Numericon

In Brief

The ancient wizardry of numbers attracts the seekers of mysteries and artifacts. Your task is to unveil the mysteries of the magic book and find the hidden code. They are securely hidden on thirty pages, and discovering the mystifying secrets within is up to you.

If you don't want to download the game, but would still like to check it out' you can play it via your browser thanks to big fish games HERE

Introduction:

The game was originally given away way back in March 2007 three months after the game site was opened. The community gave it an 85% positive thumbs up out of 219 votes. You can see the community comments HERE. It was given away again later in the same year HERE; Sept 22nd 2007, where it received a positive 83% out of 189 votes with 63 comments from the community. The following year it was given away for the third time; January 26th 2008, where it received 70% positive votes out of 428 and garnered 56 community comments; which you can see HERE. Finally, it was given away over nine years later; i.e. August 13th 2017 HERE, where it received a positive 81% out of 36 votes and garnered 18 comments. I also posted a short review of the game in the forums HERE 11 years ago (I can't believe it was so long ago), part of which I've re-posted in today's edited review.

Developer's Introduction:

It's time to train your memory! You think that you are good at counting? Numericon is a challenging adventure that gives you a chance to check it! This puzzle with numbers will never let you be bored! Well, let's start! Make chains of numbers and remember that the last tile should be as big as the sum of the previous figures. There are three modes at your choice - adventure, puzzle and survival. Playing adventure game you have to get through lots of levels where every following is trickier than the previous one. It's the best workout for your brains! Watch the sand-glass, and think as fast as you can! Solving the eye-teasers you can get some power-ups and skills - increase your time or just freeze it, enlarge the number of remaining attempts or double your points. By the way, you can select the bonus yourself. Sometimes you'll see the jewels on the tiles - break them and catch extra points!

Playing Numericon puzzle mode concentrate on the game play without paying attention to the time left. Forget about everything and enjoy the game! Keep in mind that you are to build the chain in such a way that all the tiles will disappear from the field. Here you should take into account all possible paces. If you like to risk, you'd better choose Survival stage. Here you have to sharpen your wit! The time is limited, hurry up and be flat-out to win! No doubt, Numericon will be in the list of your favorite logical games! You can download this remarkable collection of puzzles with numbers right now absolutely for free!

The site where I linked to the developers introduction (via Robin Games, no longer exists)

The Game:

You can set up multiple profiles and when ending a level you can return to the same spot whenever you decide to return. The options menu enables you to set the game for full screen (default) or windowed mode, as well as have a custom cursor. There is also a toggle for hardware acceleration and another toggle for turning on and off in game tips.

There are three game modes:

Survival - You select a sequence of numbers to complete a sum by dragging the mouse from one number to the next for example 4+2=6 including the jewels that can be found scores bonus points. You have to score as many points as you can before the time runs out, which is indicated by an hour glass to the right of the screen. You can reshuffle the board if required, though this will take up valuable time from the sand trickling out of the timer.

Puzzle Mode - This has the same basic game play as the survival mode but you have to try and remove all the pieces from the playing area. You cannot leave a tile as an orphan tile. All tiles that you use must be contiguous. You can restart the level, but doing so you will lose one life.

Adventure Mode - There are 30 levels in the adventure mode. The way you use the tiles is still the same as in both other modes, but in this mode you progress in a linear fashion through the levels, all of which appear to be laid out in different patterns looking at the levels map that’s provided, though the first two levels had exactly the same board lay out. As with the survival game you can re-shuffle the board at any time. There are two ways of using the tiles in adventure mode; that is either to use the required number of pieces or use each piece at least once. There is a feather at the left side of the screen that indicates which mode you have to play in. The peacock feather indicates the latter mode.

The longer the chain of number the bigger the score you will get in both the adventure and the survival game, for example 1+1=2 gives 4 points, 1+1+1=3 gives 9 points, 1+1+1+1=4 gives 20 points and 1+1+1+1+1=5 gives you 30 points, though the scoring isn’t as simple as that as the higher the numbers you use to attain such sequences the higher the bonus you get. Eg 2+3=5 gives you 10 points compared to the above 1+1=2 giving 4 points.

You also get points for the speed at which you make sequences; one each for sequences of 3, 4 or 5 tiles, there’s also jewel sequences and a time bonus. In the adventure mode, at some points you will be able to upgrade certain skills for example, the Dwarven Engineer skill upgrade which causes a bomb to appear at the beginning of a level or the Leprechaun skill that gives you more jewels. Then there are also extra lives and an Alchemist skill that enables the bomb bonus to be used more than once. I didn’t check whether these were applicable in the survival mode though.

When using the Jewel mode you gain even more bonus points by clicking the jewel as it leaves the playing area.

Edited reference accessed HERE. Originally posted by Whiterabbit-uk nine years ago.

Other Reviews and Videos of Numericon:

You can see Big Fish community reviews of Numericon HERE, and a slide show of over 20 images HERE. There are some videos of game play HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE (German) and HERE (German).

Conclusion:

This is a great game, especially for the young ones. The three game modes, called, Adventure, Puzzle and Survival will undoubtedly give the game some re-playability and add some interesting twists on the game. Despite the game being over twelve years old (it was first given away back in 2007), the graphics still look decent and are nicely presented. You can turn down the music if you find it too distracting via the options menu, or via your own volume control (via the volume mixer that is accessible by right clicking on the speaker icon that is usually located next to the computers clock). I originally gave this a 7 out of 10 for family fun and being educational for the younger kids, but on replaying it today, I'm much less biased in my opinions of games these days compared to when I first scored this game and would say it deserves at least another point, i.e. 8 out of 10 especially for its re-playability :)

If you have a problem installing or activating or getting Numericon to work please visit FAQ's thread HERE. You can also post details of problems in the forums HERE, where it's more likely to be answered after the giveaway ends.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank MyPlayCity for giving away Numericon and also to the game giveaway team, as always, for securing other ways to get free games.

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

Check out Delenns threads for details of free games and offers HERE. Imperator: Rome an open world grand strategy (map based) simulation set in the tumultuous centuries from Alexander the Great's Successor Empires in the East to the foundation of the Roman Empire is free to play this weekend until Sunday late afternoon HERE. Codemasters has a super sale with up to 75% off their racing game franchise i.e. F11 to F19 , HERE. The latest freebie over at Epic Games is Jotun a hand drawn action- exploration game set in Norse mythology. There's nothing new via Indie Gala's free section so far this week, but they do have an habit of adding a couple each week HERE . Anti Squad was supposed to be available for free via Indie Gala, at least for the next few days, but there is an issue at the moment. Keep checking it out over the next few days in case they sort the issue out . At the moment it says download not available. The same issue with The Great Story of a Mighty Hero - Remastered. Both are worth checking out over the next few days to see if the download button has been reactivated. If it is you'll get a DRM free copy of the games