Though it may have the board and pieces of an old-fashioned chess game, Rookfall is a different but equally puzzling experience that’s fun for all ages.
In Rookfall you control, well, a rook and must clear the board of all tiles to move to the next level. There are 300 complex puzzles that test your spatial reasoning with board sizes ranging from 5×5, 6×6, and 7×7, letting players choose their level of difficulty.
It’s a pretty casual game. There’s no time limit, so there’s no rush to beat the levels. But, the puzzles get increasingly difficult as you progress.
Swiping in any direction causes the rook to move across the board all the way to the last tile in that row. Because of this, you can’t really control where you stop, so you’ll need to plan out your paths carefully. If you make a mistake, don’t worry. There’s a handy reset button that lets you start the level from the beginning.
Another aspect of the game is the toppled rooks. Most levels will have these red rooks on the board. They act as roadblocks, stopping you from moving any further. They add another layer of difficulty since you now have to worry about running into them while also figuring out how to clear all the tiles.
Unlike other puzzle games, Rookfall leaves the player with the decision to set their own starting point. This lends a challenging aspect since there are a lot of possible places to begin. Not all of them will be right, though, it’s up to the player to mull over where to start. At higher board sizes, this choice is even more difficult to make!
The music included doesn’t even really distract from the game itself and you could even argue it helps players think about their strategy. While this is true, it could be a little grating to hear the same three songs over and over again if you’ve been stuck on the same level for 20 minutes.
Overall, Rookfall is a great and simple game for puzzle lovers who’d enjoy something to lose hours to. It is $2.99 on the iOS and Google Play stores.
Published: Nov 18, 2016 02:56 pm