Lines app for iPhone and iPad
Lines is the second most famous Russian game after Tetris. If you are not quite sure what the heck Lines is, wikipedia is your friend, but essentially colored balls are thrown on to the board, you move them with your finger trying to form a line of at least five of the same color, once the line is formed it is removed from the board. Like with Tetris you just can not win! Trivial but highly addictive!
This game stand out from "other Lines games" in proper use of touch interface - you move the balls the way nature intended, i.e. not by using arrow keys on a keyboard, not even by double tapping or using mouse to select from and to cells; you move the ball with your finger. But the story doesnt end here…
In classic setup the game starts with a 9×9 board with three balls chosen out of seven different colors. In this game the size of the board, number of balls thrown each turn, number of colors could be selected in Options. Now, not only you could "run marathons" but sprint too and often leaders in different categories are different. (BTW, once Game Center would be available on iPad there would be an update and everybody would know the leaders in each category).
In addition to Lines the game also provide an ability to purchase "triangular" and "hexagonal" boards (one could also by them as separate games as "Triangle Lines" and "Hex Lines" applications respectively or all boards together as Shapes game - search in the AppStore if you interested). Different boards do change game strategy and dynamics completely. Triangle is our favorite board!
Finally, Lines is integrated with Facebook. Once Facebook integration is activated your results are posted to your Facebook wall so you could brag how smart you are and/or challenge your Facebook friends.
Pros and cons of Lines app for iPhone and iPad
Lines app good for
Lovely graphics, but moving the balls with my finger doesnt work well because the ball is hidden when my finger is over it, so it often needs several tries. The ball expands when touched, but not enough to easily be controlled, to move from one square or to another square. It might be good for small children, who have tiny fingers.
8 days later: The graphics were so attractive, I tried playing again, with trimmed nails for better touch access. It was better and quite enjoyable. I raised the stars from 2 to 4!
This game is great to play when you want to have a good time !!!
There is no point to Lines game!
It is just like Tetris (btw Lines is Russian too, just like Tetris). Those who bad-mouth this great game just dont get it.
I especially like the game on the iPad where you could have all 10 balls and have a board big enough to play them too. On the iPhone its pretty much limited to 6-8 colorm - I could hardly handle more and Ive been playing Lines back in Windows 311 days
Good game while your waiting for someone or something to just pass time no thinking needed
The objective was a bit difficult at first, but after you get it - very addictive! Great pastime for waiting rooms and last 10 minutes of your kids soccer practice!
Some bad moments
The gameplay is as expected, but it is hard to customize it. The number of tiles and colors is adjusted by sliders without indication of the actual number. There is no score-system implemented and hence there are no high-scores either, which is somewhat demotivating.
Id hoped that this would be similar to ball Lines from yahoo games. It wasnt similar enough. Forcing the ball to be dragged rather than tapping the one you want to move then tapping the square you want it to end up is one of several annoying features. Its way to easy for a piece to end up where you didnt want it, and for me the fun is in the strategy, not in testing my hand eye coordination.
If Id had a chance to try this before I bought it, I would not have purchased it.
The game lasts forever since the CPU only replaces 2 instead of 3 game disks. No fun and not worth $2
This is the most expensive really bad game Ive ever seen (except for the Triangle Lines by the same developer). Generally, I try out apps and games with an eye toward supporting a good idea and/or a nice interface (I dont program, but I teach users how to deal with the programs that programmers write. Hence: better programmers equals a better job for me. This game has nice graphics, but no sense of purpose or progress. So its dumb, and boring. Sorry: graphics nice, but design really not ready for prime time. And the price is either arrogance or just a straight forward con.
