Where's My Water Review

Life's not easy for a sewer-bound alligator. Well, I suppose it's fine enough for the normal ones anyway, but for a clean-freak like Swampy? Yeah, not so much. All the poor guy wants to do is keep clean and take nice shower every now and then. The other gators aren't so keen on letting him have his way, so they sabotage the water pipes in order to block his water supply. That's where we come in.

Fluid physics puzzle games have become surprisingly popular as of late, but as far as I know none of them have approached the idea from the same direction as Where's My Water. Instead of controlling a fire hose or using gadgets to redirect an oil flow, players use gravity, angles and momentum to guide each level's cache of clean water into (and hazardous liquids away from) Swampy's tub. And it's as simple as dragging a finger across a patch of dirt to dig.

As with the best puzzle games, Where's My Water incorporates a fairly simple mechanic that's a cinch to learn but difficult to master as the levels get tougher. It won't be long before players have to carefully plan their actions throughout multiple steps in a single stage: separating the water in order to activate a switch one moment, redirecting a pool of toxic purple stuff the next, then quickly digging a new route for the clean water before it flows off-screen. And that's all before the corrosive green goo and mines (to name a couple more obstacles) start to show up.

I'm hard-pressed to come up with any serious grievances here. I suppose the water doesn't act exactly like I expect it to 100% of the time, and having some form of indication as to which levels contain hidden collectibles on the level-select screen would be nice, but that's all I can really come up with. Where's My Water is a great puzzle game, pure and simple. It's very well put-together, has plenty of replay value as every stage has 3 ducks that can be grabbed (much harder than it sounds later on), some contain those hidden collectibles I mentioned that will unlock bonus levels (and more ducks), and even more levels are planned for the future.

Where's My Water has been in the spotlight on the App Store for a good reason. It's possibly one of the best iOS puzzle games in recent memory, and it's available at a price that's downright foolish to pass up. I strongly suggest getting a smaller cup of coffee tomorrow morning and buying this instead. I doubt there will be any regrets.