Triple Prime – Number Jumbles that Test Swiping Skills

A tiny number matching puzzle!

Remember that old number sliding game you used to get in birthday party goodie bags. The tiles would slide around and your goal was to arrange the tiles, from 1 to 9, in order. After you master that, you would change things up a bit and maybe try to assemble them in reverse order. Well, if you like working with numbers and enjoy a good mathematical challenge, then Triple Prime is a game to try.

In Triple Prime, you aim to assemble three tiles of the same type together. They can be sharing side or a corner. Once you get three or more together, you tap on one of the tiles and that group then becomes one tile of the value of the next prime number. If you have a group of three tiles with ‘3’ on them, they will become a ‘5’ tile. If you consolidate a group of tiles with a ‘2’ on them, they become a ‘3’ tile.

Your end goal is to collect as many points as possible, and you do this by getting to as high a prime number as you can before you gridlock yourself out of more moves. It takes quite a bit of practice to foresee how you want to shift your tiles so that they come against their matching twins. Sometimes, it takes a few swipes to move other tiles out of the way. But beware that more moves means more tiles added to your gaming screen.

What’s really neat about this game is the short tutorial offered at the very beginning. When you first open the game, there are three icons at the bottom. The question mark icon will take you to an overview of the game, and will then slowly transition into a simple but effective exercise on what they mean by sliding tiles and how to arrange matching ones together.

If you get stuck, have filled up all spaces and cannot make a move, you can use up one of your lives to get out of the gridlock. Lives are accumulated by racking up points. So, the more careful you are with your swipes, the more “lives” you will collect to help get you out of jams as you advance into more complicated play. I really liked the tutorial, but there was no way to get out of it once you started. There was no “back” button, and so you had to either go through the entire tutorial or shutdown the app completely. This was kind of a nuisance, especially if you tapped the tutorial icon by accident.

This game is an entertaining way to play that also makes you think and plan. It pairs a bit of strategic manipulation of movements along with some knowledge of primes to help you get to the finish line, which is always a moving target.

Rating: 9.3/ 10
Price: Free