Price: $0.99 Score: 10/10 Category: Games
Freeze! is a gorgeously creepy iPad game developed by Frozen Gun Games/Andreas von Lepel. This spooky black and white puzzle game takes the rules of physics and then turns them on their head (literally!)
After being wrenched away from your homeland and your loved ones, you are put in a terrifying prison. Your goal: escape as quickly as possible, but do so without losing your life to one of the many sharp obstacles you will encounter.
The aesthetic here is a bit Tim Burton-y: abstract shapes and pitch perfect music combine to create a puzzle experience that is delightfully engrossing, and just a little bit menacing.
The gameplay of this puzzler is pretty straightforward. Your goal is to reach the spinning vortex. Twist the puzzle around with your fingers to move, then tap the freeze button to “freeze” the gravity, which will suspend you in mid-air. While you are frozen, you can move the puzzle around you, making it easier to access the exit point.
The controls are superb. I love the tactile sensation of moving the puzzle around with my fingers, and find it vastly superior to other puzzle games where you have to turn the entire iPad.
The puzzles are fiendishly tricky, and fiendishly addictive. I do wish it was slightly faster to restart the level after you die, especially because there are some really hard levels where you’re basically guaranteed to die a dozen times in a row before you finally get the right rhythm going.
Freeze! features 25 levels, plus 10 bonus levels. That’s my only gripe, really: I want more! Thankfully, you buy extra worlds for 99 cents each via an in-app purchase. It’s a pricing model that I love for puzzle games, as it seems really fair to pay as you go.
Featuring gloomy graphics from the internationally renowned pop-up designer and illustrator Jonas Schenk, and a very sinister soundtrack from Swiss electronic/trance musician Karl Lukas, Freeze! is a delightfully creepy puzzle title that you need to put on your iPad right now.
Freeze! is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.3 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.
Freeze! is also available on the Google Play store, the Samsung App store, on Nook HD devices and on the Amazon Kindle Fire HD.