Reiner Knizia holds a PhD in mathematics, and is credit with publishing over 500 different puzzle games, many earning various awards worldwide. Developing his first game at the age of 6, Knizia left a job as a boardmember of an international bank in 1997 to pursue game designing full time. Since then, he has been admitted to the Gaming Hall of Fame and redeveloped several of his old games along with creating new games for the PC, home consoles, and iPhone.

His latest iPhone game, Topas [$1.99], tasks players with placing colored domino-like tiles on a game board in three included game modes. To place tiles, you drag them around with your finger, and tiles can be rotated by tapping on screen with another finger. Tiles are placed on the board following a few simple rules: They must be placed with the whole tile fitting on the game board, every tile must be placed next to another, and the aligned gems on the tiles cannot total more than 8. Points are awarded for the number of gems lined up with each tile placed, and Topas has Agon online leaderboards for each of the game modes.

In arcade mode, you have 36 tiles to place on the game board. Tiles are cleared by lining matching colored rows of gems up and down or across that add up to 7. If you place all 36 tiles, the board is cleared and you can keep going in attempt to get the highest score possible. In weakest link mode, you play 4 quick games placing 8 tiles, the second lowest score of the four games is your end score. Finally, in color play mode, instead of the board clearing when you place all 36 tiles, you only need to score 10 points in a single color, indicated by gauges at the top of the screen.

Like most of Reiner Knizia's games, scoring well in Topas requires quite a bit of strategy, and wile the basics of the game are quite simple, it took me a while to wrap my head around ideal tile placement for maximum point gain. Knizia has quite a few iPhone games available on the App Store now, and they are all quite good in their own ways.

Ingenious, $1.99 – Take turns tiles on a game board, scoring points by creating lines of tiles with similar colors. Play against AI opponents of three difficulty levels and place tiles to block opponents in and make as many matches as possible to increase your score. There's also a solitaire mode if you'd rather just place tiles to see how much you can score.

Money, $1.99 – Starting with six random bills from different countries, players try to exchange their money in to 2-3 currencies before the end of the game. There's a YouTube video explaining the entire game and also an interesting article on boardgamenews.com about adapting the card game to the iPhone.

Monumental, $1.99 – A Mayan themed matching game where players slide around tiles to form groups of 3 colors, symbols, or both colors and symbols for maximum points. Broken stones and dynamite mix things up, and as you progress in the game more colors and symbols are introduced to increase the difficulty curve.

Roto, $1.99 – Players must analyze a group of wheels with colored segments and match those segments by rotating those wheels as few times as possible for maximum points. Roto comes with arcade, puzzle, and action modes which all provide a different spin on gameplay.

Robot Master, 99¢ – Players take turns placing numbered cards down on the game board, scores are totaled by adding the numbers of all the cards, with huge bonuses awarded by lining up pairs and three of a kind on a row.

Knights of Charlemagne, $1.99 – Deploy knights and conquer estates by overwhelming the enemy forces. The strategy and gameplay can get a little complicated, but thankfully the game comes with a great tutorial.

Poison, $2.99 – A card game of brewing potions, players take turns placing numbered potion cards in to three different cauldrons. If a player over-fills a cauldron, they have to take all the cards (and any poison cards) that were inside the cauldron.

The above games are developed by several different developers, so the visual style quality of each of the games varies widely. All of them are faithful reproductions of Reiner Knizia games, require a great deal of strategy, and can offer an awful lot of replay value if you appreciate brain-bending puzzle games.

We just got word from Chillingo's Clickgamer that an Angry Birds [App Store] update is in the works that adds 40 new levels, two new environments, and complete Crystal integration for online leaderboards, achievements, and all the other fun stuff Crystal provides. They're planning on submitting the update "very soon", and even released a new trailer for the game that is easily one of the better iPhone game trailers I've seen recently:

Angry Birds is a catapult game where you assist several angry birds as they seek revenge on a gang of egg-stealing green pigs. From our review:

Players are haphazardly tossed into a level in which several angry-looking red birds are gathered around a primitive slingshot, with a small wooden tower harboring a little green pig to the right. Touching and dragging backwards on the bird that is currently mounted in the slingshot will prime your disturbed little critter for launch. From here, your goal is to aim your shot effectively and take out a weak point on the pig's tower, causing him to fall to his little piggy doom.

We also discussed Angry Birds in our recent podcast, and I really recommend giving the game a look, as I've sunk an unbelievably amount of time recently in to total pig destruction. This new update (especially with online leaderboards) is just going to make this great game even better.

App Store Link: Angry Birds, $1.99

For the many that surely missed it, on Wednesday Apple quietly announced a new member of the iPhone OS family, the iPad. And, while it runs existing iPhone applications just fine in a pixel-for-pixel or 2x-scaled mode, the device with its 9.7-inch screen has much more to offer in the way of screen real estate (over 5x the pixel count of the iPhone) and both CPU and GPU power. The iPad proposition gives iPhone developers much to ponder in the way of just how best to support it.

James Brown, author of the lovely, zen-like frog manipulation game Anicent Frog [App Store] has, himself, begun to ponder the situation and has shared his thoughts on what he feels makes the most sense in bringing Ancient Frog to the iPad, in a recent blog post.

I can make the current iPhone application recognise the iPad and behave more like a native application on that platform. What I've done here is run it at 768×1024, but allowing it to letterbox slightly to retain the original aspect ratio (luckily the ragged border gives me a neat way to bring the edges in a bit, as well as a bit of room to lose some pixels top and bottom). This already looks way better than the previous shot – lots of elements are still blurry, but things that appear at varying scales in the game are already at a higher resolution. This means the text, the daisy and the particle effects are all crisp, which makes the whole thing seem higher resolution

He goes on to point out that fully supporting the iPad's enhanced resolution in his existing iPhone game would not only require a reworking of the graphics that make up every level, but would also push the game above the 10MB barrier for Edge / 3G download, which would greatly reduce the game's "impulse buy" potential for iPhone users.

Brown's plan is to bring the incremental upgrade that he describes, enhancing the game experience on the iPad in the near term and, down the road, release a separate, larger iPad-only version that takes full advantage of the device, but does not penalize iPhone and iPod touch gamers with a larger install.

For new games, moving forward, building in specific support for the iPad is one thing. But reaching into the back catalog to refresh existing titles for Apple's new device is quite another. Just what degree of iPad support is worth adding? What make the most sense? Once gamers start getting iPads in their hands, the early reaction to the experience of gaming on the device, as well as overall sales levels, should help answer that question. But developers and gamers alike should keep in mind the fact that, when the App Store launched, the iPhone had been on the market for a full year with millions of units sold. When a gamer downloads the first iPad game from the App Store, its market will be starting at zero. As such, it will be some time before developers determine where the "sweet spot" of iPad development effort lies.

App Store Link: Ancient Frog, $4.99

Little White Bear Studio's match-three puzzler Compression [App Store], normally $0.99, is free for today only. We took a look at Compression earlier this month and very much liked what we saw.

While the match-three space in the App Store couldn't be called anything but downright crowded, Compression manages to keep things interesting. You control blocks that drop from the top of the screen and attempt to match these blocks to the hollow pieces in order to get three of the same color in a column or row, which removes the pieces from the game board.

The twist in Compression's gameplay is in the walls, which move in closer and closer in a set pattern after every third piece is dropped into the board. A set of white dots appear on the section of the wall (either bottom, left, or right) that will compress inward next, so players can tailor their placement of blocks to best deal with the walls, which can remove blocks from the field if there is no more room for them after the board gets compressed.

In short, Compression just gets it right. The core gameplay is different enough to set it apart from the umpteen-million other match-three games on the App Store and simultaneously familiar enough that anyone can pick up the game and be relatively adept within minutes. Don't miss today's chance to grab the game for free.

App Store Link: Compression, Free (today)

Originally announced in mid-2008, it sounds like Trism 2, the sequel to the early iPhone smash hit Trism [App Store], is one step closer to seeing the light of day. Demiforce released the following teaser trailer, mentioning that Trism 2 is not only coming for the iPod touch and iPhone, but also the iPad:

We got in touch with developer Steve Demeter to get some more details on what to expect in Trism 2. While he's not releasing any screenshots just yet, he did mention that Trism 2 is being overhauled from the ground up, and apparently looks quite a bit nicer than the first. The sequel will also have multiplayer, but is implemented in "a really fun way that you might not intially suspect".

Demeter hopes to have an iPad optimized combo app that also will run on the iPhone or iPod touch, but isn't ready to make any promises yet because of how important he feels being under the 10MB 3G download cap is. The sequel of course will also include a "classic" mode that will play like the original where players tilt their device to alter gravity while sliding rows of triangles to make matches.

For more information on Trism check out our review.

Lazy 8 Studios (through Chillingo) has just released an iPhone version of their 3D mechanical puzzle game Cogs [App Store]. The iPhone release is an adaptation of their PC original, which is currently a finalist in the IGF 2010 Excellence in Design category.

Cogs is a mechanical puzzler that challenges you to bring to life a series of increasingly complex machines by way of arranging sets of tiles, gears, pipes, and the like in such a way as to connect varying energy sources to their ultimate outlets across 50 different 2.5D and 3D environments. And the whole thing is done up in a lovely steampunk motif (the best cogs are, of course, brass). There are carts to set rolling, balloons to inflate, helicopters to build, and rockets to launch. The sliding tile mechanic makes it feel something like Puzzle on (brass and mahogany) steroids.

Cogs presents you with three different modes of play. Inventor Mode, which is really the core gameplay mode, takes the player through all of the game's 50 puzzles, starting with the easy and moving towards the maniacal. The other two modes are Challenge modes that provide access to any puzzles unlocked in the Inventor Mode and are great for getting off a quick round or two on the go. Time Challenge presents any unlocked puzzle in an easier-to-solve configuration than Inventor mode…but each puzzle must be completed within 30 seconds. Move Challenge mode, in contrast, is all about taking time to decide the most efficient route to a puzzle's solution — each puzzle must be solved in 10 moves in this mode.

Score rankings and achievements are tracked through Chillingo's own Crystal game network.

The game features a well-done touch system that takes the iPhone's screen out of your way and puts you in simple control of these seemingly real objects. It's a simple tap (or swipe) to move a tile — and you can move more than one at a time by tapping on the first tile in a row to move. Two fingers on the screen allows for drag-based rotation of the various puzzle objects. Although the original is a PC title, Cogs was definitely meant for a touchscreen.

Cogs is addicting, brilliant, and frustrating. A casual puzzler, it is not. Oh, the game takes it easy on you for the first few puzzles in order to instill within you a false sense of mechanical mastery. Shortly thereafter, however, the puzzles get downright cruel. You'll discover that the next level, a mere flat board of pipe tiles, has pipe pieces on not one but both sides. Or try your hand at ringing an array of bells in perfect synchronicity with a wildly varying array of hammer cogs to deal with. It's a case of "must…defeat…this…game…" where one might not always call achieving victory "fun," but rather "necessary — for sanity's sake." It can be maddening, but in the loveliest sort of way.

I've spent significant time with various pre-release builds of Cogs over the last few weeks and I can say that it's, at the moment, my favorite iPhone puzzler and one of my very favorite iPhone games in general. I really can't imagine much in the way of a negative that a puzzle fan could posit against this game. But if my praise doesn't convince, grab the free PC demo version and give it a try to get at least a feel for the game.

Cogs is being sold in an interesting way in that you pay as you go, buying incremental packs of ten levels for 99¢ a pop. For the initial 99¢ you get the first ten levels, which basically amounts to the puzzles that make up the Cogs tutorial. Beat that, and the next ten levels are 99¢, beat those and ten more are 99¢, and so on. If you buy the game and all four DLC packs, Cogs will run you $4.95 and should take around 10 hours to complete if you try to beat every challenge in the game.

App Store Link: Cogs, 99¢ (Plus 4 DLC Packs @ 99¢ each)

The entire internet seems to be in a frenzy today regarding the unannounced Apple Tablet. Between the CEO of publisher McGraw-Hill confirming its existence and Daily Finance already reporting on things they don't like about it, speculation, rumors, rants, and questions which won't be answered until Steve takes the stage tomorrow are running rampant.

This morning, Stand Alone Inc announced their intentions to bring Crosswords [$9.99] to the rumored Apple tablet device. While they may be jumping the gun a little bit, announcing a game for a device which hasn't even been officially announced, Stand Alone does have a fair amount of street cred' in tablet application development. They were a major developer for the now defunct Apple Newton and authored an impressive library of software for the Newton, which is still available online.

Crosswords is among the better crossword games available on the App Store, and is one of the few games which has lived on my phone since its initial release in 2008. If the Apple tablet does run the iPhone OS as many are speculating, and it has either its own associated App Store or operates off the existing App Store, we expect this will be the first of an avalanche of announcements of software coming to the device.

Apple's keynote begins tomorrow at 10:00 AM Pacific, and will be covered live by nearly every tech-related web site. We will be providing live updates with anything that pertains to gaming, regardless of what is announced, and if Apple's tablet does end up serving as a gaming device, expect tablet game coverage to supplement our existing iPhone and iPod touch coverage.

Mobile Bros' puzzle platformer Trundle [App Store] was released yesterday, and is getting nowhere near the attention it deserves. Trundle is a free game with a neat art style all tied together with simple tilt and touch controls that create a great (but short) gameplay experience.

The object of the game is to simply roll a black ball from one side of the screen to the other. Tilting the phone controls your movement, and tapping on the screen jumps. Along the way you'll come across different vehicles to ride in, switches to activate, platforms to navigate, and other obstacles that often have different physics-based challenges to overcome.

Trundle itself is rather short, and shouldn't take you much more than an hour to finish. However, the iTunes description mentions additional level packs available in the future via an in-game purchase. I had a lot of fun playing through the game, and I think this kind of DLC model is great, especially since the amount of content in Trundle doesn't make the game feel like a demo at all.

The few people who have downloaded the game already in our forums are really enjoying it so far, and I doubt I'm alone in hoping they hurry it up with the additional level packs.

App Store Link: Trundle, Free

From Revolution Software, the same people who brought the iPhone the fantastic remake of Beneath a Steel Sky, comes Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars: The Director's Cut [$6.99], a remake of a point-and-click adventure from '96 that many consider to be one of the greatest games within its genre. As we covered in our preview two different versions of this remake were already published on the DS and Wii in March of 2009, and the new iPhone version is a bit of a mixture of the two, adding full voice acting and other features that the DS version lacked.

Broken Sword, which was renamed Circle of Blood for its release in the USA, has been given a significant facelift. Whereas the original version of the game focused almost solely on the male character, George Stobbart, The Director's Cut does a better job of fleshing out the back story of the game's female protagonist, Nicole Collard. The game opens as Nicole prepares for an interview that unexpectedly becomes a murder investigation when the man she was set to interview is shot by a mysterious mime. Other modifications to the game include new puzzles that are specific to the iPhone platform and new art and animation from Dave Gibbons, who you might be familiar with through his work on Watchmen.

The story in Broken Sword, as in most point-and-click adventure games, is the most important element of the game, so those who haven't played a version of the game before will be pleased to find that Broken Sword's writing is excellent, and the story is quite gripping. I particularly enjoyed the self-depreciating sense of humor that Nicole occasionally displays with her commentary, and George is a comedic parody of an American from a European perspective, making him a fairly amusing character as well.

For a point-and-click adventure, Broken Sword does a lot to make itself easily accessible. In an intelligent move by the developers, a simple finger swipe will reveal everything that George or Nicole can interact within a single screen, preventing players from having to poke around the screen randomly until they find something that they can interact with. The game's many puzzles range from brain games wherein an abstract combination of collected items must be used to progress to a lock-picking game that's nearly identical to the iPhone's own Blocked to a ridiculously complex cypher that players must harness incredible code-breaking skills to crack.

Luckily, the game has a built-in walkthrough in the form of a hint system that can be easily accessed if players want to give up and find the answer to a puzzle. For each puzzle there are several hints, each one more explicit than the last, with the last one usually being a straight-up answer to the puzzle for players who just couldn't figure things out. The genius of both the "swipe-to-reveal" mechanic and the hint system is that it's possible to never use either if a player doesn't want to. Some of the hardcore fans of the original PC version of the game that're picking up the iPhone version will want a more "pure" experience, and that option is available to them, but softies like myself can still enjoy the game without having to resort to an online walkthrough.

Broken Sword's creative touch interface works like a charm on the iPhone screen, but it was the one-two punch of the game's fantastic soundtrack and art that really hooked me. The piano-heavy orchestral soundtrack is so good that I purchased it from the iTunes store so I could listen to it later, and the fact that every line of dialogue in the game is voiced makes this a game that must be experienced with headphones. Dave Gibbon's contribution to the art and animation was an invaluable addition, as the painted backgrounds and the fluid animation adds a certain appealing touch to the game.

Even though I've never been a huge fan of point-and-click adventure games, the story and all around high-quality production values of Broken Sword sucked me in like a good book. Whether you're an old fan of the original game, a newcomer to the series, or even someone who's never played a point-and-click adventure before, Broken Sword is a game with mass appeal that will draw you in.

App Store Link: Broken Sword: The Director's Cut, $6.99

Isaac Newton's Gravity [App Store] is Namco's latest foray in to the casual puzzle aisle in the App Store. Originally released as Professor Heinz Wolff's Gravity for the PC in late 2008 then a simultaneous Wii and DS release in early 2009, Professor Wolff (A real scientist who even had a brief appearance on the Ali G show and his own British television series.) was apparently given the boot for Sir Isaac Newton himself. Aside from this scientific swapperoo and half as many levels, very little seems to have changed aside from obvious interface modifications to adapt the game to the touchscreen.

The game involves solving physics puzzles by arranging blocks and other objects on each of the 50 levels to hit a switch. Pressing the play button on the top right of the screen causes a ball to shoot out and if you positioned everything right, hit the various objects you strategically arranged to fall over, knock in to each other, or otherwise cause some kind of chain reaction that involves something mashing the goal switch.

As it stands right now, Isaac Newton's Gravity is a fairly basic physics game with better than average graphics and controls which can get a little finicky at times. The real magic is apparently coming in the 1.1 update. According to Jon Kromrey, the GM of the Apple games division over at Namco, the 1.1 update will be hitting the streets sometime in February or March which will allow players to share custom made levels they create online instead of the current implementation which only allows players to create custom levels then share them via Bluetooth.

In the meanwhile, if you enjoy these types of games, Gravity will keep you scratching your head for quite a while, especially if you have someone local to trade levels with.

App Store Link: Isaac Newton's Gravity, $3.99