Monster Cube

If you're one of those people who can solve a Rubik's Cube in 20 moves or fewer, you might want to skip this review.

For you, the cube is barely more taxing than the daily jumble. But to those like me who have never solved a Rubik's Cube, it's an instrument of pure magic and mystery.

Monster Cube, by contrast, is a fun match-three style puzzle game that is eminently more solvable, but is no less magical, than everybody's favourite stocking-filler.

When you begin a game of Monster Cube you're confronted with a cute, hovering, multi-coloured cube made up of smaller, cube-shaped monsters.

The larger cube measures four rows by four columns, giving you a grand total of 64 mini-monsters to manipulate.

And manipulate you will. The object of Monster Cube is the same as it is in pretty much every other match-three game: align cubes of the same colour/monster, and they disappear.

What makes Monster Cube truly remarkable is its three-dimensional setting. With a simple drag or swipe gesture, you can rotate the meta-cube along any of its three axes to move a piece from one side of the cube to another.

You'll feel like Tony Stark going over one of his many holographic blueprints as you do this - and while the graphics aren't projected into space in front of you the three dimensional-rendering is really quite slick and brings out the vibrant colours of the game nicely.

While it's true that Monster Cube doesn't deliver a ton of variety in the gameplay department, what it does deliver is solid and challenging throughout.

Each level consists of a randomly generated configuration of cubes within the meta-cube, with a total of three different colours available per level.

This makes the matching easy from a statistical point of view, but the three-dimensional nature of the game introduces a welcome challenge.

Because there are no bonus rounds or stiff time penalties for missed combos, Monster Cube moves quickly and steadily.

With so many match-three games following in the footsteps of Bejeweled, it's refreshing to see a game like Monster Cube come along and turn the entire genre on its head - before rotating it to the right and left, and then turning it on its head again.

Monster Cube is a fine puzzle game and a great example of what a mobile game should be. It's polished, easy to play in short bursts, and provides just the right level of challenge to be engrossing without being frustrating.

With plenty of missions available in the free version, and many more available in the paid (unlocked) version, Monster Cube will give you hours of puzzling fun for its free or modest price.

As an added bonus, it'll also fit neatly in your pocket, which is more than you can say for the chunky, sharp-corner brain-mangler from which it draws its inspiration.