Initial Impressions review
Cogs (for PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Netbook) PC version reviewed
by Lazy 8 Studios
http://www.cogsgame.com/
This indie offering provides a nice twist on the classic sliding block puzzle. The game challenges you to rearrange cogs usually in order to accomplish something like connect the driving cog to a helicopter rotor to get it to fly. There also puzzles that involve rearranging pipe sections to guide steam from one output pipe to another input pipe. These are the two main types of puzzles that I've encountered after having played the first 10 puzzles. There may be other types later on.
Solving the puzzle isn't the only challenge, the amount of time you take as well as how many moves you use is tracked. You get more points if you use less than a certain number of moves and/or solve the puzzle under a certain time. These points are accumulated and unlock more advanced puzzles. There appears to be 50 in total. This in inventor mode.
Also when you solve each puzzle, the same or similar version is also unlocked in a Challenge mode which has two sub-modes. In the first sub-mode you must solve the puzzle in 10 moves or less with no time limit and the second sub-mode you must solve the puzzle in 30 seconds or less. It's a nice way to add replay value and for each mode the blocks are sometimes arranged differently although they tend to be easier than their Inventor mode counterparts.
There is predicatably little variety in music but the bells and chimes are relaxing and unobtrusive. I barely noticed it was the same music playing for every puzzle so it's a non-issue. Surprisingly the steampunk style graphics are in 3d which are quite nice and they also serve a functional purpose. Some puzzles require that you rotate them to solve other parts. One clever puzzle involves routing steam on both sides at the same time with some blocks having pipes of different orientation on each side.
So far based on a few hours of play, this looks to be an excellent puzzler. It's easily controlled by a mouse and the concept of sliding blocks should be immediately intuitive to anybody making for an almost non-existent learning curve. It can be quite addicitive especially when you want to try to solve the puzzles again but in less time and with less moves.