I’ve always been a fan of puzzle games. There’s something quite special about them, when that perfect formula of challenge, logical thinking and the “one more go” factor all come together in perfect harmony. As a result with such games, it means you can easily jump in for short bursts of play, however you will most likely see those sessions turn into hours rather than minutes.
Get 10 Quest certainly struck this chord for me – it’s simple but addictive. You’re presented with grids of numbers, and you need to link adjacent tiles of the same number, and choose which end of the chain to condense them into. Then, that final tile’s value will increase by one. Despite the game’s title, the tiles can actually increase to a higher value than ten, but it’ll take some serious puzzle skills to achieve that.
There are 80 levels to clear in total, and each varies in terms of the shape of the playing grid. This affects how the tiles fall after you clear each chain, so forward planning is key. To make things more interesting, there are six different goals to achieve across those levels, varying from reaching a high number to clearing a set amount of specific tiles.
The most challenging of these, however, is most often being tasked with finishing the level with only one number left. This requires you to choose a string of moves correctly whilst trying to visualise how the tiles will fall as you start to match numbers. It’s pretty satisfying when the solution hits you, and you realise dealing with the lowest numbers first, and ascending, is the best way to play.
If you really want to test your puzzling mettle, there’s also an “endless” mode to keep you busy, which pretty much does what it says on the tin. You’ll play for a high score, until the board jams up with mismatched numbers and you’ve no moves left to make. Given the game will only set you back £2.49, there’s a pretty generous amount of game for your money across both modes.
You may think all the problem solving in Get 10 Quest would make for a stressful experience, but it’s actually quite a relaxing game to play. Each numbered tile is a different colour, against a neutral background, making the action easy to follow and pleasant to look at. This is helped by a chilled out soundtrack, and means the pace of the game never feels too frantic, even when you’re against the clock.
That’s about all there is to say about Get 10 Quest really. Its brilliance lies in its simplicity. Despite it feeling like the natural home for the game is on a touch screen, it’s just as easy to pick up and play on Xbox too. It would have been nice to have online play, or at the least some leaderboards to drive replayability (especially for the high score hunters), but the game itself is great fun while it lasts.
Get 10 Quest is a brilliant little game which will only cost you a few pennies. For this reason it can be forgiven for being feature light, but at its core it’s amongst the best puzzlers around.
