annoyed me the most, but it also annoyed me that I had to pay for it. If I rotate, I can solve the puzzle without really needing this.
Sweep – a quick way to sweep away all of the puzzle pieces giving you a free workspace. I use this on my phone, simply because it's easier on a small screen.
Magnet – a tool that attaches two random pieces together for you. I don't use this one, although if I were truly stuck, it might help.
Edges – a tool that removes all of the center pieces leaving you with just the edge pieces to work with. I use this one on my phone, since things get cluttered on a small screen.
Overall, it's a great game to have on my phone. Having only one daily puzzle that can be played for free keeps me from getting addicted, the tools allow me to fuel my competitive spirit by striving for speed, and the messages and photographs are beautiful and inspiring!
