Rotix

There's a dearth of puzzle games in the App Store, and new ones always have stiff competition. That's my main fear for Rotix--it's a good puzzle game, but not a great one, and it's lacking a few perks that have become standards in the field. Still, if you're looking for a solid puzzle, Rotix is worth a try.

The concept of Rotix is simple. You begin with a grid of brightly colored tiles. In the lower-left corner there's a thumbnail of the guide; you have to rotate blocks of tiles in order to make them match. To rotate the tiles, you tap on the gears. Each gear is connected to four tiles, and they rotate clockwise.

It's extremely easy to learn, but Rotix requires a good dose of logic. The first few levels are easy. The later ones? Not so much. Working through Normal Mode may take you quite a bit of head-scratching. Rotix can get addicting, which is the core to any good puzzle game.

As always, I have a few gripes. The game saves your best score for each puzzle and displays a trophy indicating how well you've done, but there's no "best possible" data. Also, there's no undo feature, and there aren't a ton of puzzles; I finished half of Normal Mode within a day, and the game only includes 25 puzzles. Many can be solved simply by trial and error. 20 additional puzzles and additional game modes are promised in a future update, but for now, replay value is limited. Also, puzzles must be unlocked one by one; if you get stumped once, that's it. You can't move on.

At a graphical level, Rotix is highly polished. The steampunk-inspired skin is very nice, and the tiles pop from the screen. There are some sound effects, and these are simple and minimalist; there's no background music, but you can play your own. (If you've already got tunes playing, Rotix fades them out when it launches. However, a double-click of the home button should do the trick.)

On the whole, Rotix is a decent game, and if you're a hungry puzzle-fan, you may want to take a look. Happily, the App Store page claims that fixes for many of my problems are coming soon--more modes, time trials, an undo button, additional levels, and a global leaderboard should really spice things up. Once those updates come, I'll be a happy camper. For now? You might want to wait and see if the updates materialize.