Sinkr 2 review - "A puzzler that expands on the good work of its predecessor"

Sometimes it's amazing the sort of challenges you can build from something simple. Take Sinkr 2, for example. To all intents and purposes it's about some bits of rope, some hooks, and a few buttons, but from those building blocks it creates one of the best puzzlers we've seen this year.

Of course, that isn't too much of a surprise. We loved the original Sinkr, and everything else that developer Wahler Digital has made. Sinkr 2 is another addition to an increasingly growing list that proves that when it comes to puzzle gaming the smartphone should be your platform of choice.

Slide and hook

If you've not played the original game, there's no need to fret - Sinkr 2 will walk you through everything you need to know. Essentially you're dragging pucks into slots - once you've filled up all the slots you've solved the puzzle and it's time to move on to the next one.

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Except things are rarely that simple. The hooks you're using to move the pucks around can tangle together, hook on to one another, or look like they're moving in completely the wrong direction. It's up to you to figure out how to solve the puzzle with the limited resources you've been given.

Because the hooks are on lines of what amounts to digital rope, they can only be reeled in in one direction. That means sometimes you're going to have to connect them together in order to get them to the right place.

Some of the slots you're moving the pucks towards have space for just a single puck, but others you'll need to drop more into. That might mean breaking up groups of pucks, or combining them together. Figuring out which you have to do is part of the learning process, and the game is never afraid to push you to think in different ways.

There's a decent level of challenge here, but you'll rarely find anything too difficult to complete. Sure, you'll scratch your head and wonder what you're meant to be doing from time to time, but the basic building blocks of the game remain consistent - you've always got the info you need to move on.

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The game's art style is neatly abstract - there's no unnecessary clutter here, just everything you need to finish off the problems. And there are a lot of problems to try and finish - you're going to be playing Sinkr 2 for a good long while before you've seen everything it has to offer.

Oi, Sinkr

Sinkr 2 isn't just more of the same, it's an evolution of the ideas that worked in the original, which means even if you smashed your way through the first game, you're going to find more to love here. By the same token, this is a game that's abstract and asks you to figure things out for yourself - if that's not what you're looking for in a puzzler then you should give it a wide berth.

For those who don't need everything handed to them on a plate though, Sinkr 2 is a smart and engaging puzzler that cements the series' place in the upper echelons of the mobile puzzle gaming gamut.

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