ParkingLot - She keeps stealing my apps.

Well, she did it again. There I was minding my own business, when Mrs. Pence offered me a drink. I was like cool! It had been a long day, I was thirsty, and I had just gotten a new review code for ParkingLot.

OK. So, this isn't Mr. Pence. But, the CRT is TOO sweet.

Perfect ending to a day. Right?

Little did I know, she had slipped me a mickey. I mean, I should know better, this has happened before. Well, after I woke up from a slobber infested sleep, she had stolen my app code and this review was written on my chest with a sharpie.

PARKINGLOT

Over 450 different puzzles await you in ParkingLot, a fun little puzzle game from quetouch.com. It’s cheap ($0.99), simple fun you can pull out while stuck in traffic, trapped on a long, oh-so-long business flight, chillin’at home on a breezy Saturday afternoon or grabbing a quick lunch between clients. It’s the perfect little app for those times that you want to escape from the daily grind. Like a good movie sucks you in and facilitates a little suspended reality, so does this odd addictive little game. And while it isn’t one I’d play for hours on end on a regular basis, it’s a nice little distraction to pull out a few times a week for 15-20 minutes at a time.

THE GAME.

At the start of each game you are prompted whether or not you want to enable the game music. Then, directly into a puzzle you go! Each puzzle looks much like the last, but you will still find yourself trying to figure out which way to move the cars to guide yours out of the parking lot. There are 12 different packs of puzzles, each with 40 puzzles (though one, oddly, only has 38). The higher the degree of difficulty, the more cars will cram the parking lot, making it harder to guide your yellow vehicle to the exit. Don’t fret, if you persevere you will clear the path and exit, with a satisfying screech of tires as you leave that parking lot in the dust --- only to find yourself entrenched in, you guessed it, another darn parking lot. If you get stuck while working on one, you can simply start it over by clicking the “Reset” button. Just can’t figure one of the puzzles out and want to try a different one? Simply click the “Next Puzzle” button to get a new one. Or exit the game and re-launch it; you will get a fresh puzzle that way, as well.

THE CONTROLS.

The controls are simple, just swipe you finger on top of the car you wish to move to guide it forward or backward. No tilting the screen or timing moves required. In the upper right-hand corner of the screen is a difficulty gauge. In the more difficult puzzles you must think several steps ahead to figure out how to correctly move the cars to clear the way for your car to leave the parking lot.

A neat feature is that it tracks how many moves you make to solve the puzzle and lets you know when you’ve set a new record for each puzzle. Also, in a soon-to-be released update (version 2.2) you will be able to upload your scores online to see how you rank with other users.

One idea that might improve the game for me…to enable the use of the user’s iPod music. Though, I’d miss that screech of tires when you free yourself of the parking lot. Maybe a script that would interrupt the iPod music just long enough to play the screeching sound??? Is that to tall an order? Guess we’ll just have to wait and see. If it’s feasible, perhaps it will show up in a future update.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

That’s it! A simple review for a simple app. It’s a keeper!!!

You can buy ParkingLot HERE.