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Puzzlepops! Trick or Treat (Free) by Layton Hawkes is a delightfully sweet puzzle treat just in time for Halloween. If you’re a big fan of candy, puzzles, and Halloween, then this is the perfect mashup of everything you love. And if you haven’t tried out the original and fantastic Puzzlepops! title, then this is the perfect way to get a taste of the classic.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays of the year. I love seeing houses decorated with pumpkins, skeletons, witches, spider webs, and other festive decor, and it’s always great to go to one of the many Halloween-themed events that happen around town or at theme parks. Plus, how can I resist rewatching one of my favorite movies of all time, “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” when it’s perfect for the season? And as a kid growing up in a suburban area, it was always a blast going trick-or-treating and seeing what awesome candy I ended up with by the end of the night. Even though I’m a bit older now, I still enjoy Halloween a lot and love the festivities, even though I’m way too old for trick-or-treating. When I played Puzzlepops! earlier in the year, I fell in love with the game immediately, and seeing all the tasty candy definitely made me think of Halloween, where it is plentiful. Naturally, when I heard that there was going to be a Halloween edition of Puzzlepops, I knew I had to get my hands on it.

Visually, Puzzlepops! Trick or Treat is as delightful as the original. In the original game, players found themselves in a world of bright color and shiny, decadent candies of all shapes and flavors. In the Trick or Treat edition, Puzzlepops features bright and vibrant background colors that are more in tune with the holiday, and there is even a subtle pumpkin pattern print that will bring a smile to your face. The candies themselves look absolutely delectable, as the game features staples like candy corn and Dracula lips to eyeballs and bats, along with some more normal treats. No matter how you look at it, chances are high that you’ll have a big sweet tooth after playing a few levels (at least I did). The animations in the game are buttery smooth and fluid, and there are quirky sound effects as the candies move around on the lollipop sticks. And to top it all off, a fun, spooky soundtrack plays in the background to help you get in the Halloween spirit. Overall, the developer has done it again in terms of visuals and audio with this Trick or Treat edition of Puzzlepops.

Like typical puzzle game fare, Puzzlepops! Trick or Treat is based on levels. There are seven total chapters in the game, with about 10 levels in each (the first having only five to show you the basics). But since the Trick or Treat edition is free, it only gives you the first three chapters with the initial download — the other four chapters (50 more stages) are part of the Premium upgrade, which is only a $0.99 in-app purchase. Personally, seeing how good the original game was, I think the Premium upgrade for this one is worth the purchase, and I’ll definitely be getting it once I complete the free content. But whether you get Premium or not, the goal for all levels is the same: get the candy pieces into their appropriate spots on the lollipop sticks, but it’s much harder than you think.

Controls in Puzzlepops is simple enough: to slide a candy piece on the sticks, just swipe it in the direction you want it to go. Once a candy slides, the only way for it to stop is if it reaches the end of the stick or if there is a different piece of candy that is blocking it. To make larger candy, just slide a piece of candy into another candy of the same type, and it grows in size. With the Trick or Treat edition, some festive candy have unique traits, such as the immobile bat, which can only be swapped to the position of a candy that slides into it. When all of the candy is in their proper spot on the sticks, then you’ve successfully completed a level and can move on to the next. However, the game allows players to play levels in any order, so it’s not linear.

As a big fan of the original Puzzlepops, I was super excited to hear about a Halloween edition of the game, because what could be more perfect? I have only spent my morning on the game so far, but I love every bit of it. The graphics are on point, the festive music makes me smile, the sound effects are as eccentric as I remember, and the puzzles themselves are get pretty tricky. It’s the perfect little puzzle game for Halloween, and it’s great for anyone, no matter how young or old. The Premium upgrade is also worth the money, in my opinion.

If you love sweets, Halloween, and puzzles, then I recommend grabbing Puzzlepops! Trick or Treat. You can find Puzzlepops! Trick or Treat on the App Store as a universal download on the iPhone and iPad for free, with a single $0.99 in-app purchase for 50 more levels. There are no ads either way.

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The Bug Butcher ($3.99) by Noodlecake Studios Inc and Awfully Nice Studios is an action-packed arcade shooter that will keep you on your toes with all of the intensity of fighting off nasty space bugs. This is the mobile port of the original game that launched on Steam earlier this year. If you enjoyed games like Glorkian Warrior and Galaga, then chances are high that you’ll like what The Bug Butcher brings to the table.

When I’ve had a long, stressful day, I like to relieve my stress by playing video games. Preferably ones that involve outrageous weaponry so I can unleash my fury on unsuspecting critters that need to be exterminated anyway. Arcade shooter games are perfect for the job, because they’re always intense, full of action, and involve high score chasing with each round. I had not heard of The Bug Butcher until last week, to be honest, but I noticed that it looked like something that would be right up my alley when I needed to rage out on. So naturally, I had to check it out for myself.

Visually, The Bug Butcher is gorgeous, even though the alien bug creatures you’re fighting are kind of disgusting. The game features a fantastic cartoon art style that is sure to appeal to anyone who likes quirky graphics, and the 2-D is rendered well with the incredible backdrops of the rooms that you’re in. The colors in The Bug Butcher range from bright and vibrant hues to darker, more gloomy tones, and everything contrasts nicely with each other so it all stands out on your Retina screen. I found the animations to be smooth and fluid, and the techno dance music and sound effects are a fun, eccentric touch.

In The Bug Butcher, players take on the role of Harry, a bug exterminator in space. You get a new assignment that takes you to the planet of Zoit, where you find out about a futuristic research facility run by a dwindling number of surviving scientists, and the facility is infested with dangerous space bugs. Your goal is to survive the decontamination procedure initiated by the scientists by getting rid of all of the bugs that are brought in during the process. While it may sound easy, it truly gets difficult once things get insane and hectic in the room.

The Bug Butcher features two game modes: Arcade and Panic, and three difficulty levels (Easy, Medium, and Hard). You start with Arcade mode and go through the campaign one level at a time. As you make progress in the Arcade mode, you’ll unlock maps for Panic mode, which is essentially an endless mode. Each stage in Arcade mode features several waves of enemy bugs coming in, and you must exterminate them all within the allotted time limit. Your score depends on racking up successful combos (kill enemies quickly without getting hit yourself), collecting coins, and completing it within the time frame (the faster, the better). The same objective is also for Panic mode, but it’s also a test to see how far you can get before you lose.

Controls in The Bug Butcher are simple enough to understand, though I think they’re far from perfect. The two directional arrow buttons in the bottom left let you move Harry left and right. On the right hand side, you have a button that allows you to perform a dash, and another button to shoot upwards (hold down for continuous fire) with your exterminator guns. When you get enough kills, you fill up your power-up gauge that sits above the attack button, and you can activate your power-up mode with a tap. The boost only lasts for a short amount of time, though, so you have to make sure to use it wisely, otherwise it may be a while before you can use it again.

My biggest concern with the controls is the fact that it seemed like the directional buttons got stuck often, because I found myself in one spot even though my thumb was on the button for the direction I wanted to move in. I wish that there was some customization for the controls, as I would like to change the spacing between the left and right buttons, because they seem too close together for me in the default setting. Hopefully the developers can consider letting players fine-tune the control positioning to better suit our individual needs.

As you shoot down nasty space bugs, they’ll drop gold coins that you can collect — the more coins you have by the end of the round, the more points you get. But you’ll have to be fast at collecting them since they will disappear after a few secodns. Plus, the coins can be spent on various upgrades for Harry, such as shields, guns, speed boosts, and more that can be unlocked as you play.

I only started The Bug Butcher this morning, but I’m loving the game so far. It’s the perfect little game for just unleashing my wrath on space bugs when I need to release some stress, and the graphics are stunning and the music is top-notch. The different game modes and difficulty levels provide players with plenty of replay value, especially since the levels get harder at a gradual pace, and all of the unlockables will keep you coming back for more. I just hope that the controls get better optimized in terms of responsiveness in the future, and allow us to tweak the positioning and spacing between buttons.

I highly recommend checking out The Bug Butcher if you’re into frantic arcade shooters and want a great stress reliever. The Bug Butcher is available on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone and iPad for $3.99. There are no in-app purchases.

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