Triazzle

The App Store is somewhat over-saturated with puzzle games, so it's easy to be blase about the newest one. However, with Triazzle, a popular 90s puzzle board game, it's impossible to be anything but amazed.

Triazzle, at its core, is a matching game, but with some worthy twists. Each gameboard, a triangle, is comprised of smaller triangles that you'll have to fill in. Each triangle, including the large board, has halves of certain animals (such as butterflies or turtles) of different colors on each edge. By rotating and placing the given pieces, you have to fill in the board so that all pieces are matched up with the correct other half of animal of the same color. No mutant animals allowed. The brilliance of the gameplay is that there are many spots where pieces will fit, but there's only one true solution. You may have all but two pieces matched, but the last two pieces won't fit.

Triazzle's puzzles are spread across four difficulty levels, including one designated for kids, and the other three difficulty levels contain 9 and 16 piece puzzles. There are a virtually unlimited amount of puzzles, and you won't easily tire of them either. If you do tire of a puzzle, Triazzle has an auto-save feature so you can resume your in-progress puzzle.

With puzzle games, interface is king, and Triazzle doesn't disappoint. In the 9 piece puzzles, pieces are strewn around the board, and in 16 piece puzzles, pieces start out in docks, which are located on the either side of the board. You can toggle the docks on or off by double tapping the screen. Simply touch and drag pieces to place them, and tap them to rotate the piece. Pieces can be moved anywhere on the screen.

Triazzle also features two great help systems. First, there are a limited number of hints for each puzzle. After you activate a hint, you can choose any space on the board, and the game will tell you which piece in which rotation belongs in that spot. If you still can't finish the puzzle after using the hints, there is a "shake to solve" feature. The game doesn't simply show you a picture of the solved puzzle, it shows you step by step, piece by piece, how to complete the puzzle.

Graphics and animations are extremely fluid and polished. The game contains 50 unique backgrounds, all of which look beautiful. In a neat twist, the animals "come alive" when they are matched properly, and the animals move around. In addition, frogs jump across the board periodically. All of the unique animations make for a "zen-like" environment. Adding to this environment is the fantastic audio. The music is fantastically relaxing, and the ambiance sounds are similarly calming.

If you've ever enjoyed a puzzle game on your iDevice, you owe it to yourself to purchase Triazzle. It's a beautifully polished game with challenging, rewarding puzzles and a steal at only $2.99.