When it comes to gaming on the iPad, options flow like the river Nile. You’ve got classic word games like Letterpress and innovative number games like Threes!. This is the iPad we’re talking about, so naturally it doesn’t stop there. There are many games that are somewhere in between, made by passionate indie developers creating & experimenting with all sorts of game mechanics.
Sum is one such game. It starts on the foundation of crossword puzzles and sprinkles a bit of working with numbers on top. The rules are simple and explained before you start your first game. You add a row of cumulating numbers with each move and have to make sure it is all interconnected. You cannot repeat colors in a row and all rows must add up to the multiple of the game’s base number. Okay, may be not that simple.
Sum is an online game and your opponent comes from either Facebook or Game Center. You can play with your friends, with the most frequent players or search for any player from the app itself. Sum is not a very easy game. The game starts you off with a base number like 3 or 5 and an empty board with 80 tiles. You have 8 tiles to your name, with different colors and all you have to do is to drag any number of tiles each with a different color adding up to a number thats a multiple of the base number. Oh and if you tap a 6, it turns into a 9. Just like any other game, the last man standing with the highest points, wins.
Sum presents an interesting concept and the board based gameplay ensures a long play time. But Sum’s biggest problem right now seems to be a lack of online players. Hopefully, that problem will be solved with time. Sum is available for Free on the App Store with a $2.99 IAP that allows you to play more than one game at a time.