Drop7

Until just recently, the iPhone as a gaming platform disappointed me. There are some games that have a limited lifespan— games whose concepts or execution impress me, but ultimately reach a conclusion or even just a frustration point. Rolando and Eliss, while both technological marvels and definitely games I would hold high as examples of what the iPhone is capable of doing, are not games that have stayed in  the list of things I keep synced with my iPhone.

I have begun to discover games that remain intriguing, challenging, and replayable, however. Two games in particular stand out at the moment. The first is Drop7, and the second is Strategery, which I’ll write about at a later date.

Drop7 is a puzzle game in which you must avoid letting a 7x7 grid of tiles overflow. Over time, new rows of tiles are added to the bottom of the screen. You eliminate tiles when they exist in a row or column that contains the number of tiles equal to the number on the tile. If a tile does not have a number on it, you must eliminate numbered tiles adjacent to it twice (once to change its symbol from a circle with a ring around it to a circle with a dashed ring around it, then again) to turn it into a numbered tile as well.

The board raises up after a set number of turns, and you are always able to see how many more moves you get before a new row is added. Over time the number of moves between these possibly game-ending additions decreases, putting more pressure on you to eliminate things more quickly.

One nice thing about the game compared to most puzzle games that I play is that it is entirely turn-based; there is no timing element whatsoever. You can also put the iPhone to sleep, receive a phone call, or quit the app and you pick up right where you left off. This is perfect for the iPhone— you can be interrupted wherever you are, for any amount of time, and the game just politely waits for you without changing anything. In that way, it reminds me of the puzzle modes from Chu Chu Rocket or Tetris Attack/Planet Puzzle League.

Also just like those games, the more you play the more opportunities you have to spot problem situations and recognize the moves that you should avoid in the future. You can learn how to play just by watching what happens to you, either through failures that occur or if you happen to spot what circumstances created a great combo that cleared half of the board. It rewards multiple plays and keeps track of your high scores, including the ability to submit them to Facebook via the Facebook Connect platform. If you opt into this mode you can also see the high scores of any Facebook friends you have who have also connected their copy of the game to Facebook, which is neat.

The music is pretty cool and the sound effects are very rewarding, even down to the almost tennis volley-like “thwok” sound when you make a selection and let a tile fall onto the grid. The games last a significantly long time, and there are a couple of modes besides the standard one, including one where the tile selection is not random so that you can truly compare your score to your friend without any excuses about pseudorandom number generation leading to unfair games.

As far as games on the App Store go, the game is placed in roughly the middle of the majority of games at $5. If you like puzzle games, especially if you like both video games and pen-and-paper games like Sudoku or Takegaki like I do, then this game is probably well worth the money. There is a free demo of the game in which you only are allowed a set number of moves, so that may be a good way to see if this game is for you. Today I decided to move it to the first page of applications on my iPhone. This is the first time a game has ever occupied a spot on that home screen and a good indication that this game is something pretty special.