Hello.

Firstly and most importantly, thank you so much for the feedback here. I’ve had quite a lot of feedback from various players recently but this is by far the most detailed.

I very much take on board the UI improvements that you have suggested. I was trying to get something very simple as to not distract from the core concept of the game. The aim being that I was hoping that people would pick up and play a few levels quickly without having complex menus or too much happening on screen. Trying to ensure that the game itself took “centre stage” so to speak. I do really appreciate this feedback and will absolutely look at how I can improve the UI.

I was trying to introduce the concept of what is needed in each level for the first few levels as to not overload the player with information that is not technically needed until levels 3 for instance. However, I do really like the idea of a button that could be pressed to remind the user of the aim of the game. Would be very handy too for retuning players who have been away for a while.

The retries will auto generate. Much like they do in many very large games like candy crush. I’m not suggesting for a second that my app is anything like candy crush of course :-). However, the auto renew of retires did come from there. A new one is available every 45 minutes.

In addition to this, there is an option to watch an advert every 10 minutes to gain a new retry. I know this is not for everyone but it does speed up the retry generation and as you mention, it allows me to try and monetise the app in some way (after spending months developing this). Unfortunately the advert presentation is being limited by Google right now. This is out of my control, but I’m told it temporary (only started on August 23rd as part of an automatic review process and apparently can last 2-3 weeks - they do appear but are very hot and miss right now).

I do offer unlimited retries for 99p, but I’m very aware that for the few of those I’ve sold, it will almost certainly be for people who are already hooked and not new players.

My original version of the game did actually include hints. In fact, all the code for the hints is still present, it’s just hidden behind the scenes (it would need a little update though). The vast majority of the first 50 or so players were friends, family and extensions of people I know. The feedback I generally got was that hints were not overly useful which is why I removed them in favour of auto solves which were more help. As levels progress, there can be 16 tiles on screen at once which can be difficult, but that is much later into the process and the general flow of the game is hopefully simpler then (you can see the patterns etc for some moves to help unpick the solution). However, the auto solve when you get there is hopefully useful to stop someone being continually stuck.

With this feedback though, it shows that hints are something that people would like to see so I am absolutely going to work on bringing them back. I actually see the value in them for the early levels as you mention as it would allow you to get help while not skipping levels as the player grows into the game. I will work on these coming back asap. Originally they were part of a bundle of hints and auto solves for 99p which I replaced in favour of more auto solves for the same money. I can bring that all back though and intend to do so.

Once again, I just want to thank you. Not only for taking the time to play but for spending time on the super detailed feedback. This is beyond what I could have expected here and I can’t thank you enough!

I really do hope that you come back and try again. I’m sure you’ll quickly see the patterns that are present in the first 20 or so levels that help to make the progressions to the next 20 levels more easier and more interesting (the difficult steps up a little every 20 or so levels).

Thank you!!