Puzzle Craft

The game's a well-oiled, spit-polished masterpiece of casual gaming that needs to be on your iOS device.

Puzzle Craft is the most addictive puzzle mash-up to hit the App Store this year. Spending collected puzzle blocks to build a town is smart. But allowing that bustling town to power-up the puzzle minigame is brilliant.

Puzzle Craft is a wonderful example of how to attract the casual, the hardcore, the cynical, and even the most bitter cash-for-progress gamers of the world together. I am addicted to an empire-building game, and if you've read even a fraction of my previous polemic against the genre, you will know by now that this is the highest accolade I could ever bestow on the game.

Puzzle Craft is a perfect concentration of the components of the best puzzle and social games.

Puzzle Craft compensates with quality what it lacks in originality; borrowing elements from various genres and games, AT Games managed to create an addictive and compelling puzzle game than fans of the genre should not miss.

If puzzle and sim games spin your wheels, you'll get plenty of mileage out of this one.

I'm not sure I needed a game in my life with the same hooks used by both Dungeon Raid and Triple Town-each of those alone ate hours and hours of my life. Now that I have it, though, there's no giving Puzzle Craft up.

Combining two popular genres, with progress made in each affecting your opportunities in the other, has made for an interesting and engaging mobile experience.

Puzzle Craft attempts a different approach to the popular city-building genre, replacing the typical microtransaction model with a satisfying puzzle game.

Puzzle Craft is a fine blend of addictive casual gameplay elements, giving rise to a puzzler that you'll gladly keep coming back to without the usual guilt-factor associated with repetitive gathering.

At first, the game starts off slow, as you would expect from any simulation game. But as you get the ball rolling, it's quite hard to put this down. I love the fact that it combines two of the most addictive types of games into one, so it's just that much more enjoyable.

It's particularly refreshing that in-app purchases are far from vital to progress. A rarity in such a money focused genre.

Puzzle Craft acts like it combines two genres, a puzzle game and a city builder, but in reality only the puzzle portion remains standing. The three-in-a-row section is well executed and has a few fresh, new elements, but never really reaches challenging heights.

An entertaining experiment, Puzzle Craft won't convert anyone to its slow-paced cause, but it'll certainly keep fans entertained.

The presentation is cute, and highly functional. I must mention that the game is universal, but because of the freemium nature with waiting periods and being played in portrait mode I prefer it on the iPhone. Being able to quickly tax my empire when standing in line is great.