App of the Day: Triple Town

By John Bedford Published 27 January, 2012

Bear with it.

Version tested: iPhone

There are mobile games that make the journey from Android to iOS (or vice versa), and then there are games that jump from AAA console title to handheld spin-off. Those first, purely mobile titles grow their stature by catching a little bit of fire, awarding the developer just enough interest and finance to give their next big thing a shot at a wider audience.

We're going to do our best to highlight those gems that we love which never make that transition - but Triple Town is a little bit different. In this case, both Android and iOS owners owe something to a little known social networking site called Facebook (as well as Amazon's Kindle) where the game launched last year. The objective is to build as fancy a town as you can by combining groups of three or more identical objects into upgradable structures.

Here's how it works. Collections of grass make bushes, which make trees, which in turn can be combined to create houses (themselves upgradeable), while angry little bears that occasionally appear as the next placeable object will wander around the map, getting in the way of everything and making you cross. In order to be stopped they must be fenced in, a process which turns them into gravestones which can then be converted up into cathedrals.

You can't blindly match objects up anywhere you like, though. You also need to consider the upgrade that comes after the one you're currently working on, because the placement of the final co-joined item in each group determines the placement of said upgrade, and so on, all the way up the entire tree of upgrades. Still with me? Excellent.

Amongst all of this mental effort, there is some reprieve, in the form of a platform which allows you to put one object aside for future use. It's a place you'll often use to store the rare crystals which can be used to complete any upgrade, or indeed any group of upgrades.

It's not a surprise to discover that you'll struggle to find your rhythm at first until you've gained an instinctive feel for how the stacks-within-stacks play into each other, the micro within the macro. But once you make that little extra progress in your planning and understanding, the game charms you with a combination of equal parts frustration and glee.

One you've run out of tiles on which to place the next object, each game finishes and you'll receive a number of coins depending on your performance. These are then used to make purchases to help you through the next match - an essential tree, for example, or a tile-clearing robot.

There's a catch, of course - and you may come to feel less pleased with your high score, knowing that those coins earned in-game can be purchased outside of the game. Also, while Triple Town is free until you've exhausted the several thousand moves that come with the initial download, it's a number that takes you suspiciously close to the point where you'll feel you're making progress. After this, you'll need to either wait for turns to recharge or pay for a version with unlimited moves.

Less cynically, though, this is a free chance to test your mettle against the structure of a refreshingly challenging game before deciding on a purchase. By the time you come to consider whether £2.49 represents good value for money, you'll either be hindered beyond progression by your own stupidity - or eager to reap the rewards from your investment many times over.

App of the Day highlights interesting games we're playing on the Android, iPad, iPhone and Windows Phone 7 mobile platforms, including post-release updates. If you want to see a particular app featured, drop us a line or suggest it in the comments.

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of John.

About John Bedford

John is an MMO specialist with a particular passion for Eve Online. He once nearly went paragliding.

Read more articles from John by visiting the John Bedford archive page.

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Comments (35) Latest comment 3 weeks ago

  • optimusprym8 #1 4 weeks ago

    Damn the ninja-bears

  • jaguarwong #2 4 weeks ago

    Yeah, great game, downloaded it just yesterday after a glowing review from PocketGamer.
    Both the girlfriend and I are thoroughly addicted!

  • Ka-blamo #3 4 weeks ago

    "Bear with it"

    TYPO!!1 OMG NOOBS!!

  • Yuroko #4 4 weeks ago

    It's my new favourite iPad game. Supremely addictive to the point where I have Tetris style dreams every night, which is the sign of a great game. Portal dreams were the worst though.

  • sickpuppysoftware #5 4 weeks ago

    Gladly stumped up the £2.49. I don't know if this is the new price or a sale price but it was quite a bit more than that originally.

  • McLovin85 #6 4 weeks ago

    Can't find it on the Android marketplace. You sure it's on there?

  • wizlon #7 4 weeks ago

    Would be cool if you could post links to the Store and Market pages on these reviews, especially for Android (I love the ability to download an app through the web store without touching your phone)

    As so: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.spryfox.tr ipletown
    Edited by 1 at 27/01/12 @ 13:12

  • sickpuppysoftware #8 4 weeks ago

    @McLovin85 It's there, it's now appearing on my PC as incompatible with my phone despite it working fine and being previously available. That might be why you can't see it.
    https://market.android.com/details?id=com.spryfox.tr ipletown

  • Cocytean #9 4 weeks ago

    @Ka-blamo "Bear with it"

    TYPO!!1 OMG NOOBS!!

    Wow...

  • wizlon #10 4 weeks ago

    @Cocytean I think everyone was just trying to ignore it, like it never happened.

  • spidermanalf #11 4 weeks ago

    Not compatible with Samsung Galaxy s2.

  • Cocytean #12 4 weeks ago

    @wizlon My bad, I was just that amazed I actually had to log in to comment.

    Carry on.

  • McLovin85 #13 4 weeks ago

    @sickpuppysoftware Yeah it appears on the website but still isn't compatible with my Galaxy S2 apparently....Shame as wanted to try it out on my phone after playing the Facebook version. :(

  • DaM #14 4 weeks ago

    £2.49 is more reasonable, it was £4.99 last week.

  • weebl #15 4 weeks ago

    Scores would be useful so that I don't have to sit here reading a review to know if the game is good or not. Good score = read the review. Bad score = don't read the review.

    I'm not trolling but there is a very good reason why scores haven't been largely dropped by publications.

  • afray #16 4 weeks ago

    I've had to institute a no-triple-town-at-bedtime rule in my house. No one was getting any sleep.

    When I close my eyes all I can see is ninja bears.

  • jaguarwong #17 4 weeks ago

    Congratulations @weebl, you're officially part of the problem.

  • afray #18 4 weeks ago

    @weebl the point is this is a game so good they wanted to dedicate the whole article to it. Scores would be pointless.

  • Oli Verified Reviews Editor, Eurogamer.net #19 4 weeks ago

    @weebl
    The idea of App of the Day is that it's a recommendation. If we do our job right, there won't be any bad Apps of the Day.

    We don't feel our scoring system works very well with games that are often free to try out, or cost tiny amounts of money, which is one of the reasons we changed our old roundup reviews to this new format.

  • JMac Verified Designer, Rebellion #20 4 weeks ago

    Played it on Facebook, didn't realise this was out on iOS. "App of the Day" works for me!

  • simplerotation #21 4 weeks ago

    This is SUCH a brilliant buy, first couple of games I didn't really get the appeal, by the third town I was totally hooked.

  • timoftelaur #22 4 weeks ago

    My friend was working on apple and he changed his profession and life build career because he discovered the best method to get a ipad for free. Each problem which I have with iPad it's finished for me because my friend Mike helps me.
    After he told me the best method to get a free iPad 2, it always helps me with all sorts of questions I have. This is his job and I appreciate very much his website free-us-ipad.com .
    I hope that he will help you with your all questions. It is an amazing man. All my family got free ipads 2 + white smartcover. It's a user proof category there if you don`t believe me. This man is my idol

  • Murbal #23 4 weeks ago

    Strange as I was playing it on my S2 last week... Then uninstalled as the freemium model is wank. Unacceptable, however good the underlying game is.

  • Snufkin #24 4 weeks ago

    Its not compatible with my Galaxy S2. WTF?!? I thought all Android phones were broadly the same? The S2 is supposedly leader of the pack. Annoyed!

    Edit: @Murbal - How did you get it to work on your S2? Its not showing up in the on-phone marketplace and the online store tells me its incompatible!?

    @Weebl - seriously, it's all of a few hundred words. Unless you're 6 it shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes to read.
    Edited by 1 at 27/01/12 @ 15:39

  • toythatkills #25 4 weeks ago

    I love this and think it's rubbish all at the same time. The base gameplay is genius, absolute genius.

    Unfortunately, the coins system breaks it completely. You get coins for certain things in the game, and you get coins as a prize at the end of the game which you can use to buy items in your next game. If you start a game with 10,000 coins in the bank you're clearly going to score substantially higher than if you start with 0 coins in the bank, which means to get the best scores you have to just play a bunch of games that you know are going to suck just to save enough coins to have a decent run. Every game should start with 0 coins, it's useless, really.

  • Murbal #26 4 weeks ago

    @Snufkin because this time last week it *was* compatible. Odd.

  • kangarootoo #27 4 weeks ago

    @weebl

    "I'm not trolling but there is a very good reason why scores haven't been largely dropped by publications."

    Because humans are idiots?

  • kangarootoo #28 4 weeks ago

    I totally recommend everyone just play this movie in the background whilst they do whatever they are doing. The tune is just so damn happy.

    My productivity is sky rocketing, I feel fitter and healthier, and I'd swear a bird just flew past the window and doffed its cap at me. I'm even starting to feel bad about my previous comment. This shit is transformative. I'm off to dig a well for some orphans.
    Edited by 1 at 27/01/12 @ 16:17

  • Alf-Life #29 4 weeks ago

    This was just recommended to me by someone 2 days ago... I'm fucking LOVING it! Such a great time-waster... I've spent HOURS on this, well worth the 2.50 after you've played it for free to see if you like it.

  • midnight_walker #30 4 weeks ago

    Anyone else having trouble buying this on Android or is it just me? It sits at authorising for ages and then says payment failed. My card is OK because I just wasted 99p testing it on Steam...

  • weebl #31 4 weeks ago

    Jesus, I'm so sorry I outraged everyone by asking whether a number or even another metric could be included to know whether a review was worth reading.

    I'm not 6, can read, but considering many of these games would be impulse purchases having to read whole reviews to know the overall outcome is something I choose not to spend my free time doing. If I knew the game was half decent I would then read the review.

    Technology magazines, HiFi magazines, camera magazines continue to score with a number to summarise. The only difference is that they don't get trumped up idiots complaining about eights being awarded - they generally have a more mature audience. Even Edge has kept it's number rating after deliberating over not having them.

    I dare say I'll get sensationalist replies like "you're the problem", but at the end of the day expressing any point of view on the Internet is likely to bring out the worst in people.

  • weebl #32 4 weeks ago

    @Oli Thank you for explaining in a mature and constructive way. It is appreciated.

  • Stranded87 #33 4 weeks ago

    @Everyone having issues on Samsung Galaxy S2

    I have an S2 and I just downloaded and played it so it is compatible, not sure why you're getting problems.
    Edited by 1 at 27/01/12 @ 19:55

  • ShiroBen #34 4 weeks ago

    Okay. Game designers. This is important. If you can pay real money to get a higher score, then your scoring system is meaningless.

  • kangarootoo #35 3 weeks ago

    @ShiroBen

    Not necessarily. The challenge - reward structure can still remain intact if it is well managed. The tidal wave of very successful freemium games that are all over Facebook and the app store are in most cases finding one way or another to let players buy a higher score, but they are still successful and people still enjoy playing them. And gold mining in WoW is another version of buying a higher score, but it hasn't rendered leveling in WoW meaningless.