To be honest, I have played no less than ten games such as sorting puzzles. From the pixel-level "Ball Sort" played with a keyboard in the Symbian era, to the "Sort Watercolor" and "Ball Sort" that became popular around the world, to various reskinned copycat versions, to be honest, I am a bit tired of aesthetics. However, I accidentally tried this "BBQ Sorting Puzzle" in the past two days, and it really made my eyes shine.
Let's first talk about the difference from mainstream sorting games. Although the "Sort Watercolor" on the market is classic, its color recognition is not very friendly to color-deficient players, and the difficulty of the levels soars in the later stages. Often, if you make a wrong step, you will get completely stuck and have to start over. This BBQ uses ingredients instead of colors. The patterns of barbecued pork, chicken wings, and corn are very clear, and even color blindness can easily distinguish them. Here's the key point: its movement determination is much looser than that of “Sorting Balls”, and the stacking space for the same ingredients is slightly larger, so there are much fewer initial jams. However, this also means that the challenge in the later stages is slightly weaker, which may not be enjoyable enough for experienced players who pursue hard-core puzzle solving.
In terms of operation feel, the single-finger click response is very smooth and there is no unnecessary animation delay. This is much cleaner than some similar games with too many advertisements. You must know that many free sorting games deliberately add a 0.5 second delay when moving ingredients in order to let you watch ads, which makes it very annoying to play. This kind of trick has not been found so far, and the charging mode is displayed as 0. I have played for several days and haven't even encountered a pop-up advertisement. It's a shame... but I am also worried about whether in-app purchases will be added in the future. After all, the developer is from Shenzhen, so there must be something right.
Let's talk about atmosphere creation. The theme is a barbecue scene, the background is a simple wooden chopping board, ingredients are strung on bamboo sticks, and occasionally there is a particle effect of sparks floating around, which is very life-like. Compared with the cold laboratory style of "Sorting Watercolor", this one has more pyrotechnics and is less anxious to play. However, the disadvantage is that the number of levels is not large at the moment, only about 100 levels. I hope it will be continuously updated in the future.
Not to brag, if you are coming into contact with sorting games for the first time, this one is very suitable for getting started; if you are like me, an old guy who has been playing mobile games for ten years, it can also bring back some memories of playing "Kushikatsu Sorting" in the Saipan era🍢. What really makes me sigh is that now that the mobile game industry is in such a state, it is very rare for a team to be willing to make such a pure puzzle game without in-app purchases or forced advertising. Highly recommended to friends who like to use their brains in their spare time, you can give it a try.