Flow Free: Warps

I love the flow free games (original, warps, bridges and hexes) and have paid to remove the ads and get all the levels on all 4 versions. However I wish the developers would change the UI back to the original. On the regular flow free the design has the watch a video to get a free hint on the top right, then, the bottom left is the undo move then in the middle it’s go back to previous level reset button then go to next level then on the far right is the get hints button. However on this version along with bridges and hexes the layout has changed and the middle now has the use hints and watch video for free hints in there and there isn’t a go to next level or go back to next level. I have ended up using hints I didn’t need because I thought I was resetting the level to restart it. I really wish they would go back to the old layout. I will still continue to play the games because they are fun to play but if they fixed that I would be really happy.

It’s interesting how such a simple game structure can continue to reveal such an intricate strategy space. When you first play Flow, one of the first things you realize about strategy is that you are more determined on the outside. The flows that go out to the walls are easier to find. If you’re on an edge three-close to a corner, you must enter. And as you play with hexes, you find they are even easier because they have more edges. You start to realise that walls are pretty critical pieces of strategy. But when we hit Bridges, suddenly there is a whole new set of strategies that arise. If you’re next to a bridge, you must go through. The topology is no longer planar, and your mind has to adapt. Now, throughout this all, they’re giving you tons of crazy formations and arrangements, but they all point to the importance of walls in the strategy. The courtyard levels drill this in. And then warps take away the walls on the side. Suddenly you’re in some strange toroidal world where you can be, at times, unbounded. And you have to re-evaluate the simple things, the endpoints as wall generators, the flows as walls, you have to find the boundaries not in physical walls but in the arrangements. Once you beat the 7x7 Boundless, you know you’ve really learned some deep patterns in the game strategy. I did not expect, when I started playing this game that I would find so much interest in the strategy. But it continues to be so rich and interesting the more the variations extend. This is a game for the ages.

As someone who played Flow Free when it first debuted on the App Store, I'm really glad this game now exists. The past 3 iterations were all fun, but rather simplistic in terms of difficulty and concept. With warps, however, you have a new mechanic to wrap your head (and pipes) around. Unlike Bridges and Hexes, Warps actually takes a little more time to fully understand, and makes you think more on deciding what pipes to warp. This new game also adds walls to further complicate the given puzzles, making you think harder about how to go about solving each puzzle. Stacked up with the multiple variants on warps to use, this is the hardest Flow Free yet, and that's a good thing since it results in more satisfying puzzles to solve. It's recommended to give the original Flow: Free a look first before this one, but this so far proves to be the most fun of the Flow: Free series.