Apple spotlights a new iOS app each week as a special pick: the App of the Week. Last week, it was a gorgeously designed alarm clock, Rise, that caught Apple’s editorial fancy.
This week, it’s Namco Bandai’s Doodle Fit 2: Around the World, a delightfully drawn puzzle game that’s sure to keep you frustrated yet coming back for more with its maddeningly simple concept.
The original Doodle Fit came out in October of 2010 and used a simple puzzle mechanic. Doodle Fit 2 takes the same basic gameplay and ups the ante visually, geographically, and brain-bustingly, which isn’t a word, I know.
It’s an appropriate word, though, as my brain started hurting somewhere around the fifth level or so of puzzles, each in a specifically named shape: Hot Dog, Dollar, Kung Fu, etc. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to try and fit variously shaped pieces, many of them Tetromino-shaped, into the open slots within the bounds of the image. Here, check it out.
https://youtu.be/-9Us7s4o9jk
In Doodle Fit 2, you’ll move around from puzzle to puzzle using a global “around the world” metaphor, visiting ten countries with 20 thematically-linked puzzles in each. If the basic mode isn’t challenging enough, you can push yourself with Time Attack and Challenge modes, too.
There’s a new Community section, with levels created by other players from around the world, and you can create your own levels here, too, sharing them with the community of players in the app as well as on Facebook and Twitter.
Add in Game Center and Open Feint achievements and leaderboards, and it’s easy to see why Apple picked this little mind-bending shape puzzle for its App of the Week.
Via: App Store
Rob LeFebvre is an Anchorage, Alaska-based writer and editor who has contributed to various tech, gaming and iOS sites, including 148Apps, Creative Screenwriting, Shelf-Awareness, VentureBeat, and Paste Magazine. Feel free to find Rob on Twitter @roblef, and send him a cookie once in a while; he’ll really appreciate it.
