The inventive puzzle game Blackbox tests more than your wits. It pushes the boundaries of what puzzle games can be—and how you engage with them.
There’s little to tap or swipe here, no characters to maneuver. You barely interact with the few shapes that do appear onscreen.
In a twist, solving puzzles requires tinkering with the iPhone itself: rotating it, laying it flat, shouting into its speaker, even adjusting the brightness of the display.
Some solutions are easily inferred from the game’s cryptic clues. Others you stumble upon through experimentation (like figuring out you need to open the app once an hour)—which makes those aha moments all the more thrilling.
As confounding as some puzzles may be, Blackbox’s smart design helps prevent total roadblocks. You can tackle its puzzles in any order, so if you get stuck on one, you can move onto another. A tiered system unspools hints as you need them—each bearing the game’s trademark subtlety and humor.
Blackbox also has great support for iPhone’s VoiceOver accessibility feature. Turn it on to get verbal/auditory clues rather than visual ones—a fun and engaging experience in its own right. However you tackle this one-of-a-kind game, the journey is bound to be mind-bending.