Halloween Riddles: Mysterious Griddlers

Halloween is a time of great joy for children, because they get a chance to wear silly costumes and go around the neighborhood asking for candy. Adults get a kick out of the holiday as well, because grown up Halloween parties are quite popular too. However, if you just enjoy the general idea but not actually the going out part, you might try something less social, like a video game.

Halloween Riddles: Mysterious Griddlers is a puzzle game in which your goal is to use logic in order to fill in a grid square by square. There are instructions displayed for every row and column, but you still have to figure out how everything goes together in order to get the correct results. Each mistake is punished, and you only get to make a handful of them before you have to restart.

The gameplay is quite simple: the digits near every row and column signify how many squares need to be filled. If there are multiple digits, there is at least one blank square between them, so you need to pay attention to that as well. It doesn’t sound complicated at all, but once the introductory levels come to an end and the clues become more cryptic, things get a lot more frustrating.

To make things a bit easier on you, most levels have some kind of pattern or drawing you have to reach, so you can also take the final shape into consideration while placing the squares. It is highly unlikely that you’ll be checking random boxes around the grid, so you at least have some idea about how everything is supposed to look in the end. Still, that only becomes obvious toward the last couple of rows and columns, so it’s not that helpful in the beginning.

As far as the visual quality is concerned, there’s not a lot to look at, except maybe the backgrounds. These change every couple of stages, but don’t expect anything too great. They obviously feature Halloween themes, pumpkins and monsters, but you’ll concentrate on the actual puzzle anyway. The same goes for the soundtrack, which is pretty calming and nice, but also repetitive and unimpressive in most regards.

Even with all its flaws, Halloween Riddles: Mysterious Griddlers has the power to keep you playing for a long time, especially if you have a sweet spot for puzzles. As long as you are not bothered by the lack of a story and the rather weak visual quality, this can be the perfect distraction for your mind.