You’d think by now that we’d have seen every puzzle game involving numbers that could ever have been conceived. Not so, says Simple Machine, who, using Sudoku as the inspiration, has made a new game on Android called Even Up that uses numbers in its own unique and addictive way. Let’s check it out.
The premise
The premise of Even Up is incredibly simple: slide a number to another of the same value and the resulting number will be one higher than the number you had before. For example, if you had two squares of value 3, sliding one into the other would result in a square with value 4. With the added restriction of only being able to slide squares in one chosen direction only, this makes Even Up pretty challenging and tricky game, one which gives you a sense of accomplishment when you finish levels.
The gameplay
Even Up is split into 5 difficulty levels, with the higher difficulties unlocked when you have completed enough stars. You are awarded one star for each level you complete and there are 25 levels per difficulty, so you’ll have to become somewhat proficient at the game before progressing to the higher levels.
The first few levels of the Beginner difficulty serve as a very good tutorial to the gameplay in Even Up, but before long you’ll be looking for more challenging puzzles. The thing about Even Up I love is that the core mechanic of the game is so simple, yet you can still get such intricate and varied puzzles which can take minutes to solve or sometimes significantly longer. To complete all 125 levels available in Even Up is a pretty big task and the game will definitely last even the best minds a few hours.
To be honest, the differences between the difficulties isn’t so great that you will be struggling to complete them once you’re competent, but what it does do is encourage you to think a lot more about the moves you make and the consequences that will result. To make this lesson a little easier to swallow, Even Up utilizes an ‘Undo’ button which will let you undo as many consecutive moves as you wish and believe me, you will be using this button a lot.
This makes Even Up incredibly addictive as its both challenging and good practice in problem solving. I’ve already wasted plenty of time getting through the levels just to see what else the game can do to make itself harder, only to feel very accomplished when beating levels.
In addition to playing levels, you also have the option of creating and sharing levels which is a really nice extra feature if you’re into creating puzzles or just want to be devious and challenge your friends.
The presentation
Even Up is a very pleasant looking game. The combination of a simple background with a simple interface makes the game very slick. All transitions between menus and windows are simple and smooth as is the gameplay itself. At no point did I think the game was struggling to run which is perfect, particularly as you
There are sound effects in Even Up as well and while they only come up when you make moves, they’re just the right sort of sound not to irritate too much when played over and over again. I’d even go as far as to say the sounds in the game are the perfect sort of sounds for this kind of game as they simply indicate that something has happened in game and let you focus your attention on solving the puzzle at hand instead.
Unfortunately, apart from the ‘Share’ feature from the main menu, there are no social aspects in Even Up to speak of, which in my opinion is a great shame. To have a leaderboard which records to time of your first attempt at each level would be a great feature and gloating tool to have, and the ability to record a video of your solution to the puzzle would be nice too.
The verdict
Rating: 5/5
Despite my minor reservations, Even Up is a fantastic game: simple, challenging and addictive, there are few games on the Play Store that offer such simplistic yet thought-provoking puzzle gameplay. The game does cost $0.99, but that’s a small price to pay for what I think is one of the better puzzles games on the Play Store right now. If you’re interested in giving it a go, hit the Play Store links below.
Game: Even Up
Price: $0.99
