Appletell review – Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab for iPhone/iPod touch

I don’t pretend to know much about the inner workings of Freeverse, but I can say this; they like their labs puzzling, and their monkeys burning. Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab came out for the Macintosh back in 2000, and it was pretty good. Although it featured various single player games (most notable of which was “Zen” mode, in which the tone settled down and the blocks never sped up), it really shined in multiplayer versus mode. Here, it was no longer enough to just align the descending balls; you needed to line then up in a certain way so you could send “bad” balls to your opponent. The games were more intense, more fun, and (thank heavens) shorter.

It’s not at all surprising, then, that Freeverse selected Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab (BMPL) as one of their first Mac to iPhone ports. The iPhone screen orientation is perfect for falling blocks and balls and what have you, and the graphics are well suited to the iPhone’s capabilities. It’s just a great match. And yet, BMPL for the iPhone/iPod touch left me wanting.