Cutting up any shape isn’t a big deal. Some do their slicing and dicing on a knife board, some in geometry class. You might say it’s all about symmetry. Slice It is a game (Price: $0.99) which takes this simple concept and turns it around as a puzzler.  And then it proceeds to turn the way you think about proportions and sizes.

Slice It is a game that’s perfectly designed for the iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. The idea is dead simple. You are given a shape and you just have to dissect it in approximately equal sizes. It is dead simple if all you have to do is take a square or a circle and divide it into 2 or four equal parts. But that’s where Slice It starts to warm up. Slice It is also a proud member of our Best iPhone Games page.

A Deceptively Simple Yet Addictive Puzzle Game

http://youtu.be/CryH-PIwito

Slice It is a puzzle game. You are presented one geometric figure after the other and you just have to slice it with your finger into equal parts. Your success or failure determines your progress to the next stage. There are 200 mind-boggling stages to conquer. You can keep on re-trying till you get it just right. But if you start to get a headache, you can skip to the next stage. The number of pieces required and the number of slices you can make is indicated (the latter is indicated with a pencil).

addictive puzzle games

Slice It grades you on how accurately you managed to cut up the figures and in how many tries. For example, a square cut into four equal parts would mean that each sliced part is close to 25% of the entire shape to be geometrically equal and as a result earn all the 5 stars. The final result screen gives you an idea of your accuracy. A good score also means that you also get more hints to exploit in case you are stuck. And believe me; you will get stuck because Slice It is deceptively simple.

addictive puzzle apps

It gently eases you in with simple shapes – the kind of geometry we did in kindergarten and then wham – it hits you with an insane shape that drives you cuckoo thinking up all the angles. Try this (and even this is a relatively simple one in the first chapter):

addictive puzzle apps

Or this one, given as a screenshot on the iTunes page:

addictive puzzle apps

Then in the more advanced levels (like the same one above), just for fun, you have obstacles like line-refracting mirrors that test if you deserve to be called a genius or not. I frankly am not and haven’t graduated to these stages yet.

Oh, by the way…hitting the hints won’t help always because you need to get a perfect score in the last played puzzles to use it. There are no timed rounds (not in the first two Episodes anyway). You have an undo option and you can always retry playing the same stage. So, use the hints sparingly because the slicing and dicing only gets more challenging.

The Marathon

addictive puzzle games

Did I say that Slice It does not have timed rounds? Well, there are a few and you will find them on Slice It: Quick Mode where you race against the one minute on the clock. It’s a blitz game of furious finger-slashing. Success gains you three seconds on the clock, failure makes you lose three. I went a few rounds with it and then went for a few aspirins.

A Perfect Addictive Puzzler

Seriously, that’s the best way to describe an addictive puzzle game that once topped the charts on iTunes. Slice It is a game perfect for those who have a keen eye for shapes and sizes; and I bet it will challenge them too. The appeal of the game lies in its simplicity and its eye-catching design. You can choose skins too, though that doesn’t make too much of a difference. There’s very little to complain and lots to like. But allow me to nitpick.

If you have stubby fingers, you might find positioning the lines a bit difficult on the smaller screens. But you can take your time and more than one finger to move the line around to position it precisely. A mistake in the line placement and the game quickly cuts the segment. There is the undo button for such situations I guess, but that doesn’t save you in the final step and you end up playing the game again.

If you balk at letting go of $0.99 for the paid version, you can try Slice It Begins which is free but comes with only 100 levels. Whichever version you choose, it can only help you in understanding shapes and patterns. Take a day off and play similar puzzle games like Free Flow or put yourself (or your kid) on a diet of games that gives math some love. Have you cut up a few squares and circles on Slice It? Or were you caught flat-footed by the bizarre shapes?