App Army Assemble: Tile Tales: Pirate - "Should this tile sliding puzzler be made to walk the plank?"

Tile Tales: Pirate is a recently released puzzler that sees you exploring a mysterious island in search of precious, precious treasure. Our App Army community are no strangers to buccaneering, so we handed the game over to them to see how it stacks up against the many puzzlers available on mobile. 

Here's what they said:

Jerard He

Tile Tales: Pirate offers a fun and straightforward sliding puzzle experience with a charming pirate twist. The game challenges players to arrange tiles in the correct order to reveal images of pirate treasures, ships, and tropical islands. The intuitive controls make it easy to slide tiles around, and the increasing difficulty ensures the game stays engaging.

The pirate theme adds a delightful layer of personality, with colourful visuals and jaunty sea shanties to set the mood. While it doesn't reinvent the classic sliding puzzle formula, Tile Tales: Pirate is perfect for casual players looking for a relaxing yet brain-teasing game. It's a treasure worth uncovering!

Jojó Reis

I played Tile Tales: Pirate and I liked it. It's a super interesting and fun puzzle game. The game has a humorous twist and a journey where you have to hunt for treasures. Another cool thing is that this game will have versions for consoles and PC. The graphics are super lively and colourful, the colours are very captivating and together with this humorous twist it will be a very fun game to play.

The game works like this, you are on a board and you have to make your way to the captain, along the way you find treasures and also some problems, everything is very simple and easy to play, any age can play without any problems. I thought it was really cool and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes this kind of puzzle game. The game's performance is very good and together with the audio it makes it a charming and fun game to play.

Brian Wigington

At its heart, Tile Tales is a sliding tile game that involves creating a connected path to get your pirate character from one point to another. What set this game apart in my opinion is the charming visuals and sound. The characters like your pirate, a Parrott, and little mischievous monkeys are well-animated and add some humour. The sounds are lively and add to the cheerful atmosphere. One must help you little pirate guy reach treasures and other items by rearranging tiles to create a path.

Your pirate will walk in the direction he's facing, which adds a bit of challenge as you lead him. I found it quite puzzling at times to figure out how to move the tiles with as few moves as possible to get him where he needed to go. The first 3 or so levels were pretty easy and then the difficulty ramped up for me. This is the perfect chill puzzle game where you might play a level or two before bed or on a break. I found myself playing longer once I became more successful and got into a groove. Overall I really like Tile Tales and will leave it on my phone for a few puzzles now and again.

Jason Rosner

Tile Tales: Pirate is a family-friendly tile sliding puzzle game, with some fantastic logic-based handcrafted level designs. I really got hooked on the outstanding, polygonal, colourful graphics that immediately stood out amongst the numerous puzzle games on my phone. Levels start off rather simple and eventually escalate to some real challenges, with trial and error required to complete them all since there’s no hand-holding here.

Three stars are acquired for each completion, along with grabbing various treasures and staying within the maximum tile moves per stage. The various flourishing, living environments and cutely animated characters you meet in Tile Tales all add up to creating a pirate-sized adventure that for fans of the genre gets an easy recommendation from me!

Robert Maines

As the name implies Tile Tales: Pirate is a modern take on the old slide puzzles you may have played as a child. In this gam,e you aren’t trying to arrange numbers in a correct order but tiles of land to create a path for the shipwrecked Pirate to guide him to the level exit that is marked with a big X.

The game starts easily enough but if you want to get the elusive three stars you must complete a level in the minimum number of moves and collect all the treasure. Graphically it looks ok but the Pirate dialogue gets repetitive fast. I couldn’t find a hint function which is a pity but as puzzle games go this is a good one.

Bruno Ramalho

This is the kind of game I used to play with a little "board with tiles" in my hands when I was little. Reimagining it to do much more is what Tile Tales: Pirate is proposing to us. And it does so much more. In the classic puzzle, usually, you would have to move around the tiles to form a picture, but here all the tiles have some kind of pathways that you need to connect to your pirate can move from the starting point to the endpoint (X marks the spot, yarrrr).

The pirate starts to move right away if he has a path in front of him, so that's one more thing that we need to be careful of if we want to solve the puzzle in the fewest moves possible. But the mechanics of the game also allow us to move the piece while the pirate is on top of it, which will be a necessity sometimes to get the bonus 3rd star with the fewest moves possible. It is not an easy game if you want to get all 3 stars (and you do need them to unlock higher levels).

Getting the paths to connect our pirate to the final X is mostly easy, but to get him to solve mini puzzles and get the treasure and some other goodies along the way, and do it in the fewest moves possible, well that's a head-scratcher for sure. Puzzle games fans will love this one because it will push their mental skills to the top. But speaking of the cuteness factor, this game has some lovely animations, and seeing the pirate's body react when we slide a tile, or when we remove a tile in front of him while he is walking and he almost falls off the edge, these are all pretty lovely details that should not be missed. So, all in all, an easy game if you're aiming for 1 star, but if you want to unlock all the mini puzzles and goodies and get those 3 stars, prepare to be engaged.

Eduard Pandele

Great looking sliding puzzle whose twist is that each level is a micro-tale. The main goal is to help the pirate captain get to the big X on the map but the problem is that the captain keeps moving forward (if he can). So that's an extra restriction to keep into account while you slide the tiles around to build the path. The fun thing is that you can move the tile even when the pirate is walking on it, and there are a few puzzles where you must exploit this to get the minimum moves bonus star.

Another interesting tweak of the formula is that each level has its own extra conditions - for example, there's an early level where you need to gather all fishes scattered around and feed them to a seal so that the seal will knock down the treasure chest you need for the treasure star. If solving the level and getting the treasure is normally doable, getting the minimum moves bonus star is a real headache and requires careful planning - this is where I think the game really needs a proper square grid view instead of the game's pretty but distracting orthogonal approach.

Overall, though, I enjoyed the game, although I'm quite sure I'll never three-star all the levels. But it's a good time waster and I'll definitely explore it as much as I'll be able to, before the star limitations will stop me. Minor quibble: there's no proper menu, so I couldn't find the options and I couldn't turn off the annoying music.

Jim Linford

I really like the retro look of the game and enjoy the atmosphere, the music and the humour, it's a puzzle game where you have to get to the end of the map, you do. this is by sliding tiles around with pathways and a pirate will walk the path, you have three available stars you can collect on each level. usually by getting to the exit, getting an item (treasure) etc and making sure you are below the allocated moves. I am not the best at puzzle games, my pirate got stuck at times lol. but I found this game fun to play, if you like these types of games play it, if you don't then don't. I would recommend it

Mark Abukoff

This is a pleasant but challenging puzzle game where you have to slide tiles to move your character along the path to pick up objects and make it to your goal. Pick up all items and finish in the right number of moves to get three stars, but you’re challenged by, among other things, the inability to control the character’s movement directly. It moves automatically when it can, based on the tile in front of it. This game reminds me of similar games I played as a kid, small plastic things with sliding tiles to form pictures or patterns, so there’s an element of nostalgia for me too. Ultimately, I like the look and challenge of this game. Good puzzler to take your mind off life’s stress.

Mike Lisagor

The Tales: Pirate is an ok sliding puzzle game, but I was hoping for more. You slide pieces around to advance your character to the finish line. There are treasures to pick up, and if you complete each puzzle in a certain amount of moves, you gain a star. There are three stars per level and you need stars to open up additional levels. The graphics are solid and the controls are simple enough. The biggest gripe is that your character moves automatically when he can, so if the piece he is going to has multiple paths, he chooses where to go…this is an issue since you want to minimize the number of moves…and there is NO undo button. You can replay the level from the beginning but that’s a bummer. I do enjoy the game and the polish that it has, but I need to practice more to three star every level!

Tom Chan

Tile Tales: Pirate is a classic sliding puzzle that challenges players to move tiles to form a path for the pirate to a specific exit point on the board. The main goal is to lead the pirate to the exit point. While it sounds simple, the game can become quite challenging because players also need to move the tiles based on the direction that the pirate is going. It can be frustrating trying to solve it in the fewest moves possible and collecting items and chests.

The interaction between the pirate and the items on the tiles makes it stand out from other similar sliding puzzle games. The game features various levels that increase in complexity, providing a good mix of challenges for both beginners and experienced players. Players also cannot just progress every level with 1 star. They have to earn enough stars in order to progress to a higher level. It has nice graphics and an intuitive user interface, making it easy to navigate through the puzzles. The overall design and puzzle mechanics make it a solid choice for puzzle enthusiasts.

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