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Pinch is a maze-based puzzle game created by Coatsink Software in which the player is given a certain amount of movable colored circles called “Norbs”. The goal is to get the all the Norbs to their destination, but to do so you have to not only find your way through the maze, but you must also circumvent obstacles using special abilities such as morphing together to become bigger, or changing color to pass through force fields. Other obstacles include switches to open gates, freeing imprisoned Norbs that need to be combined, and doors that will only allow a certain number of Norbs to pass through before completely shutting.
Besides the gameplay itself, Pinch is a well-developed game that is programmed to stay up to date. I think it is very impressive when developers not only have a very well made game but also include options to allow it to work flawlessly. Some of these impressive features include being able to receive regular updates, new levels, leader-boards, achievements, and even a colorblind mode. Even though the look of the main menu isn’t the best, it is still very well put together.
The idea of Pinch is very simple. You first start off solving the first 12 levels, which serve as a tutorial. After getting through the introduction, you move through the difficulty ranks (easy, medium, hard, harder, and flux), each of which have 12 mazes to solve. Once you get through the game’s included levels, you are given the option of buying additional content. Don’t worry, if you really like certain puzzles that you played, you can always go back on the level section and play it again.
Pinch is a very fun game and it is easy to get into but I had some difficulty staying focused. Even though the levels were increasingly challenging, it still felt as if I was doing the same thing repeatedly, just in a different order. Additionally, almost everything looks the same (which is probably the reason I felt like I was doing the same thing repeatedly each round), but at least it didn’t look bad. The graphics in this game are very well done. It is easy to see what is what, and the music and sound effects are good.
However, one of the big problems I would continuously have is when touching the screen and trying to pinch the Norbs either together or apart they would not separate or connect. This can be a little frustrating, but won’t change your opinion of the game entirely. Overall, Pinch is a very fun game to play and definitely worth your while if you enjoy puzzles. Even when I found myself getting kind of bored doing the same thing, the game still sucked me in because I wanted to solve the very interesting maze puzzles that the game would throw at me.
Review copy provided by publisher.
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