Polimines Deluxe

Play it on: Mobile, PC

Current goal: Finish it without visiting the Discord for help

Polimines was a really smart, but slightly too easy, puzzle game released for Steam. Its sequel, Polimines 2, is one of the smartest, most well-crafted puzzle games ever made. Polimines Deluxe is the two games in one package, and ported to your phone. And I’m just obsessed with it.

Imagine combining Picross with Hexcells, and you’ve got a good idea of the nature of the puzzle—it’s about marking or deleting cells, based on information given both outside the grids and within. But unlike Picross, this is far more than a process of elimination: these puzzles, especially in the second game, require the most outrageous stretches of lateral thinking. The techniques and patterns you need to fathom are breathtaking.

I’ve completed it multiple times, but the puzzles get so complex that my memory doesn’t get me through. Also, as an idiot, I get stuck in the same places every time, and end up visiting the game’s lovely Discord community for prompts. I’m determined, on my third run through of the mobile version, not to do this.

The only gripe is that the mobile port doesn’t have the best zoom. On the few larger puzzles, you either have the full grid, sometimes too tiny to use, or zoom too far in to have enough context. It desperately needs an adjustable pinch zoom. I’ve raised this with the super-lovely lone developer, Molter. — John Walker