Threes is your new iOS jam ⊟
We don’t talk about iPhone games too much on TC, but sometimes I’m driven to because they’re so dang fucking good, like Threes is. It’s definitely a tiny game on a tiny device (or an iPad WHATEVER) so I don’t think it strays too far from our mission! And you should totally get it if you can!
Threes is the work of Puzzlejuice designer Asher Vollmer and Puzzlejuice/Ridiculous Fishing/Solipskier artist Greg Wohlwend, which tells you right away it’s a) going to have a clean, colorful look, and b) it’s an intuitive-as-hell puzzle game.
The rules of Threes couldn’t be simpler: slide numbered tiles together to add them together. 1 plus 2 makes 3, then 3 plus 3, 6 plus 6, and so on. As you make room on the board (or don’t), new tiles slide in. Your goal is to make the biggest numbers you can.
Big numbers are worth a lot more points than small numbers (and more than face value!) so you try to get as many big tiles, and as few 1s and 2s, on the grid as you can manage. Oh, and when you make a high number for the first time, you meet its “character” (all the tiles have lil’ faces and are adorable!)
Though I have a pretty dang good understanding of how to play at this point, I don’t feel like I have any good handle on how to play well. My scores range from “pretty good” to “uh, practice” almost at random. Rather than feeling frustrated, though, I feel like this just means there are strategies to learn, and nuances I don’t understand. For example, I’m slowly learning that I need to deal with 1s and 2s as soon as possible instead of always chasing down big numbers, simply because it’s too easy to fill up the board with small tiles by accident.
Threes is so simple in design that it feels like a Classic Puzzle Game. Like something that’s always been there, and something that will always be there (and probably something that will be straight up cloned to death, and iterated on in weird ways for years). Like a Tetris type situation. I don’t quite play games of Threes in my head like I do Tetris, but close.
If I have a gripe, it’s a small one, and it’s that I’m asked to sign my name before restarting every time. It’s just a couple of seconds, but I usually don’t want to put my name on the leaderboards for my games – I usually want to play again immediately. Most of my scores are not that good. I can imagine the situation is not as dire for people who are either more patient than me or better at Threes than me.
Threes is on the App Store right now for $2 (33.3~% off regular price). That price gets you the whole game; you don’t have to pay for more “energy” or unlock it through IAP or download new number tiles or anything. I shouldn’t have to specify that stuff, but it’s 2014 and I’m talking about an iOS game, so I kind of do.
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