Slice It!

If you grew up in a large family like I did, you’ll have had all the practice you need to play Slice It!

As I swiped my way through the early stages of Com2uS’s ingenious puzzler, I couldn’t help but recall being sat around a table with my siblings, monitoring my mother’s dissection of a cake. No-one would stand for having the smallest bit.

Precise slicing is the name of the game here, with plenty of well-judged embellishments making this one of the finest casual puzzlers on Android.

Having been presented with a basic shape (there are 60 available, with 40 more to come), your goal is to divide it into the required number of equal slices using a set number of moves. Each move constitutes a swipe across the shape, which marks where the slices will occur one you’ve finished your planning.

It can often be hard to get a sufficient level of precision with this main method, so there’s a handy (and often overlooked) multi-touch method that lets you manoeuvre the slice line exactly using two fingers.

While the game starts out simple, with circles and squares that need cutting into even-numbered slices, things soon escalate. Before long you’re tackling asymmetrical polygons where it’s impossible to get evenly shaped slices (they only need to have equal surface areas).

Eventually, new obstacles and tools will be presented, such as red areas that can’t be sliced through, and mirrors that serve to, well, mirror your slicing angle.

Strategic cuts

If you’re a keen follower of these pages you’ll probably have read our review of the iPhone version. For once, I’m glad that this Android version came out a few months later, as it’s a better game for all of the updates that have since been added.

As hinted at above the game is one tough nut to crack, so it’s good that you can now skip a level if you’re really struggling. You also now have the ability to undo the final slice of a failed level, preventing you from having to start all over again.

There are annoyances here, such as the lack of the iPhone version’s achievements (OpenFeint would be nice) and a good chunk of its levels. The adverts can be obtrusive, too, to the point where for many a paid version won’t be able to come soon enough.

Still, Slice It’s fresh concept, expert execution and fine polish will doubtless prompt an almost Angry Birds-like level of obsession among those who are up for a challenge.