Love to solve puzzles and match pieces into a pattern? Give Pegs ‘n Holes a try. It’s a unique game that presents a neat puzzle frame full of holes that need to be filled with pegs. Sounds simple, but it’s far from it.
When you open the app, you will see a grid of boxes and circles. The background is a clean slate of black, and the boxes and circles are multicolored, making for a display that is easy to read and pleasing to the eye.
Your goal is to place pegs in the correct box to remove them from the playing field. The game is deemed a success if you can clear all the boxes.
You do this by matching colored pegs into their corresponding colored squares. It doesn’t make sense when it’s described that way, but each colored square has a hole in the center where the peg fits. Tap on the peg and it will move to its matching square and the square will disappear from the grid.
Keep in mind that tapping randomly may not get you to a successfully cleared grid. You need to figure out what the sequence is in order for all the squares to clear. At times you will see that even though you fit a peg in a square, it may not move from the screen.
A really useful and valuable feature of the game is the practice games. This allows you try things out and see how the game works before diving in and competing. If you need help, there’s an icon for it at the top right corner.
Game grids for practicing come in the following sizes: 4×4, 5×5, 6×6, 7×7, and 8×8. Times to complete the puzzles will be kept in your gaming stats and not on the online competition arena.
When playing in online mode, all of your gaming grids will be 7×7. As you play, the app keeps track of how long it takes for you to complete the puzzle, as it does for other players who will be working on the same grid – just their own copy of it. Once you complete the puzzle, your time gets tabulated and added to the leaderboard for all to see. It helps you see where you stand against others and what you need to improve on.
If you turn on the hints, the app will give you suggestions on which pegs to tap. If you feel you want to undo a move you made, you can do so with the UNDO button.
Options to do different things and to change settings can be found from the main menu. You can turn sounds ON/OFF, choose to have hints ON/OFF, and you can choose to have the structure of the puzzle be based on shapes rather than colors.
I can’t say that I found anything wrong with the game. I did find it a bit frustrating when I was unable to find the sequence that would unlock success. Stepping away from the game helped a bit, but it sure is hard to do that when you are worried about your timings.
If you can look past that, then you will have hours of fun playing Pegs ‘n Holes. I think it’s a great way to keep the mind flexed.