	Neves
	Developer: Yuke’s Publisher: Ignition Entertainment Release Date: Out Now Players: 1-2 via single card wifi play	Words By:
Neves struck me as an odd name until I had one of those forehead-smacking moments of Doh!-type realisation – “Neves” is “Seven” backwards, and the puzzles in the game are all made for the same seven pieces – Hod! So there you go, Neves is a ‘simple’ little puzzle game with the idea being that you place the seven pieces into a silhouette in the correct orientation to make the required shape. The pieces can be easily moved, rotated and flipped with the stylus (refreshingly Neves is clearly made purely with the DS in mind). Sounds simple doesn’t it? WRONG. Whilst you’ll see some puzzles’ solutions instantly, others use the pieces in such a fashion that you could be fiddling around for hours! It reminded me of a sub game in an ancient classic, Impossible Mission on the Commodore 64. Whilst the puzzles vary the basic gameplay never does, and speaking personally maybe this is a good thing because some DS puzzlers seem to have have so many different types of game tacked-on that they feel messy, underdeveloped and unrelated. Neves has no such confidence or identity problems, there are just the three single player game modes and the excellent Bragging Rights 2-player single card wifi option. Silhouettes is the basic, fill-in-the-puzzle and take as long as you like game. Time Pressure adds a 3-minute time limit. Seven Steps is a real perfectionist’s mode, this means you have just seven turns to place the seven pieces in the correct position – so there's no room for a mistake. Neves puzzle shapes may resemble letters of the alphabet, or numbers, or representations of objects like houses, aeroplanes or even animals. The puzzle pieces themselves have a clever synergy which means that often there are several ways of completing a particular puzzle, sometimes just the one. As well as increasing as you progress through the game with great subtlety, the difficulty seems to be entirely subjective as well – sometimes someone you thought was really good at the game won’t be able to figure a puzzle out and you’ll be able to envisage which piece goes where, and wade in and sort it out for them – it’s that kind of game. Neves was one of the most enjoyable games I’ve reviewed in some time. It’s simple to play, whilst being addictive enough and possessing enough depth to make you return time and time and time again. Its lack of variation might be a downer to some, but if you’ve had calculations, counting and colour memory-type puzzles up to the eyeballs this is the antidote.

Best Bits
- Hundreds of simple and addictive shape puzzles
- Excellent stylus control

Worst Bits
- Lacks variety, but so did Tetris


by: Diddly