iPhone/iPad - Free (In-App Purchases)
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If you like puzzle of the day apps with regularly updated challenges rather than games that you could play for hours and hours, then I highly recommend the new color matching game Echodots for the iPhone and the iPad.
If you ever played the board game Mastermind as a kid, then Echodots is very similar. It's a simple puzzle that works by showing you a sequence of colours, which you then have to repeat. It sounds incredibly easy, but the colors are initially played very quickly and some are really similar to others. So it's not a case of selecting a pink, green or orange shade, but instead choosing darker pink, lightest green and medium orange.
You get just a few attempts to try and get the right sequence, and with each attempt the app will label the colors you pick with a check mark, meaning it's correct, a question mark, meaning the color is in the sequence but in a different spot or an X which means it's not there at all.
You can get an "echo" if you're stumped. Which means you can see the sequence played again. But you'll only get a limited number of these throughout the week that are refilled each Sunday, so it's best to only use them if you've got no clue about which colors you just saw.
Why are daily challenge apps so appealing?
A new Echodot sequence will be added each day, you can check the app for when it'll land in your time zone, but you'll also find there's a countdown when you open it too. I like daily challenge apps and have a few regular ones I open each morning to get my brain into gear.
The problem is, I think daily challenge apps have a fine balance to strike. Each game needs to be interesting enough to grab your attention, challenge you, give you a little dose of fun each day, but not too easy that you're done in 30 seconds and not too hard that you sweat over it for hours.
I've only been using Echodots for a few days now, but so far it's getting the balance right and I think the additional streaks and leaderboards will be a great way to entice people back.
