PathPix on the iPhone (and iPad)
I was introduced to a really neat puzzle game on the iPhone yesterday by a friend. The game is called PathPix. There are 3 versions of the app — a lite, regular and pro version. The regular and pro versions offer different sets of puzzles. It’s best to start with the regular version and work your way up to the pro version later.
The game itself is a cross between a Nonogram (aka Picross) and Slitherlink. Basically, you make pictures by connecting two numbers to form a path. The numbers represent how many spaces the path takes up. They also have a color which represents what color the path will be. To complete a puzzle, all of the paths must be connected and there cannot be any open spots on the board. You can see the first puzzle below:
I played quite a few puzzles last night, and while it was very enjoyable, there was something that was bothering me. And I realized this morning what it was — because of the iPhone’s display size, you spend a lot of time dragging the board around to get other parts. If only there was a device with a bigger screen but the same touch interface that the iPhone has…
That’s when I realized what the impact of a device like the iPad will have on the puzzle market. The iPad has the potential to combine all of the strengths of a device like the iPhone with all of the strengths of the traditional puzzle magazines and books in a single unified interface. An iPad version of PathPix would not require the user to drag around the board just so they could expose a new section.
Obviously these benefits won’t just effect PathPix — pretty much any traditional puzzle game that was done with pen and paper before can now be done even better with an iPad like device. No more erasing, no more ripping the page, no more finding out that a family member did your favorite puzzle in ink — just an endless supply of puzzles kept alongside everything else in your tablet.
I’m pretty sure that someone is already working on this — it seems like an obvious enough of an idea. But if for some reason they’re not, it is an excellent opportunity to get a foothold in the upcoming iPad market.
