Competition is a funny thing. You can release the best game of it's class, and then someone else will come along and outsmart what you've just done. Do you update your game to compete? Do you match your rival's feature set, or create a new beast entirely? Tangram Puzzle Pro is a game similar to TanZen, a previously covered title - and it does things a little bit differently.
That's not to say it's better. Sometimes nice to have features can turn into elements that you'll miss. TanZen has progress tracking for all of it's puzzles, whereas TPP does not. We like TPP still though for it's approach - it's more rigid than organic, with pieces snapping into place, every pixel of the puzzle silhouette being filled in - the game also makes a big fuss about completion, with a nice red glowing background, turning all the shapes yellow and playing a gong sound.
Shaking your iPhone turns out all the pieces onto the board at once, otherwise you'll tap the piece drawer at the bottom to drag them out one at a time. This is honestly a little superfluous, and we would prefer the option to disable the drawer entirely. TPP uses a similar rotation mechanism to TanZen, although it's limited to 90 degree increments, and there's no piece flipping. This makes the puzzles ultimately easier, because there's less possibilities for the player to consider.
We think it has the edge in presentation - the music is very zen and calming, and the graphics appear more polished. The title has over 500 puzzles so it will definitely take some time to beat them all - but faster completion is possible because of the game's quick, fast and fluid snap to grid system.
Overall, the game falls short not because it's a bad game - but because it doesn't do everything right. Concurrent puzzle saves aren't possible, the piece drawer is unnecessary, and the puzzles are easier than TanZen's - and that's not even mentioning TanZen's 'masters' mode. But regardless, it's 59p and so if you buy both, you'll have around 1,000 tangram puzzles to complete. And that's enough for anyone.
A nice interface, but doesn't have the edge over its competition.
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