Maze Machina

This is one of the best designed games I’ve ever played. I liked Threes but got bored with numbers. Imbroglio was confusing and frustrating to me. This game combines the best elements of both. The entire play experience is incredible. And with different modes, it’s accessible for casual players but challenging for experienced ones. Thank you for thinking of different kinds of players! I’m a casual gamer and this is perfect for me! This developer makes great games, and this may be my new favorite of his. And with such a fair premium price and no IAPs, this is a great buy. And he always keeps his games updated so they function well over time. Thank you for a great game, developer! We need more developers like this out there. This is honestly one of my favorite gaming experiences.

I “hate” this game almost as much as I love it. Learning it takes a while—figuring out what every weapon does and how they might interact requires many painful deaths. But when it clicks, it’s a beautiful thing. I’ve made elegant moves that get me through a level in 5 or 6 steps. I’ve managed to move the key and myself to the exit at the same time. I’ve had fantastic runs that could land me near the top of the global leaderboard ... ... and I’ve watched all of those things fall apart because the key got blown up, or cursed, or I accidentally teleported onto a bomb, or I got stuck and starved to death, or any number of other frustrating finishes. But, almost every time that’s happened, I’ve reacted the same way: by starting another run. And that statement hopefully tells you all you need to know about how great this game really is.

Pretty fun game, but the cheese mechanic is way OP. Whatever you do, make sure you get the cheese (which is sometimes impossible to do), or you will not make it far because it doesn’t show up enough. Developer: nerf the cheese mechanic! Put a slice on each level or maybe every other level instead of every 3. It is vital to survival and ruins the strategy of battling the bad guys. Your otherwise solid design becomes a game of Capture the Cheese or Die. Update: Just found Limit Mode which removes the cheese altogether. Better, but I think the cheese is a good mechanic, just overpowered, like I said originally. 1 star added.

Maze Machina gets my vote for iOS Game of the Year for 2020, even though it’s only January! TinyTouchTales is a small team of geniuses that make the best and most original iPhone games by a long shot. The super fun and sophisticated gameplay mechanics, the stellar art and animation, plus the brilliant (!) sound design make Maze Machina the best game they’ve made - but ALL of their games are excellent and (imho) too cheap. I didn’t think Card Thief could be topped but I was wrong. Ten stars!

I’ve been following this developer for awhile and really like their stuff. This game looks great and is well polished. The base mechanic is great: the breadth of modifiers and randomness make for a constant challenge. But, I have to agree with another reviewer about the cheese mechanic... Because enemies increase per level, and cheese only appears every three levels, what you find is by level 9+ whether or not it is even possible to get the cheese is a crapshoot. You may lose simply by running out of stamina and, due to the impossibility or bad luck of the level, be very frustrated by this. I want to lose because I strategically lost, not because random chance. An easy fix for this would be to have the robots pack the cheese like they do the key, so that I can destroy the cheese carrier and still obtain it. Why does the cheese disappear when a robot gets it anyway? It’s not like they can eat it...