Combinatorix

It doesn’t take much to come up with a simple puzzle game idea, especially now that there are so many tools at your disposal if you are an indie developer. On the other hand, the game must be interesting enough to keep the players entertained, given the fact that the market is so saturated at the moment and there are so many alternatives.

Combinatorix is not an original game, but it has the ability to keep you engaged for a few minutes, especially if you are the type who likes a challenge. Granted, the mechanics are a bit sketchy and annoying sometimes, not to mention the fact that there are many things hindering your fun along the way. Even so, it can put your mind to work for a few minutes if you need a brain teaser.

The goal of each level is to direct the ball to the finish line using a couple of action tiles that come in limited quantities. In fact, it’s very much like coding if you are familiar with the field, although anyone can figure things out from the first few minutes. The downside is that the tiles in question do not have any sort of description, and some of them have to be seen in action in order to figure them out.

As mentioned before, some things are not as well-designed as they could be, which hurts the overall experience. Thus, the tiles you place reset if you decide to restart the level or you drop the ball, which means that everything must be rearranged. This becomes a problem later on when the stages are bigger and there are more tiles you have to memorize.

You might also find the occasional bug every now and again, although none of them managed to crash the game entirely. The graphics are very simple and to the point, but it would be nice to see more variety in the background and maybe different tiles every now and again. On the other hand, the puzzles are more important, at least if you are not interested in flashy graphics.

Even if Combinatorix has its fair share of flaws, the game is still quite capable of keeping you engaged for a while. Moreover, the stages get pretty tricky toward the end, which is great news for puzzle lovers.