all ropes cut

I thought Angry Birds was the Most Addictive Use of a Physics Engine Ever. I was mistaken.

I’ve just finished Cut the Rope. The premise is simple: you have to feed the candy to a cute little critter called Om Nom. That’s it.

Well, except for the fact there are tools, and barriers, and gravity, and puzzles, and stars to collect. In the usual way, things get harder as you progress, and the game slowly trains you to solve fiendish puzzles at speed.

There are floating bubbles, elastic ropes with movable supports, extendable ropes, bees towing rope ends, candy-stealing spiders, puffers, electric sparks, teleporting hats, halved candies needing to be joined, reversible gravity, bouncy platforms, rotating saws, limited time stars, and (when you move on to the second game, Cut the Rope Experiments), shootable ropes, suckers, rockets, bath tubs, and robot hands. Not all at once, of course.

Here I went for all three stars on all levels, despite arguing against the need for that in Angry Birds. That's because here it’s a bit different: getting all three stars is part of the puzzle. And some of the puzzles require some subtle out-the-box and creative thinking: hours of fun and frustration.  (Backward-chaining from knowing where the candy has to end up is a useful analysis approach.  As is considering the use of all the tools provided; although, cunningly, sometimes tools are red herrings.)

This is a truly marvellous combination of puzzles, accuracy, and speed. Much more variety than Angry Birds.  Best 62p I’ve ever spent (leading to splashing out another 62p for Experiments). I'm now in serious withdrawal, desperately waiting for new levels...