Maths is cool. There, I said it. Ever since Seth from The O.C. made geek-chic en vogue a decade ago, it’s become more and more fashionable to be a nerd. But if you’re going to talk the talk then pop the lenses out of those thick-rimmed glasses and walk the walk over to BoxOff, the fun puzzle app from inventor Steven Meyers and developer Michael Gilbert.
BoxOff is a mind-boggling puzzler that starts off almost too easy and ends up A Beautiful Mind-type hard. There are three modes in the free app, Puzzle, Stacks and Area. Puzzle is the simple, beginner level and all you have to do is drag the dots to create a rectangle in which all of the dots are the same colour, which then removes the dots. However, if one of the dots in the rectangle is another colour, this won’t fly and you’re back to the drawing board. The tricky part of the game is ensuring that you remove the dots in the right order, so you can formulate the best rectangles later on in the level. Sound complicated? Download it yourself and see how easy/hard it is!
Stacks mode adds an extra complication in that some of the dots are piled on top of each other, so you have to account for this in your planning. Area Mode goes one step further and insists that you clear the board with a certain amount of tiles covered (this one is my favourite) and Expert combines Stacks and Area Mode in the upgraded version of the app, along with a Daily Puzzle that’s sent to your iDevice.
The soundtrack evokes a sense of a jaunty, fun fair and the “EEE-RRR” game show-style noises when you get a rectangle-drag incorrect are a nice touch. There’s even a toggle for Colour Blindness, making the colour of the dots neutral.
Anyone with even the slightest bent towards mathematics will love this fun, free game. Now, I’m off to see if I can get a leather lab coat tailored to my frame…
