I like the game a lot. What I noticed over the past week of playing is that I can play the game with a weak internet connection (perhaps airplane mode even) but then my pop-up “helpers” for the game are ads to buy in game currency. This was the only game I could play the last two days when we lost power and cell coverage was messed up (hurricane Ian) so I did experience frustration of needing to restart a whole batch of puzzles when I ran out of health due to mistakes. However after full cell service was restored, the pop-up helpers come sporting offers to watch ads for help. And if I’ve just run out of cones, a cone helper comes up and if I’m low on health, a health restorer comes by. Do I like watching ads?! Nope. But after spending thousands on other “free” games, I’ll watch the ads. If you like this type of game, the developer makes another like this without much “story,” called Riddle Stones. And if you like Crimo but want more story, Crimo Stories has a bunch of reading / background story. I found these games because this developer originally made Treasure Madness, the most epic game on Facebook for years. I was so sad to see it go. I hope to see them revisit a similar app for mobile. In the meantime, hooked on this one.

This is a fun take on the picture logic puzzle. However, as a long time player of those puzzles, I find a few of the ‘features’ to be highly annoying. The limit on the number of traffic cones you have (to block of spaces that you know can’t be filled) seems arbitrary, slows down the game, and makes the puzzles more tedious than they need to be. Having to ration these markers forces you to keep more in your head unnecessarily. It is like making a sudoku game where you are only allowed to make tentative ‘pencil’ marks for odd numbers. Sure, it makes the game more challenging, but not in a fun way. I also dislike the instant health loss for a mis -click. If you are dragging to fill a group of 8 and accidentally drag a square too far on your small screen, you are immediately penalized. As someone experienced with this type of puzzle, I could zip through the early puzzles easily but have to go much more slowly than I should have to in order to prevent this. I realize that the mechanic of hiding extra things behind boxes made the developers not want to only have this check only at the end of the puzzle. However it currently has been a great annoyance to me. Perhaps consider something like allowing users to lock in individual rows or columns and penalize them/reveal items at that time.

The police crime aspect of the game makes no sense. None. You do nothing but ‘solve’ grids based on number sequences. You find a clue on each grid then you click on that clue for your crime lab to analyze the clue. Which is just a timer. The clues are ridiculous. Briefcase, lipstick. Etc. i can ignore the idiotic game play aspect of the crime portion as it doesn’t interfere with playing the grid cross games, which i really like. The aspect of the game i think is the most ridiculous is, you start out with a health pool of 100%. if you make ONE wrong move, you take a 60% hit. For one wrong move! You have three options for regaining that health. Their in game money, to refill the health, close the app and let time refresh the health, or eat random types of food you might find on a game grid. So far i have seen an apple(gives next to no health boost) a hamburger, pizza slice and hotdog. You need to click on the food buff for it to count and to raise your health up. Just finding the food is not enough. NONE of these give anywhere near the 60% health that you lose from one wrong move. You are not guaranteed to find one of the food types on every grid and i have gone multiple grids without finding a food buff. As a matter of fact, i find the food buffs more when I don’t need them, than when i do. And if you do happen to find a food buff, hope that it isn’t on the last space of the grid you solve, because the puzzle immediately locks and you can’t click the food buff.

First off I do love this game... it has The Who done-it and puzzle solving , it’s great. But after you’ve solved like a couple of cases, you can no longer watch a video to continue on after making a slightest mistake. There is no undo button to avoid this, you are held hostage to either put more money in for coins (so far I think the only way you get them is to buy them I don’t think you earn them) or go back to the beginning of the section losing all the clues you solved the puzzles for. Oh and if you want to X out the unusable squares you have to use cones. Those aren’t free either after a few rounds. I have spent more in this game than I have other games because I like it but I don’t like the fact that I am having to constantly buy more coins just to enjoy the game. When you have to do 5 grids or more to get through the section it’s a little difficult to get through them error free especially when there is no undo button and your fingers sometimes register the wrong square you intended in the seventh grid of seven that is 90% full either pay 85 coins or go back to beginning . It gets old after a while.I’m sad I may have to delete it I just can’t afford it . But it was a great idea though . That’s the only reason I gave it three stars .