This is another popular crossover from puzzle game to app. Sal got this traffic game puzzle from ThinkFun from his grandfather and enjoyed trying to see how far he could go in the challenges. In the game you get a beginning layout that can vary in difficulty, and your job is to get the red car out by maneuvering the other cars so you can “un-jam” your car.
I’m always eager to see what developers can do with the app version, maintaining the wholesomeness of the original form, yet upping the ante in a meaningful way and not with useless gimmicks. This one ups the ante. Now you have a simple way to track the number of moves, and even increase the lifeline of a puzzle by letting you give it a go till you reach the optimal number of moves rather then adding extra moves. It’s a nice way to exercise your memory trying to see if you can go back and eliminate the unnecessary moves. There are also save features and history tracking to see which puzzles you’ve conquered, and which one’s you’ve hit the optimal solution (least moves).
I’m a big fan of puzzles and this one is no different. As Sal grows older I’ll be interested to see if it can help foster more perseverance.
There’s 2 formats, free with 10 puzzles for each difficulty level and some advertising thrown in, and a purchased version with 2500 games. You can do it on your iPhone or iPad, but it’s a bit easier to manipulate on the iPad.
PS – there’s some interesting stuff you can find on ThinkFun’s blogs and what they do with schools – worth a trip over to find puzzle games and other ideas.
Cost: Free for lite
iPhone/iPod –
Cost: $2.99 for full
iPhone/iPod –
iPad –
