Game Review: Fling

Fling! by CandyCane

In this puzzle game, you get three different play modes to choose from and varying levels of difficulty for each, providing hours of entertainment. What's better is that this game, usually available for $1.99 is being offered for free for a limited time. So there's no reason not to give it a go if you like puzzles, is there?

The goal of the game is fairly simple. You must get each fuzz ball off the board. Of course, there are a few conditions as to whether or not a fuzz ball can be knocked off. Fuzz balls can't go off the board on their own, so flinging them at the edges of the board won't do anything. They need to be hit by another ball, that is in the same column or row as them, in order to go off the side. Fuzz balls that are sitting next to each other cannot hit their neighbor.

You can see how this could be a bit puzzling at times. Some puzzles are harder than others. There are about five puzzles per level, and difficulty generally increases with each level. There are twenty levels in total. If you make a mistake, or send a fuzz ball going in the wrong direction, you can press the curved arrow located at the bottom of the screen to take that move back. You don't lose any points for this.

The three different play modes you get to choose from are these:

Arcade: In which you play the basic game. Remove all but one of the fuzz balls from the board, and do so within the time limit (about a minute). The faster you solve the puzzle, the more points you score. You get a set number of hints per level, so use them wisely! The biggest downside of the hints is that you can only use them if the puzzle has been set back to the beginning. So if you've made a lot of moves, you're going to have to keep hitting the curved arrow until it's set up properly again. Hints only show one move. If you come to a puzzle you can't solve and have run out of hints, you can tap the hint button again— but at the cost of forfeiting the level.

Free Play: The same as arcade, but without the time limit. If you go past your hint limit, another puzzle is added to your level.

Challenge: This is where it gets really tricky. In this mode, you must solve each puzzle in the levels within a set amount of time.

You can also set your difficulty levels from easy (starts at easiest puzzles with lots of time) to medium (starts at easy puzzles, but with less time) to hard (harder puzzles with the least time of all).

What I really enjoyed most about this game was that, as the levels progressed, I began thinking about and looking at the board differently than I had at the beginning. Moves that hadn't been clear when I first started suddenly were, and I was climbing through the levels. The graphics are cute, and I enjoyed the sound effects. You can listen to the music in the game or to your iPod. Grab this one while you can! 4/5