Triple Town is a game I found out about through its lawsuit with Yeti Town creators 6Waves LOLAPPS. I tried out the Google+ Beta, and found myself wishing I could just pay $10 to play unlimitedly. Luckily, Triple Town for the iPhone, while a free app with limited moves, also offers a $4 version that does open up unlimited moves. I then proceeded to play the game pretty much non-stop for the rest of the week, and not just because it functions with whatever I'm listening to while Hero Academy pauses whatever music or podcast is currently playing. [Now I'm distracted by the button mashing theme song. That is unfortunate, as it's amazing and better than what I'm writing about now. Okay, I'm back.]
It's an intelligent, responsive, and quick match-three game ostensibly focused on matching objects to create village structures. The game states that the villagers will occasionally make requests, but I've never observed requests that last for longer than a turn, and those may have only been on the Google+ version. The iPhone version surfaces few of the mechanics, only showing what you'll receive if you combine three of an individual object type. For example, three grass objects match into a bush, three bushes match into a tree, and three trees match into a brick house. Ultimately, the goal is to earn as many points as possible before running out of space to build upon.
It is technically impossible for the game to last forever; eventually, one of the two building structure types results in a sky castle that cannot be combined into any other structures. However, the difference between the two structure types is what creates the challenge. The standard structures work from the grass example made previously, eventually building into the aforementioned sky castles at a little under ten different object types. Matching up to the sky castle is extremely difficult, and will probably only happen once or twice in a strong playthrough.
The reason this is so difficult to accomplish is because of the other structure type, predicated upon bears. Bears move around the level, screwing up your patterns, and the only way to stop them is to trap them and turn them into gravestones. Matched gravestones eventually turn into churches, matched churches turn into cathedrals, and matched cathedrals turn into a treasure chest. The treasure chest can be tapped to earn 5000 points (a little over 5% of my high score) and will disappear from the level. It's a risk-reward system as to whether you allow too many bears onto the level, and it's a nice one at that.
Other intelligent decisions have also been made. A podium sits in the upper-right corner, allowing players to save one object to be placed later. Matching more than three of an object type earns the player more points, and the visual design of the object becomes more elaborate. Crystals serve as wild-cards, able to match any object type, but turn into near-useless rocks when misplaced. Meanwhile, bots destroy objects that are of no use to you, or turn bears (and NINJA BEARS) directly into gravestones. Both crystals and bots, along with grass, bushes, and trees, can be purchased with in-game coins, which are earned at the end of each playthrough. Coins can also be purchased with real-world currency, as can be turns for those who don't want to buy an unlimited number (but are experiencing one-more-turn syndrome.) The mechanics by which bears move are clearly displayed in the tutorial, as are the matching mechanics; the last object placed in a match is the space in which the new matched object will appear.
Certainly not a perfect game, Triple Town has multiple flaws. The game fails to surface how many turns are left for players without unlimited moves, which leads to an extremely distasteful moment in which a player receives a sudden "You are out of moves" message. Once I purchased unlimited plays, it wasn't really a problem, but it was awful trying to play the game for free. Triple Town also doesn't show the next item being spawned, a nice touch that would've made the game far more playable. The game has also crashed for me multiple times at the end of rounds, forcing me to restart the game and play through the tutorial again. This would matter more, but there's no leaderboard to speak of online or otherwise, and all progress is limited to the awful Game Center system. There's no music in the game, and you'll probably want to turn off the sound effects, which are extremely limited in scope. The graphics are pleasant and the bears are cute, but there's nothing very iconic about the visual design, and there's no aesthetic variety from playthrough to playthrough.
Ultimately, I've actually enjoyed my time with Triple Town. Unlike Angry Birds, I don't feel like I'm constantly banging my head against a wall, and I've experience wildly different play sessions time and time again because of the random nature of the game. However, there are serious improvements still to be made to the title, and there's a dearth in content or technical ability to explain why this game costs more than most other popular iOS titles. It does have a free option, but it's so frustrating that I could not possibly recommend playing it that way to anyone. I recommend trying out a few rounds on Google+, Kindle, or Facebook before migrating to the iOS version, as the paid option is really the only way to go.