Wood Nuts & Bolts Puzzle 12+

The levels are actually challenging, which is fun. A couple of issues though… you’re on a timer, which is ok, but it means you will probably have to do harder levels several times to memorize the steps and do them quickly. Some of the more complex puzzles do not give you much extra time to think, so memorizing is important. It’s honestly fine, infuriating part is, each level is 2 parts; one brainlessly easy, the second ridiculously complex. Every time you retry, you have to do the dumb puzzle first. At first I thought it was little “learn the method” practice puzzles, but no, they are on EVERY LEVEL. Even once you've accomplished them, you have to do the same childish puzzle OVER AND OVER if the puzzle in the second part is complicated. My second irritation is, some of the puzzles rely on sliding or swinging or rolling of pieces out of the way, not the same sequence of moves will not necessarily generate the same reaction in the affected pieces. So, I’ve times out several times just simply because I did all the steps, but the piece I released did not move in the required fashion to accomplish the task. So I’ll have to do the same level, the same way several times just to get certain end game pieces to move properly to finish.

I would love this game so much more without the time factor. I don’t really care they have an easy level and then a hard one and then just rinse and repeat. I love sitting forever to figure it out. But forcing me to watch a single ad that’s 80 seconds long with no exiting it just to undo a single move… yeah, that’s annoying. Another undo, 30 second ad. That’s fine. And then another 80 seconds. Need another undo? 30 seconds. I think I’m on the fourth or fifth hard level and even now, they basically want you to spend money and they don’t hide it. And all of this is for a single hard level that’s maybe 3:30 minutes long. Why am I spending more time watching ads than I am playing the game? If this is all at level 5, why would I even bother continuing to play? If this was like level 60, I could hear you out on that. This is level 5. If you took away the timed part of levels, I’d be a lot less annoyed. That or installing a “zen mode” where you just play over and over and over while not trying to beat a clock or get a better score. I’m not keeping this because it’s incredibly depressing that even ads on streaming platforms are shorter than the ones in a single game where you undo a move three or four times. When you undo a single move, you don’t get that time back. Wanna restart the level? 50/50 chance you get an 80 second ad.

Got intrigued by the playable ad and of course they start out too easy. Fine. Got a hard level that was super exciting and was happy to keep playing the easy levels until they got progressively harder. Then after level 4 is this ridiculous hard level that I don’t get on the first try. Fine. But I have to watch an ad to retry. Fine. After retrying this bonus hard level a few times, I get desperate and watched more ads to get some power ups. Cycled through that a few times and after retrying this level with power ups several times and watching tons of ads, I finally pass bonus hard level #2. Regular level 5 and. 6? A breeze. Then bonus hard level 3. And the darn thing looks just as annoying as the previous hard level. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love a good hard puzzle you can sit and stew on for 20 minutes. I’m just kinda bummed that to do that, you either have to watch 5 collective minutes of ads or fork out cash just to be able to undo a mistake or have a chance to try again or get more time. Thanks but no thanks. Deleting after posting this review. Adding bonus harder levels with the super easy ones is a great idea, but the scaffolding is horrible.