In Circles each puzzle is laid out with a group of inter-locking rings, with each ring having four numbers around it in either blue or gold. In the middle of some of these rings are more numbers, either a golden number or a positive or negative number. The general idea is to get rid of all of the gold numbers by rotating only the rings with the blue numbers, making them disappear.

 

Unfortunately the game is a little hard to get to grips with, there are instructions but even they are a little tough to get your head around. You rotate each circle with the L and R buttons, moving the blue numbers into position and removing the gold ones. Each number has some relevance, the greater number on a ring eliminates the lower number from the connected ring as you rotate. The negative and positive numbers that are inside the rings are power up’s though to be honest I still have no idea what they do after hours of play and many slow re-reads of the instructions. It all got far too confusing for what I was expecting to be a quick pick up and play title.

 

 

Thinking it was the mass alcohol consumption over the Christmas season that was numbing my brain I passed it to a few other gamers but the results were the same, confusion. As with any other game like this, you fudge it and hopefully work it out yourself, 20 puzzles in and I still had no idea what I was really doing and with 40 puzzles I was half way through the game.

 

What made the game even more infuriating was music that consists of 30 notes played at high speed on a continual loop over every level, never changing or taking a break. It sounds like a Morse code operator with a stammer.

 

I am more than a little disappointed with this title as our previous Minis reviews bode well for the format. Sadly though this is a puzzle game that is too puzzling. Best to avoid this one.