Tickle Your Brain With Nozoku, A Delightful Mathematical Puzzler
nozoku ($1.99) by Chaotic Box is a challenging math puzzler that will definitely tickle your brain.
There’s nothing I love more than a good puzzle on my iPhone or iPad. I mean, really, these are the best types of games. They’re casual, relaxing, but at the same time, get your brain going. You need something to stimulate the mind, rather than letting it turn into mush, right? Of course, what if you want an even bigger challenge? Throw some math into the mix, and you have a real puzzle, which is exactly what you’ll get with Nozoku.
The first thing about Nozoku that I absolutely love are the beautiful graphics. Every pixel in this game looks fantastic, and just exude care from the developers. The animations that the app uses are incredibly smooth and fluid, and are quite a treat on the eyes. The music and sound effects are pretty fantastic as well, and will definitely help you get into the mood to solve some puzzling math problems.
So what is the goal in Nozoku? To clear out all of the numbered tiles, of course. However, to do this, you must combine two tiles that have the same number on them. With the tiles having numbers from one to nine on them, how do you accomplish this? Sliding one number tile on to another will subtract the lesser number from the greater one. Then a new tile will form as a result of the subtraction. You will need to do this as many times as necessary to end up with two of the same number tiles on the board. Then slide one of them on to the other to clear it from the screen.
You can also slide tiles over black squares, but the black tiles will disappear once they are used. Tiles cannot be moved on to non-black or non-numbered tiles. Also, as you progress through levels, special tiles will be introduced, such as teleporting tiles and addition tiles. The addition tiles basically clone a number when it’s dragged onto it, so you end up with two of the same number. Levels will sometimes have multiple solutions, so there is more than one way to solve it. All 44 levels come unlocked with your initial purchase, so you can feel free to jump around the level selection screen.
Nozoku is not timed, so you can take as long as you need to on each level. The game also allows you to use numbered tiles or dots, and you can adjust the music and sound effects. There is no Game Center integration, points, or anything like that — the point of Nozoku is to just sit down and enjoy solving some mathematical puzzles. I think the only thing that this game needs is more levels. It would be great to see more puzzles added to the game in future updates.
If you love puzzles, and can be good with numbers, then Nozoku is the game for you. Make sure to check out this gem in the App Store for $1.99 for your iPhone and iPad.
