Twofold inc is a great, relaxing puzzle game which was just released for IOS and Android. I and many others recommend it highly, I bought it right away and recommend you do so too.
Do not buy the game because I say so. Buy it because it is a great game by an independent developer, sold at a good price without any in-app or other weirdness. Pure puzzle joy.
It was the middle of June 2015 when I first saw Twofold inc demoed on Martin's phone over a beer or two. Even as an early demo of the introduction and even before I grasped any of the concepts, the style of the game grabbed me. Twofold inc felt calm, colourful, quirky and stylish to look at. It also felt completely solid as a game even at that early stage.
I will not try to explain the mechanics. They are fun, rather unique and much better suited to a video explanation. (That is the official one, by the way.) People mention Threes all the time, and while there is a lot of spiritual kinship (all of which is positive) they are completely different games.
A few months later I visited Grapefrukt HQ and actually got a beta version to take home with me. I played the game, to use a technical term, quite a lot for quite a while. If the beta had been on my phone like the full version is now it would have been even more. Twofold inc has no stress, no time limits and no strange complications. I wish more games would trust their own base mechanics like this. It is also perfect to pick up and play whenever you get some downtime, most rounds are pretty quick but Twofold inc also saves all the time so you can put it down and come back at any point (and the lack of timers and stuff means you can take as long as you need to get back into your flow).
It was great to buy the finished game, start playing again and enjoying the added polish. On one level, nothing has changed. On another, there are a few changes I notice and probably a million more I do not, all the details large and small which turn a beta into a full and finished product. It was also strange to realize that I am, for a brief period, one of the most experienced Twofold inc players in the world. It is not a position I am familiar with, nor one I know how to handle, it mostly just feels fun to know.
On a side note, it is awesome to see a game made by a friend featured all over the IOS app store!
As I wrote, the game looks and plays great at any size. I have played it on my Iphone 6 and my Ipad mini and it works great on both. I would love landscape support on the Ipad, but the main thing the device did to me was produce a curiosity about how good the game might look on the scale of the Ipad pro.
This may not be reason enough to rush out and buy one, but perhaps I can find one to try on some day. I got the thought that it might start to feel kind of like a board game. An animated, addictive board game for one.
Speaking of buying stuff: I want Twofold inc on more platforms. I would love to pop it up for a quick game on my work computer instead of getting distracted by Twitter or Facebook. Imagine a world where a game like Twofold inc shipped with a major operating system, perhaps with some convenient system-wide shortcut …
… that fantasy would possibly be bad for productivity …
… but what a nice world it would be in all other ways …