Pivotal review - "A puzzler that isn't as straight as it seem"

I'm slightly embarrassed by my initial experience with Pivotal.

I didn't pay much attention to the opening lines of explanatory text, nor the app blurb. I then found myself slightly confused and even angry at the game when it didn't respond how I expected.

This is embarrassing because Pivotal is a match-three (well, six) puzzler, which is the gaming equivalent of a Western film. You kind of know how it's going to play out.

Until you don't, that is.

Waiting for the twist

That Pivotal doesn't quite do things by the book is generally to its advantage.

The game asks you to rotate clusters of blocks so that six or more of a single colour are aligned. They then disappear, dropping blocks in from above, Tetris-style.

Here's the thing though - after 10 minutes of sustained play, I still didn't fully understand what I was supposed to be doing, to the extent that I actually uninstalled and reinstalled the game so that I could read the tutorial text again.

Having read more carefully and finally clicked with the game, I can safely say that it's a good, fun puzzler. But it's a surprisingly quirky one.

About turn

The key quirk here comes from the game's controls. In order to rotate those clusters of squares, you must touch on one of the glowing pivot points that sits in amongst all the blocks.

You then slide your finger left or right to rotate one way or the other - not, as I initially kept attempting, by rotating your finger.

Once this unusual control system clicks, and the full challenge of matching at least six blocks becomes apparent, Pivotal turns out to be a surprisingly satisfying puzzler.

There's perhaps a little too much random fortune to many of your chains and too little visual charm for it to become a true classic. But Pivotal is a genuinely interesting match-something puzzler. Which isn't something you can say every day.