Paperama

android version

Got a silly little game called Paperama on my Kindle and I thought I'd mention it here.  It's good as mobile games go and, unlike so many of them, it actually requires you to think a bit.

The pros:

• It's really soothing to play — origami with a mellow soundtrack.
• I haven't run into a timed level yet.
• It's great on a touch interface, though probably better on a tablet than on a phone just do to the space available and the precision of the folding necessary.
• It's pretty rewarding to get a complex shape right after trying to figure it out for a while.
• The puzzle solving aspect is great, as you're trying to take a square of paper and figure out how to fold it into a particular shape in a limited number of folds.

The cons:

• It's "free", which means you get shown an ad every so many levels (so far just static images advertising other games). 
• There are hints available, but each hint costs so many "hint points", and of course they want to sell you those points.
• I cannot find any "point to hint" ratio so I do not know if 1 point equals 1 hint, or if as your level increases the hints cost more, and so on.  This could really change the cost of hints.

A level in the game; the undo is very useful.

Small digression: Game devs really need to realize that there are those of us who will pay for games but will never pay for micro-transactions of this kind.  Honestly if a game company wants money from me they are going to have to sell me the game.  $3.99 would be good.  $6.99 OK, and $9.99 for this totally do-able.  But I'll never pay $0.99 for three "hint points"; I'd rather be stuck forever.  I'd even pay for "packs" that increase the number of puzzles but not for extra moves, hints, or whatever the hell else your marketing people told you was a great idea to charge for.

Anyway, the bottom line is that if you can stand that they flash ads at you, and that hints beyond the initial few are only available for cash, then it's an entertaining diversion for a few hours.