Cogs

The Short

Pros

- Similar to the game Pipe Dreams with a good mix between gear and slider puzzles

- Fifty puzzles

- Lots of goals including speed, moves used, etc. to be ranked on

- Game has a cool, steampunk-esque theme

- Looks good on PC, iOS, or Android. Fun phone game. 

Cons

- Game gets really hard really fast

- Later puzzles are unlocked based on skill on previous ones, which means you might have to replay some for better times/moves

- Uses the same basic premise for puzzles throughout the whole game

If you like Steampunk and puzzles, I have a game for you. 

The Long

I'm pretty sure I own Cogs on every single platform it's available for. I got it as a free app of the day on iOS, and it seems to pop up in indie bundles all the time (so I probably have bought it more than once). It was weird that I only recently got around to playing it, especially since I love everything Steampunk and I also love...puzzles? 

Anyway, Cogs is pretty good, despite it's relative simplistic core elements.

Puzzles start easy enough. Don't be fooled. 

Cogs' core concept is simple: slide tiles with gears (or pipes) around until everything is connected and whatever device you are working on can fly away or whatever. It's a concept anybody can figure out, since it's just sliding pieces about, but it does a decent job of mixing it up. Gears make way for pipes, and some have to be activated at exactly the same time or without crossing, and thus things get tricky fast. After about five tutorial levels you'll be in the meat of the game, and trust me when I say this game gets hard.

Getting this puppy airborn requires keeping an eye on multiple grids at once. 

Gears of different sizes and levels get thrown into the mix, and then gears with pipes and having to solve one, two, three, or more puzzles at once (either with pieces having gears on both front and back or solving around a cube, etc.). While the core concepts remain constant, they do a lot with very little. It's a fun challenge, and the whole "one more puzzle..." here thing kicks in pretty bad. Until you get stuck. Then you get angry. 

Stuff is getting crazy. 

There's a Challenge mode as well as an "Inventor" mode, which is basically just harder puzzles. Since later puzzles are unlocked based on your speed, moves used, and previous puzzles solved, if you suck really bad you might have to replay some, which is never fun. Why not just have them all unlocked from the start? 

If you are into these kinds of puzzles, though, Cogs is worth a look. 

There really isn't much more to say about Cogs. It has a beautiful presentation that (as already stated) has a distinct Steampunk feel about it. The background music is nice, the graphics look good throughout, and it provides a decent challenge. At $10 on Steam, if you really like these kinds of puzzlers you can't go wrong, and it's even cheaper on iOS (where it looks just as good and plays better with touch controls).

A very solid indie puzzle game. A little more variety wouldn't have hurt, but it still works based on what it has here. Four out of five stars. 

And the mobile version looks good too! You can't go wrong here.