I don’t know why Tappingo 2 is better, but it’s way better ⊟
I liked Tappingo a lot. I played through a bunch of puzzles, thought “pretty cool game!” and wrote up some impressions. It was, in fact, a pretty cool game.
Tappingo 2 is the same exact thing, with new puzzles, and it’s consumed hours of my life. And I have no idea what made that happen this time.
Tappingo is a Picross-esque puzzle game in which you extend criss-crossing lines to a prescribed number. It’s really damn hard to explain: say a block has a 2 on it, that means you need to extend it 2 spaces out in some direction. The line won’t stop extending until it hits another block, so you need to plan out the puzzle to get everything to spread out the right amount. Doing this correctly generates a picture of, like, an orange, or Big Ben, or Max from Mutant Mudds, or any one of 100 things in Tappingo 2.
The only real difference between the games, besides 100 new puzzles, is the “zoom” feature, which lets you zoom in on an area of a large puzzle (which normally displays half-size to fit the whole puzzle on screen).
Is that enough to get me more hooked? It is way, way easier to play big puzzles now. The puzzles quickly get larger than one screen, jumping from about 30 seconds to complete (that feels good) to seven or eight minutes each.
Or maybe it’s that, combined with the fact that I just came off of Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney and have a case of puzzlebrain. Or maybe the puzzles are just easier. How embarrassing that would be for me, to find out that the reason I’m feeling so much better about this puzzle game is that it’s been dumbed down a bit…
Anyway, I can’t nail down exactly what it is that changed between Tappingo 1 and 2. The sequel is just a better game in some ephemeral but real way, and is now one of my favorite puzzle games in recent memory! I may not be able to explain why I’m recommending it, but I have no problem making the recommendation.
BUY Nintendo 2DS & 3DS/XL, upcoming games
