Honeycomb Beat

Honeycomb Beat is not the most original game on the market, but with it the tile-flipping puzzle genre has a chill new entry.

"Beating" implies tapping a hexagonal "Honeycomb" shape to flip it and all its side-sharing buddies in order to get the color side down, with the white backs facing up. Each Puzzle level gives you a few beats to get the elegant "excellent" solution, but then if you can't manage that, you're allowed an extra ten to simply clear. Honestly, that's not much of a constraint, because usually by the time you hit negative five or six you're just flailing anyways.

Flip Out

The level progression in Puzzle mode follows the tile flipping pattern as well, so when you beat 1-1, you unlock not only 1-2, but 2-1 as well, giving you a couple of options in case you get stuck. Thankfully the learning curve is very logical, and the patterns you recognize in the beginning are built upon in new ways as the difficulty increases. Twists, such as Counting Panels which need to be beaten multiple times to flip to a color, or Vector Labels that change the flipping action of the tiles to fall along a line, are introduced in simple puzzles so that their uses and actions cannot be mistaken.

In addition to the many Puzzle levels, there are ten levels of Evolution mode. This vertically scrolling game has you clearing lines by getting them all flipped to the same side. Rankings for score appear on the level select menu, but the funny thing is how it seems mandatory for all DS puzzle games to have some sort of brain power indicator these days. I was unable to clear three rows at a time to surpass "Fly," but so it goes.

Lend Me Some Sugar

As you clear more levels in either mode, the game becomes more customizable. From the start, you can pick the color of your tiles and choose from a couple different skins, audio tracks, and top screen visualizations (think Winamp,) but of course the more you play the more variety you're allowed. Creating your own gaming atmosphere, plus the lack of time limit and ease of restarting a puzzle, makes Honeycomb Beat a relatively relaxing experience. If tile-pattern puzzles are your cup of tea, this game might be the honey.

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