Kiwi app review: XcrypTic

Brain melter

I can only imagine that the ‘X’ in XcrypTic stands for ‘Xtremely’ because this is one DIFFICULT puzzler — but if you like your apps to challenge you and fancy yourself as a bit of a maths whizz then this kiwi-made puzzle game could be just the ticket.

Prepare to THINK!

XCrypTic looks simple enough to start off with: you’re given a board with spaces for seven tokens, and four coloured tokens to play with at the bottom of the screen. The premise is that you must place them in such a way that no two consecutive tokens should be of the same colour, and the last token must be the same as the first.

Your move, sucker!

Sounds easy, right? Wrong! When you place your first two tokens, a third token will appear whose colour depends on the colours and placements of the first two. The trick is in decyphering the mathematical formula that controls this (at first) seemingly random generation.

Blues clues. And reds. And blacks.

To help you, you can refer to a key which shows just enough examples of the various sequences to help you crack the code and thus complete the current level.

Production values are adequate but by no means slick — the visuals are mainly monochromatic and the sounds and animations are quite basic but it’s the game that counts, so does it deliver? If you like brain-twisting challenges then yes, your grey matter will thank you for spending $2.59 on it. But if you’re after something you can just pick up and play to relax then I’d probably look elsewhere.

The app was developed by first-time App Store coder Masiya Mazarire of Hamilton who says the game is the result of two months of intensive self-learning. It’s a galant first foray into mobile OSX and it’s great to see that the kiwi apps keep on coming!

– Xcryptic