My review of Cookiz

One of my most loved game genres is logic puzzles, and especially the visual kind such as Traffic, Sokoban and others. Thus, it should not come as a real surprise that I was more than delighted to stumble upon a great new addition to my humble collection of Palm puzzle games – Cookiz.

Cookiz, a new game invented by the gifted Haim Shafir (the creator of the renowned card game Taki and other similar hits) and implemented for the Palm OS by ShSh Software (the developers of some of my favorite Treo applications of all times) is a game in which you have to try and clear up the board by combining and superimposing diversely shaped cookies which either share the same row or the same column as the other. Thus, for example, if you have a single cherry in the same row as a plain undecorated cookie, and no other obstacle separates the two, you can make them into a single combined cherry-decorated cookie. On the other hand, if you have a cherry-decorated cookie on the same column (or row) as a plain undecorated cookie, superimposing the two would leave you with just the cherry on the board (as the matching elements in both cookies – i.e. the undecorated base – would cancel each other and disappear).

This all might sound a bit too complicated or confusing at first, but the great in-game tutorial, as well as the gradual difficulty of the various puzzles, make the game actually quite easy to learn and become addicted to.

At this stage of its development, Cookiz is a rather simple and straightforward implementation which lacks some of the features we have became used to seeing in similar games, such as a hi-scores table, puzzle completion timer or an undo feature (which I personally miss most). Still, the quite large number and variety of puzzles (63 in all) as well as the freshness of the ideas behind it, makes Cookiz a real treat for any puzzle-lover and offers many hours of brain-twisting fun.

Highly recommended.
Maya