LightUp Puzzles

As any watcher of terrible Romantic films knows, constellations are a perfect way to a lady’s heart.

What can say ‘I’m a tender soul’ better than tracing out abstract shapes in the sky, praying you don’t overlap a previous ‘constellation’ in case she realises you’ve been having her on?

Thankfully these slip-ups should be a thing of the past thanks to LightUp Puzzles, which allows wannabe-constellation Cassanovas the chance to practise in safety before blagging their way to a lady’s heart.

LightUp Puzzles plays a lot like Snake, in that you have to negotiate a maze without banging into a previously visited square. Unlike in Snake, you do this by tracing your finger across a series of white boxes, colouring them blue, until you cover every box on the screen.

Instead of an overgrown garden with mysterious pieces of fruit casually popping into existence, LightUp Puzzles takes place in the night sky, lending it a relaxing atmosphere helped by the muted colours.

The music deserves a special mention here as it’s one of the rare instances where it actually helps set the mood. Its relaxed drum n’ bass and electronica is a far cry from the usual, ear-bleedingly bad sounds often heard on mobile releases.

There are, in theory, 126 levels to play through spread over three different modes – Normal, Multi, and Backtrack.

Multi is a cunning variation in which multiple start points have to be coordinated to fill in all the blocks, while Backtrack imposes a limit on the number of steps but allows you to, well, backtrack over previously lit blocks.

Unfortunately, Backtrack is broken. The game loses track of the moves halfway through a level, meaning the mode ends up being an unchallenging mess.

It’s the reason why I say it's 126 levels ‘in theory’, as one-third of the game is technically playable but possesses as much challenge or interest as switching on a light bulb.

So, while LightUp Puzzles has the makings of a decent if derivative puzzler, the fact that a whole third of the game is redundant makes it a lot harder to recommend.