The best physics puzzle game for blue firemen yet! A Tegra only puzzle game is a little unusual, usually the NVIDIA chip is put to work making games like Riptide GPlook incredible, rather than helping shift water around the screen. Still, the Tegra chip is put to use here and Sprinkle does as promised in reproducing realistic water physics, it might seem like a tech demo with a game wrapped around it, but it’s a game that makes some very creative use of a simple game mechanic.

You take control of a stationary water cannon which you can tilt, adjust it’s height and shoot, with the exception of a few draggable boxes that’s the only way you can interact with the game world to solve puzzles. The cannon is raised and lowered by dragging the nozzle up and down where as the angle is adjusted by dragging up and down anywhere else on the screen. The aim of each level is to put out the fires using as little water as possible. Using less water earns you more stars, which you’ll need to unlock more levels.

Completing each level isn’t necessarily very tough, but towards the latter half of the games near fifty levels it does become challenging to earn enough stars to progress. The path to extinguish fires starts simply enough by just aiming the hose at the fire and shooting but it isn’t long before things start getting more complicated. The puzzles aren’t a big part of the challenge in Sprinkle and you may work out the solution to even the tougher puzzles in only a few moments, the challenge comes from the correct manipulation of the water and a lot of timing.

You’ll have to be quick to solve the puzzles with a good score as the longer you wait, the further the fire spreads and the more water that will be required to extinguish it. Many of the later levels require you to not only quickly put out these fires before they spread onto the screen’s inhabitants but you’ll also need speed to move blocks onto moving clouds and platforms to activate switches and redirect water flow so you can reach other areas. All these constantly moving objects do take away from pure puzzle solving but the new challenge they bring is the decision to play it safe and use a lot of water to get the job done quickly, or risk using less water in exchange for a higher score.

Sprinkle is a fun and often challenging game and getting the maximum stars on even early levels can be tricky due to the unpredictability of water. It’s definitely not a game for puzzle purists who don’t want to rely on reactions and replaying a level over just because a block didn’t land on a platform correctly. It can be frustrating at times but there’s fun to be had here thanks to some very creative use of the mechanics which makes the game’s experience well beyond the extended tech demo that it might first appear to be.

[rating:4]

Game: Sprinkle

Developer: Mediocre

Cost: $1.48

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