Previews

Hands on with sliding steampunk iPhone puzzler Cogs

Has added Chillingo Crystal sociability too

Hands on with sliding steampunk iPhone puzzler Cogs
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| Cogs (iPhone)

It's already proved its worth as a PC title, and has been nominated for the 2010 Independent Games Festival, so we're really looking forward to the iPhone debut of Cogs.

It's one of the highest quality puzzle games we've seen in terms of its production quality, and it's one that mixes a simple user interface with some very brain-twisting situations.

Themed in a steampunk style, with the menus controlled by moving mechanical arms, the core gameplay has you sliding tiles around increasing complex 3D shapes in order to connect up cogs and pipes in such as way so as to make the machinery work.

The less moves you make, the more awards you get, which unlocks more puzzles. Indeed, as well as the main Inventor mode, in which you can make as many moves as you like, there's also a Challenge mode, in which the puzzles are either limited in terms of time or number of moves.

Cog ergo sum

The games starts off with you having to do things such as moving cogs around a cube to get a rotor blade to rotate (you move the cube to access different faces using multi-touch).

Other examples include moving pipes to direct steam, or getting bells to chime simultaneously, which you do by sliding different types of cogs and beaters around.

It really starts to get complex, however, when you have double-sided puzzles that can only be solved when every tile is in exactly the right location to solve both sides of the mechanical mix-up.

You can get an idea how it works in the following video.

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The Kingdom of the Crystal DLC

Cogs will be one of the first games to integrate Chillingo's Crystal social gaming network platform, which will be used in terms of achievements and global leaderboards.

The game will also support in-app purchases, with additional packs of ten puzzles available to buy for 99c if you want more head-scratching. There will be eleven puzzles available from the start, and four additional packs.

Cogs is being submitted to Apple this week, priced 99c, so we hope it should be live on the App Store during January.
Jon Jordan
Jon Jordan
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon can turn his hand to anything except hand turning. He is editor-at-large at PG.biz which means he can arrive anywhere in the world, acting like a slightly confused uncle looking for the way out. He likes letters, cameras, imaginary numbers and legumes.