PowerDown Is A True Nerve Wrecker

Posted by Bogdan Lazar

PowerDown iPhone Game Review.

Are you up for a challenge? Wait, don't answer just yet! PowerDown is not your everyday puzzle. It will wear you down, while pushing your mental abilities to their limits.

How to play

PowerDown is inspired by the famous Lights Out puzzle game. I've personally never played Lights Out before, so I have no basis for comparison, perhaps it's for the best. I'm usually disappointed by remakes.

The idea of the game is to turn of all the lights in each level. The lights are represented as white, glowing cells on a 5x5 grid. When you start a level, a number of lights are turned on already.

The rule of thumb is that tapping on any one light (that's on or off) will toggle that cell and its four immediate neighboring cells. So tapping one cell can either turn off lights or turn on lights, or both, and in here lies the challenge.

In order to win a level, you need to shut off all the lights on the grid. My strategy has been to corner the lights where tapping a cell affects the least amount of cells. In a corner, only two other cells are affected.

Needless to say this strategy hasn't always worked, and that's why an hour of gameplay only got me past level 4.

A plethora of puzzles

In the new PowerDown, you have puzzles to keep you going for literally days. On top of the original 50 puzzles from Lights Out, PowerDown features 300 more new challenging puzzles, taking it to a grand total of 350.

The 300 new puzzles also add two new difficulty levels. Starting from level 51 of the game, you now face a 6x6 grid instead of 5x5. And from level 200 onwards, you face the X mode puzzles. X mode puzzles are different in that instead of toggling adjacent lights, you toggle the diagonal ones.

The game also integrates with GameCenter and OpenFeint, and 14 achievements are up for grabs.

PowerDown is perhaps one of the most challenging iPhone games I've ever played. It's the kind of game that makes you want to pull your hair out during gameplay, but puts a big smile on your face and a "gotcha" on your lips whenever you finish a level. Highly recommended!

So, are you up for a challenge?

Screenshots