Kiwi App Review: Rogo

Cool Kiwi Puzzler

Rogo is a new puzzle game by kiwi developers Creative Heuristics which started out life as a very low tech puzzle on a piece of paper. It has now had a high tech upgrade and found its way to both the iPad and iPhone but does the high tech upgrade do the job? Continue reading to see our look at the latest puzzler to come out of New Zealand.

Rogo Puzzle

Rogo is a new game where you have to try to get the highest total number with a given number of moves by joining the numbers in a loop and you must use that number of moves, no more, no less. Sounds simple right?!?!

A Completed Paper Rogo

Well actually it is simple once you realise just what you need to do and it becomes very addictive chasing the converted gold medal.

Old and New

The original paper version of the game tells you what the highest number is so you know when you have got the best score but the iOS version does not, so until you get a gold medal you just need to keep on trying.

The main game board.. 'The Hex'

Onto the iOS game. On the main game screen you are presented with 8 jewels at the top of a double hexagonal wheel and at the bottom are 8 Rogo puzzles for each of the 8 jewels (64 puzzles in total). Along the bottom you have a question mark for help, the puzzle board and settings.

Help and Settings

The help page gives you a cute introductory video which should get you going with the game. Settings allows you to switch the sound on and off, change the player (allowing you to have three people pick up the iPad and play without ruining your puzzles) and a reset button which allows you to reset the puzzles for the chosen player.

Simple Game Board

There’s not really much to say about game play, after all it’s a puzzle game, but the puzzles themselves are quite straight forward and do get progressively harder. On occasion I found the earlier ones to be almost too simple for an adult, but for kids they would be great. The way you play the puzzle is the same as the paper version and follows the same rules:

You can start on any square, with or without a reward on it.
You may move vertically or horizontally, but not diagonally.
You may not step on the black squares.
You must return to your starting point.
You may visit the same square once only.

To complete a puzzle you must make a loop through as many numbers as you can using your finger to join them in a loop and scoring the highest possible score. Once you get the high score you are awarded with a gold medal and you then move on to the next puzzle under that jewel.If you use too many moves you will have a red circle, not enough a grey circle and just right will be green. If you haven’t scored high enough then you will not receive a medal and you will need to keep trying.

Loop the loop

Once you have completed all 8 puzzles in a jewel you are awarded with the Jewel in the top section of the ‘Hex’.

Hex.. complete

I really like the implementation of the actual hexagonal cube itself and it’s a great way of choosing your puzzles and has a very smooth turning action as you swipe through the jewels and puzzles.

Once you get the hang of the game you will have the hex completed in just a few days and unfortunately at this stage there is no way to purchase more puzzles. This means that once you are done you are done and the app gets reduced to the ‘completed’ pile that gets removed from your device. Any game that you can quickly complete needs a reason to stay on your iDevice and unless it’s a game that has the most unbelievable game play or graphics that you are going to show off to your friends then it needs to have the opportunity to upgrade it.

Graphics could be improved

The graphics for the iPad seem to be simply 2x iPhone graphics and I think this is a shame. Just doubling up on the pixels is what the iPad can do natively and I would prefer to see better graphics/use of the bar along the bottom or the back button and score area. Also in the medals that are presented you can really see the lack of detail on the iPad version.

There are some great opportunities for this game going forward and I would like to see more. Firstly you could have two versions, one for kids and one for adults. Then you have Game Center integration (which it currently doesn’t have) which would be great in conjunction with a timed version of the game whereby you have to complete the puzzles in the quickest possible time. And that brings us on to the next one which is multiplayer. It would be great to be able to either join up with WIFI, Bluetooth or Game Center and be play timed games against friends.

The game currently costs $1.29 and to me that’s great value for 64 original puzzles. As I mentioned previously once you have completed gold on all levels then you are done with the game and instead of this I’d like to see the option of buying a new ‘hex’ of puzzles via the in-app-purchase system. They could even make the game free and charge, offering just a few puzzles at no cost and then user could buy a complete hex of puzzles for a $1.29 per ‘hex’

Overall the game is great but there are some missing features and the iPad graphics do let it down slightly. For a buck 29 it is well worth getting and I am sure this is just the first version that will be improved and built upon. The kids will love it and it will keep the adults entertained.

– Rogo