Slide Circus is a straightforward but gorgeous mobile puzzle game from qbcode. Using a simple sliding grid, it creates a soothing but challenging puzzle experience that can be as easy or as complex as you like, scaling to suit your needs. It's a bit like solving an intricate jigsaw puzzle, only here the pieces stay neatly together and you don't have to worry about the dog eating the edge of the minute hand from Big Ben.

All you need to know in Slide Circus is that tapping and dragging any square will move that entire row or column in that direction. The goal is to reconstruct the picture shown at the beginning of the stage, both in appearance and position on the screen. This can be laughably easy with simple drawings like a pair of scissors or a pencil, but as any puzzle fan knows, once you get into intricate pieces of art, one square might look like half a dozen other ones, and who knows how they all fit together. Since you can only move columns of squares at a time, it ends up being more like a Rubik's cube than an old fashioned jigsaw puzzle.

Slide Circus comes with 90 levels out of the box, but it happens to be extremely extensible by including the ability to create and share puzzles based on your own images. It's fun to do, but also functional, and the results are almost always pleasing. This is the sort of game that can be filed in the thin folder marked "stylish and focused mobile games that are awesome", right beside Sakura Quick Math and GYRO. When you let visual design run your game, it can create something as addictively attractive as Slide Circus. You won't want to take your hands away from it!

Slide Circus

(iPhone, iPod Touch)

Slide Circus HD

(iPad)

NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on an iPad. Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.