Another app I’ve decided to review is called Blackbox. It was made by GrowPixel and is free on the App Store. It’s a game that consists of “brain puzzles” that make you think outside the box. Each puzzle is represented by a hollow square that when you tap, you enter the puzzle and can solve it. When you solve that puzzle, the box fills in with a color to represent that you’ve completed it. The puzzles are extremely minimalistic and abstract, and give you the bare minimum as far as visuals go. The solutions are usually things you wouldn’t think of, like plugging your charger in, turning your brightness all the way up, being completely silent, or tilting your phone in a specific way to line up certain shapes. However, some of the puzzles require ridiculous solutions. One puzzle had me go into my system settings and change my phone’s display language to something other than English. Another puzzle needed access to my phone’s camera in order to scan a QR code that changed every week, which was specific to the app. There’s actually a website that generates QR codes for this puzzle you can scan that instantly completes it, which is what I did. Most of the puzzles were enjoyable and fun to figure out, but when I have to cross a busy highway Frogger style while blindfolded in real life to complete a puzzle, it gets tedious and feels more like a chore, and ultimately not worth solving (that last one is a joke). There are in-app purchases to access more levels and hints, but I haven’t had any urge to buy anything. I’d recommend this app to people who enjoy puzzles with a good challenge, and completionists, as the end goal of the game is to fill in every square, but not to people with little patience, as this app tends to test from puzzle to puzzle.
