FDG Entertainment. The name might not ring a bell, but if you’re an avid iOS gamer,
their games should...Blueprint 3D, Clear Vision, Tentacle Wars. Just a handful of the work
that makes FDG Entertainment one of the best iOS developers in the world.
And this week, they’re sliding another potential hit onto the App Store.
Slide Circus is one of those iOS games that immediately strikes you, and not because it’s
packed with superfluous features or graphics that push the hardware. Instead, it’s a
game that embodies the opposite approach. This is a simple concept unadorned by a bunch
of extras, but just given a personal touch and presented with elegance.
The kind of polished, addictive game that represents iOS at its best.
You can also make Emma Watson puzzles, which is impressive both from a technical standpoint
and in the sense that it’s a visual metaphor for the way my heart broke into pieces during
The Perks of Being a Wallflower when she had to, umm...actually, this probably isn’t
the best time. But she is pretty great in that movie.
So obviously, Slide Circus is a sliding puzzle game. You start with an image, the game breaks
it apart and you have to slide the tiles back together in the right order. This is an idea
you see in a lot of puzzlers, but one of the key additions in Slide Circus is that the
tiles loop back around once they’re pushed past the borders.
It’s a neat twist that makes the game feel unique.
Things start off simple enough, but the difficulty ramps up nicely. And eventually, the puzzles
are really challenging. They’re actually split into two groups. You have these objects...but
you also have animals, which are tougher. You actually have to unlock them, too, using
coins you earn for solving puzzles quickly.
Good luck with that.
And of course, as was clear during my little moment, there’s also a puzzle creator. Which
is really the coolest part of Slide Circus. Using any image you have on your phone, you
can make your own puzzles and then share them with friends. It’s an awesome little feature
that really steals the show.
There are a lot of puzzlers in the App Store, so you might have puzzle fatigue. But this
one is absolutely worth a download. It’s simple and beautifully elegant, but the game
is also genuinely challenging and its puzzle editor is a blast. No cotton candy or trapeze
artists, but nonetheless, Slide Circus is another winner from FDG Entertainment.
