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‘Polymer’ Goes Universal, Gets Multiplayer

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If you’ve been holding off on picking up Polymer ($2.99) despite our praise for it, you might want to reevaluate. It just hit 2.0, and with that change of version numbers comes some pretty big changes. Namely universal support and mutiplayer. Cue a chorus of “finally" from all you iPad-owning puzzle fans.

This is universal support done right, by the way. Not only does it have Retina support (and looks quite yummy for it), it also has iCloud syncing. Full disclosure, though—that syncing totally isn’t working for us. It sounds like it is for most people, and if it works it will bring over your high scores and unlocks. So that’s pretty rad. Of course, if you took the cheater’s route and bought your unlocks last time around, you can just restore purchases on any other device. The benefits of taking the easy way out are manyfold.

Multiplayer is pretty much head-to-head One Polymer mode. As with that mode, the goal is to create the biggest single polymer you can. The only difference is a two minute timer that keeps your opponents from taking, say, an hour to build their masterpiece. You play simultaneously on matching boards with up to three other people through Game Center, and, of course, the biggest polymer wins. It’s a good mode, and it makes me think a head-to-head points rush could be great fun too.

There are a handful of smaller changes to round things out. Two minute mode now has five and ten minute variations, each with its own leaderboard. There’s a new IAP theme back available which has all the team colors from the Big Ten Conference, because nothing goes together like puzzle games and college football.

Aside from some slight UI and icon changes, there is one more update—a tiny one really, but it makes a huge difference. You can now long press a completed polymer to see its score before destroying it. In most of the modes this isn’t the biggest deal. You really don’t want to fuss about getting the perfect polymer when you’re working on the timers of the Two Minutes or Bombs modes. But for multiplayer and One Polymer mode, this is a fantastic change. No more guess work when trying to figure out if I’ve beaten my last high score? Yeah, I’m in.

If you’re a Polymer fan whose interest has lapsed, you’re definitely going to want to check this update out. Multiplayer is a huge addition to the fun, and the other changes just add to what was already a pretty great little game. And if you’ve been holding out, this is the time to get on board. Polymer has really hit its stride with this one.

  • Polymer

    IGN: "Polymer is an exceedingly clever logic puzzler." Touch Arcade: "Polymer is destined to eat a lot of the hours of t…
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