Slitherlink

There have been many games trying to create a tie in to Sudoku. So far I haven't seen one that succeeds with respect to such a tie in. Here's a game that doesn't try to make such a claim when it probably should. Slitherlink is a puzzle game that relies on similar logical deductions as a game like Sudoku while offering a very different play experience.

First, what is this game about? In Slitherlink you have a board of squares or hexes and you're going to try and create a loop using the edges of these spaces. Some of these spaces are blank and some have a number in. Numbers in spaces indicate how many sides must be included in this loop. When I first played I had an inclination that this was a logic puzzle like Sudoku, but it felt different. It took me about 5 minutes to solve my first small, hex puzzle on easy mode. So why is it different?

Let's look at Sudoku. In Sudoku the difficulty levels are more varied without doing things like doubling the size of the puzzle. Some cells have simple logical relationships to solve them where just two elements combine to provide a square's number and others can be quite complex. Slitherlink doesn't have that same range of difficulty. There are logical relationships and after solving several puzzles I think the 0's are the most valuable spaces as they provide the most information (followed by spaces with numbers in on the edge of the puzzle). I'm also relatively new to this so don't take that to the bank. Yet, Slitherlink is both interesting and mind bending for similar and different reasons. I could yap and yap about it, but the bottom line is that you need to try this game and feel your own brain churn in order to understand what I'm getting at. At the same time, don't be disillusioned when it's not the same as Sudoku.

Problems? The only real issue I have is that on larger puzzles there's a lot of scrolling back and forth as the entire puzzle doesn't fit on screen at a decent size. I'm not sure it's really practical to bother with those on a mobile screen. But the Android tablets are coming, right? It also gets a bit tight tapping on edges even on the small puzzles. However, as you can easily undo and correct any errors that's really not a problem.

If you don't like Sudoku then I think it's a safe bet that you won't like this. It's a puzzle game and it requires a fair amount of brain burning (or a LOT of trial and error) to solve. If you've got that kind of mind then this will be a real treat for you and if not then it will be torture. Please note that there are SEVERAL games in the Market called SlitherLink and that this (Ejelta's version) does have a demo. 4/5 stars.