Some people watch the Super Bowl for the amazing commercials. Sometimes people with the same disorder download games to see a bunch of adds. I love adds! I don’t actually want to play the game I downloaded. I just love seeing adds for other games that I haven’t downloaded and am not interested in downloading. Also, I’m rich. So when I pay to remove adds and still have to watch adds to play the game it doesn’t bother me at all. I like to waste a little money every now and then to remind myself how rich I am. Furthermore, I love irony. The designers of this game are in a not so subtle way telling you that they don’t even want you to play this game. They hope you download and play other games. So watching add and continuing to play the game they don’t want me to play makes feel like I’m in control. So if you’re like me, a rich person who likes to throw money away with a disorder that makes you love adds and irony, download this game. YOU WILL LOVE IT!!! 5 stars! 👎🏽

This game doesn’t like it when you’re not connected to the internet. I play on my iPad, so cellular service isn’t an option when I’m without Wi-Fi. This game does not care that this is a common experience for many people. Every 10-30 seconds it tells me to retry connecting to the internet. It does not pause the timer or gameplay when doing so. Since this game is reliant on timed moves, this means I sometimes have to restart the level after I receive the pop up. It is absolutely infuriating. And speaking of, this game has two puzzles every level: an easy and a hard. If you want to restart while on the latter puzzle, you can either pay in-game currency to restart only the puzzle you’re on, or you can quit and have to do the first puzzle all over again. And some of these levels are ridiculously hard in the beginning. The devs did not take into account any sort of skill progression. The undo button is also something you have to use in-game currency on, instead of being free (and just lowering your score when used) like a normal game would. Overall this game design feels really malicious and the fact it keeps trying to connect to the internet when it doesn’t need to makes me wonder if the devs are using this game to collect and sell users’ data

The bummer is, the premise is fun and when the ads weren’t constantly interrupting me, the game is/was a fun challenge. But the ads have gone well beyond overboard. Most of them are over 2 minutes long each (!), with no way to shorten or skip through them. I just got done with one 2+ minute ad, only to get literally only 10-15 seconds of game play before another ad—and apparently the game clock continued running during the ad, because the moment the ad finished, the clock was flashing red and urging me to watch ANOTHER ad to continue play! And I already PAID the $4.99 to supposedly stop ads but it hasn’t stopped a thing. Not only does the computer sometimes suspend pieces in midair in order to intentionally block a hole (forcing the user to choose an ad in order to continue), but now there are “time out” bombs that stop play and force ads every 30 seconds or every 45 seconds even if you still have time left on your play clock. Having paid for “ad free” doesn’t stop any of this. It’s really a bummer because the game is good and I enjoy it when it will actually let me play, but I just don’t have time for 10 minutes of ads just to get 3 minutes of play. If you download, know what you’re getting into.

What I love about this game is solving the puzzles. But the timer destroys the enjoyment of puzzle-solving. The game play itself is challenging enough to wind up needing to open the extra hole, use the tools to undo or destroy either a screw or plate. I don’t mind watching ads here and there to supplement collecting these things during game play. But when the timer is consistently set with an insufficient amount of time to solve the “hard puzzle” that is part of each level, it forces you to either spend cash or watch excessive ads to complete the puzzle. What I mean by excessive is that you spend around 45 seconds watching ads to get an additional 30 seconds of game play, and it is not unusual to do so 3 to 5 times in order to complete the puzzle, especially since it takes time to re-focus and re-orient yourself to the puzzle after returning from each lengthy ad. It becomes oppressive, and the only other option is to keep replaying the same level with the same puzzles and the same insufficient time. If this game simply got rid of the timer, it would be a 5-star app, and there would still be plenty of opportunities for them to make money without destroying the enjoyment of simply solving the great puzzles.