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Review: Reiner Knizia's Topas
We don't mind it when iPhone versions of board games differ from their realspace counterparts, but the Topas app ($2.99) takes the basic ideas behind Reiner Knizia's 2009 game Topas and twists them into a mash-up of Tetris, the standard line-up-three-of-a-kind video games, and dominoes. The dominoes thing was in the original, but the video game vibes are all new. Is this a good thing? Well, it kind of is. We like the variety that the app brings to basic Topas, but we don't understand why it was apparently impossible to carry over original gameplay from the physical card game. Even the game mode that comes closest to the card game version – weakest link, which is very similar to the card game's solo play – changes one minor rule. As to why, we have no idea. Still, Topas offers a decent amount of challenge and fun in an attractive package – maybe slightly overpriced in the App Store's admittedly low-cost ecosystem – for people who like their puzzle games to sparkle. Keep reading to find out more about how Topas works and doesn't work as an iPhone game. %Gallery-88891%
