I heard about Threes earlier this month and it was the new puzzle game darling on mobile. But it was for iOS (and a paid app) so while I had some desire to try it, it wasn’t that strong. Later this month it appeared on Android. It still cost money ($1.99, being 33.3% off) so I was still not really willing to pay for it.

Fortunately, there are a lot of free(mium) clones around. I tried one called Fives which has the same mechanics but different numbers. I played it for a couple of days. It started slow, but eventually I learned more of the patterns and it started getting more interesting and challenging. While I might start some puzzle games like these, I tend to give up after awhile because it requires too much thinking. But I think this game concept is a good combination of quick rewards and not-too-tough patterns. Kind of like Sudoku.

After a point, I decided that I might as well spend the $2 on the official game instead of paying money to remove ads on a clone. I had some credit in my Google account anyways. While the mechanics are the same, I think Threes is a much better game. The details and design are important and you can tell that there is a lot of polish in Threes to improve those. In fact, they wrote a very long and detailed blog about how much time they spent on the design.

After playing the game some more, I think it’s both a game which you can spend a lot of time thinking about, but also one that you can play quickly. I enjoy playing it quickly because I don’t want to stress out about it, and only really start thinking when my board is full (or 1 or 2 spots open). The early stages of the game seems kind of a bore to me as I’m just moving pieces around until my board is full. But if you were serious, I think you would spend a lot of time setting up your board from the beginning and then maintaining that setup as you continue.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: android, games