Wednesday App Review: Blendoku

I am terrible at Sudoku. Something about all of those little numbers in tiny boxes is just baffling to me. While I know there is literally zero math involved, as someone who never really cared for math in school, boxes upon boxes of numbers just looks downright intimidating. But colors? I can do colors with the best of them, and that’s what Blendoku is all about. This clever puzzle game is sort of a mashup between Sudoku and crossword puzzles with a healthy dose of color theory and color shading thrown in to make the game less intimidating, more challenging and absolutely a blast to play. Blendoku is designed to challenge your brain to think both spatially and in various colors, but in such a way that you probably don’t even realize it. The user interface of this game is extremely forgiving, making it an excellent game to pass the time. And, despite what it looks like, having a background in art isn’t necessary, although I am certain it helps. Here are a couple of screen shots from within the app:

Some of the puzzles are more obvious than others, but the difficulty scaling is absolutely excellent, and users are allowed to skip as many puzzles as they wish, resulting in both challenging and relaxed gameplay. There are challenges to complete, and the levels are all timed. Users can even compare themselves to the “global average” of all users on the same level, which is pretty cool. I actually initially downloaded the game on my lunch and decided to check it out really quick before giving it the full run at home that evening. Before I realized what was happening, I found myself desperately tapping the screen and trying to remember how to mix various shades of chartreuse, purple and brown on level twenty-seven. The game does allow for hints, which renew themselves over time, but if you get really stuck, you can always skip it and move on. That being said, if you have a hint for level 27, I am all ears! The app does have some in-app purchases of additional levels as well as more hints per day, but none of these purchases are necessary and all are extremely discreet. The app comes with around 475 free levels of varying difficulties. There are ads, but they are not very obnoxious and hardly noticeable. Blendoku has an entire level set that is designed to be played on tablets, with more colors and larger ranges, but the majority of the game can be played on just about any Android or iOS device. I highly recommend this app if you enjoy puzzles or if you’re at all into art and color. The interface is simple and very easy to understand and the game has absolutely hours of free enjoyment just waiting for you. This app is exactly the kind of thing that the app store needs more of, in my opinion. If you want a preview of how the game works, check out this video created by the developers to show gameplay:

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