App Name
Description
Slide Ur Buddy is a unique and creative twist on an old game concept, slide puzzles. Instead of sliding around tiles looking for the solution for a set of images that are downloaded with the game, Slide Ur Buddy allows you to pick your own images from your phone or Facebook account and turns them into your own personalized sliding tile puzzle game.
Aside from playing alone, you can allow the game to access your Facebook account and challenge your Facebook friends to a highest score contest. As you advance through the five levels of the game, the challenge increases, as do your scores.
How it works
The game is simple to setup and even easier to play. You begin by selecting an image to use in your puzzle from your phone, or Facebook account if you allow the game access. The first time that you play the game, you’ll be starting with a 3—3 puzzle at level 1. As you complete each puzzle you unlock the next level and advance through. The 5 levels of the game increase in difficulty as you go.
With an OpenFeint or Facebook login you can not only challenge your friends to beat your high scores, you can actually send them an image challenge as well.
Opinion
I downloaded this game from an email link and didn’t even take the time to read the Play Store description before I installed it. My first impression of “just another sliding puzzle game” were totally wrong.
When the game asked me to select an image, I assumed that it was for use as an avatar. When the image of my daughter loaded as the puzzle, I was instantly hooked
I had to restart the game a few times at first as it just seemed to hang on the OpenFeint login process, but after I was able to play without issue. There is no tablet interface, but the game plays just as well on my both my 7″ and 10.1″ tablet. You’re stuck with playing the game vertically but it scales up just fine.
Ratings
Speed (5/5) – Once I overcame the initial issues with lagging, the game played well.
Features (5/5) – The game is what it isn’t. It’s a simple sliding puzzle game and doesn’t try to force useless features. Just enough social to be interesting.
Theme (5/5) – What’s not to like about basic black. The game is your puzzle and there’s not much more to it than that.
Overall (5/5) – Easy and free. And it actually works.
Pros
- Simple concept, simple execution.
- Sending an image as a challenge instead of just a score is a nice feature add.
- Easy game to play quickly. Comes in handy at the doctor’s office.
- Runs incredibly well on my 10.1″ tablet.
Cons
- The initial lag that I experience happened on my phone and tablet. Not sure what caused it, but it cleared up on both once I got past the OpenFeint login.
- I didn’t make it through all 5 levels, but only 5 seems limited.
- Tile numbers can be very hard to see depending on the subject matter in the image that you select for use.
Conclusion
Initially, I thought this was just going to be a sliding puzzle game full of pictures of cute babies and puppy dogs. Turns out I was right, but they were pictures of my beautiful baby and my little dog.
Sharing a picture as a challenge is a really unique way to send a new photo to a child away at college, and once they complete the challenge, they get to keep the picture. Even if you don’t have pictures of a baby to share in a challenge, Slide Ur Buddy is an interesting and unique twist on a very old game concept.
It’s free for now, so you should go get it while you can.
Google Pay Store | Slide Ur Buddy
Google Pay Store | Slide Ur Buddy