Kudosu

[Jubal]

KUSODU

Game Type: Free Online Play/Android
Genre: Puzzle

Links:
Google Play
Online Demo

Graphics rating:
Gameplay rating:
Immersion rating:
Overall rating:

I've been following Kusodu via its dev thread here, and thought that the final produc was pretty neat. The rules are very simple; clicking a square reduces that row and column by one, you can't click on a square if it has any empty boxes in its row/column, the aim is to reduce the grid to zero.

This simple system creates a game that I'd very much recommend. Each puzzle is just different enough to keep one going - the early ones are very simple to allow you to work out the system, but by the medium/hard modes it's a genuine and worthwhile challenge working out where the right set of clicks are to reduce the board - often reducing it down to something that looks more similar to what you've tackled already so you can go the last few steps. Another thing to note in my review numbers is the very solid score on graphics; it has a simple, crisp-clean look, unobtrusive advertising, and very much looks the part.

In terms of improvements I'd like to see, it's mostly a "yes, more of this, please": the complexity level of the puzzles finishes too early for folks like me with a fairly high tolerance for them, so seeing some with higher numbers would provide more of a heavy duty challenge. The ability to create puzzles, save the ones on the randomiser, or set the difficulty level on the randomiser would all be nice too. The format could be played around with a bit if the puzzle shapes were a bit different, too, to create some more options there.

All that said - if I review a game and my "negatives" are all "here's a bunch more things I'd like to see" rather than "here's what's wrong with what's there" it's safe to count that as an endorsement and that's definitely what this review is. Kudosu's a good puzzle game to wrap up your brain for a while - go check it out!