Games

Block Pop is a block puzzle with a simple promise: it is generous, it is finishable, and it never sells you power.

You drag pieces onto the board and fill a row or a column to clear it. Clear lines back to back and the combos build, the score climbs, and the board tells you how you are doing. One game is enough to learn it, and nothing rushes you: no timers, no lives, no waiting.

Classic is the high-score run. It is you against your own best and the leaderboard, and when you run out of room you get two chances to keep going, each for a short video you choose to watch. Challenge is one long path: 120 levels across four chapters, with a reward every ten levels and a prize you pick at the end of each chapter. New mechanics arrive as you climb, from bigger boards to stone blocks that take two clears to break. Finish the path and you earn the Champion set, which no money can buy.

Along the way you collect color palettes and illustrated sets that bring their own sounds and music, finishes that work on every set you own, and backgrounds that set the scene. Every palette is checked for color-blind readability, with shape glyphs available on top. Undo exists because fingers slip.

On ads, the promise is plain. There are no forced full-screen ads. One small banner shows during play, and a one-time purchase removes that banner for good. Video ads play only when you ask for a rescue or a continue, and you never have to. Declining tracking costs you nothing.

Progress syncs through iCloud, with Game Center leaderboards and achievements. No account, no sign-up.

Block Pop is from Critter Games, the studio brand of Reese LLC in Colorado. Coming soon to the App Store.

A logic puzzle. You settle one critter into every row, column and quarter of the board, and no two may touch. You can solve every puzzle by deduction alone, so you never have to guess. Hints explain the deduction instead of handing you the square. The Trail runs 320 puzzles, the daily puzzle keeps a streak, and Challenge mode gives you strikes.

WatchPop is a small collection of fidget toys for your Apple Watch. Spin a spinner, roll a marble around a wooden bowl, pop a sheet of bubble wrap, tumble a handful of little plushies, all with a finger or a turn of your wrist. There is no score and no timer, it is just something good to do with your hands. The toys come in swappable looks we call finishes: Workshop, a warm wood and brass, is free, and Machine in brushed steel, Studio in soft pastel, and a seasonal Halloween are available on top. A companion iPhone app is where you switch finishes, choose your marble color, and manage what you own, and those choices sync to the watch.