Publisher: Mumbo Jumbo
Developer: True Thought LLC
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista; 1 GHz CPU; 256 MB RAM; 32 MB graphics card; DirectX 8.1 or higher; 30 MB hard-disk space
Genre: Puzzle
Release date: Available now

Twenty or so years ago, the Sudoku puzzle was unleashed on the world, giving math puzzle fans something new to occupy their hours on public transportation or waiting for their laundry to get done. Developer True Thought has taken the Sudoku concept several steps ahead with Everyday Genius: SquareLogic, an insidiously challenging time-waster that’ll have your brain hurting (in a good way) almost immediately after you start playing.

In SquareLogic you’re presented with a grid of squares (4×4 to start, up to 9×9). Each square contains the possible correct entries for that square; you can either left click on a number to select it, or right click on it to eliminate it from consideration. The squares are grouped into units called cages, and in a square of each cage is a rule that determines how the numbers in the cage’s squares should be combined. For example, a cage of two squares with a “3+” rule means that the correct numbers in the cage will add up to three. These rules become gradually more complex, including the four arithmetic functions, odd and even numbers, and the relationship concepts (greater-than or less-than), which will cause you the most frustration.

The game’s initial group of 455 puzzles is divided into five regions that inspire the graphics shown behind the puzzles (Ocean, Canyon, Forest, Mountain and Sky). Each region contains seven levels with 12 puzzles, plus a final challenge puzzle. You can choose to play all 12 puzzles in a level, or if you’re feeling confident, you can skip at any time straight to the challenge puzzle, which you must complete to unlock the next region (as well as anywhere from 200 to 800 more puzzles for that level). Moving to a new region increases the puzzles’ difficulty. Another row and column of squares is added to each puzzle, sometimes you’ll have to solve two boards simultaneously, and some of the puzzles will appear without cage borders (other than those of the square containing the cage’s rule). Completing the challenge puzzle in Sky unlocks a sixth region (Beyond), which features a challenge puzzle so dastardly I can’t bring myself to describe it.

To add a bit of urgency to the proceedings, every move that you make increments a counter. Your side task is to try to finish the puzzle in less moves than a target figure posted at the top right of the screen. There’s also an undo button that allows you to take back any bonehead moves that you’d like to fix. Also, if you purchase SquareLogic on Steam, a full set of achievements is available, some of which are simple to get, while others could take up most if not all of the estimated 5,000 hours of gameplay provided by the game’s 20,000 puzzles. However, strangely there is no achievement for solving all of them; now there would be one to brag about at your next Mathlete event.

I spent more than 20 hours playing SquareLogic, much more than I was anticipating spending on it, mostly because I was intrigued to find out what new wrinkle the game would send to me as I progressed. And I wasn’t disappointed, at least until I made it through the second region, after which all of the creative gameplay monkey wrenches the game threw at me stopped coming. The rest of the regions did nothing more than recycle the solving variations, other than expanding the size of the boards at the beginning of each new region, making the upper levels of the game repetitive and almost boring. Also, the target move figure shown for each puzzle is set much too high. I’m no math prodigy by any means, but when I was finished with the game I had solved 312 puzzles, 287 of them under the target number of moves, and many of them in less than half that figure. And on True Thought’s Website they say that “each puzzle is guaranteed to be solvable without guessing,” a statement on which I declare shenanigans; if there’s anyone out there who can solve the greater-than/less-than relationship puzzles in the last two regions without taking a single guess (educated or not), I want them to let me know how they did it. Plus, there’s no penalty for wrong guesses (other than adding a step to the counter); had there been one, I know that my under-par figure would be much lower right now.

Puzzle fanatics with a love of math and numbers will find virtual nirvana in Everyday Genius: SquareLogic. There’s enough variation (in the first 200 puzzles, at least) to keep the mind from seizing up, the graphics and sound are pleasing to the senses, and the price is certainly right ($14.99 on Steam and a free demo available) considering the literally thousands of puzzles available to solve. But you get to see all of the game’s tricks much too early, making the later stages much less engaging than they could’ve been. And for me, it also lacked the important “just one more round” addiction that other puzzle games offer; I found it much too easy to put down. I had fun with SquareLogic, but the fun was much too short-lived.

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