Review! Countdown for Christmas – Holiday Puzzles for iPad

Christmas is quickly approaching and what better way to get in the holiday spirit than with a holiday puzzle app? This weekend, I had a chance to take a close look at a new holiday iPad Application, Countdown to Christmas – Holiday Puzzles for iPad ($1.99) by Twigsbury.

Overview

Countdown to Christmas – Holiday Puzzles for iPad is a puzzle app that will challenge you, while getting you in the holiday spirit. While this inviting app is ideal for children, I can attest that it’s fun for adults. It features 24 challenging puzzles with the ability to choose your difficulty level.

Features

The app is a progressive way to countdown to Christmas, while working puzzles along the way. Once you’re ready to start solving puzzles, a click of the start arrow will bring you to Santa’s Village, which serves as your navigational menu. The village features music, animation, characters with thought bubbles and some built sound effects upon touching the different images. You begin your first puzzle by clicking the thought bubble containing, i.e. 24 days.  You have to finish the current day’s puzzle to unlock the next one, but it’s not based on the date, so you can finish as many puzzles as you like at your own pace.

Upon clicking your puzzle of the day, you’ll find a Christmas picture, with puzzle pieces scattered. Game play options include the ability to turn the Christmas music off, switch the puzzle difficulty and the option to get a preview of the puzzle for a little hint.

Each puzzle offers four distinct difficulty levels; easy, medium, hard and expert. The easy level, ideal for beginners and younger children, consists of 12 total larger puzzle pieces, while expert gives you small pieces that total 80 per puzzle.

To begin swapping the puzzle pieces, simply tap a piece then tap another piece on the board to swap them. The puzzle pieces don’t have to be beside each other to switch them, which makes it a little easier to finish.

The Good

Countdown for Christmas provides some useful features to personalize your experience. You can toggle the music on or off, make it snow or stop snowing, and change your difficulty level without leaving your current puzzle. It also saves your progress, so if you begin a puzzle and close the app, when you relaunch the app and begin a puzzle, you’ll have the option to continue your last puzzle.

With the progressiveness, this app is a great educational tool for children. It’s fun and makes you work through each puzzle before letting you get to the next, which can be a bit challenging. The replayability factor is there. You’ll want to keep unlocking the puzzles to get to the next one. For children, you could sit down with them each day, working on the puzzle together, as  you countdown the days together.

Upon completing the puzzles, you get a nice little celebratory victory sound along with a fun and interactive picture. There is a hidden surprise in each picture, so it gives children yet another challenge.

For an iPad app, the $1.99 price tag is a very good deal.

Room for Improvement

To use this app, you’ll need to hold the iPad in landscape mode through each of the puzzles. Currently, portrait mode isn’t supported, but would be a  welcome addition. For an added challenge, it would be fun to have a countdown timer within each puzzle and the ability to choose different songs to play while working on your puzzle.

Overall

24 fun and challenging puzzles for $1.99 is a steal. Not only does this app give your children a way to occupy their time with these challenging puzzles, but the four distinct difficulty settings makes this puzzle ideal for children and adults of all ages. When your children put it down, you’ll want to pick it up. Two thumbs up!

Stay tuned as tomorrow we’ll be offering 5 promo codes to win this fun iPad app. To learn more about this app and Twigsbury, visit their Facebook Page, Follow them on Twitter and take a look at their website.