Pinch Review

The most important part of any puzzle game is that it offers up a challenge. Easy levels are always key to easing the player in to the basic game mechanics, but in general things should start getting a little dicey by halfway through. Pinch’s big issue is that this doesn’t happen until the last few levels.

Pinch is a fairly original game. Each puzzle has several primary-colored circles in it. These can be dragged around the level, pinched together to make secondary colors, and pulled apart again at your leisure. Lots of combinations are possible, which is crucial when trying to pass them through the color-coded gates. Also, the more circles that are combine together, the larger the resulting circle becomes. You’ll often need to play around with colors in order to pass size-based gates.

The big downside to Pinch is that most levels are far too easy. There are 48 in total, the first 12 of which are set aside for the tutorial. After this, it isn’t until the last six that any real challenge kicks in. Most levels offer no way to get stuck and give you a clear-cut path to the finish. Also, the majority can be completed in under a minute, so the game doesn’t last long. Another issue is that you can’t zoom out or view a map of a level, so there isn’t a way to get a feel for the big picture.

This game would be an easy recommendation with more challenging levels, but at the moment it’s a short, overly simple experience. We hope the developer can pull together some improved content in an update.