RanaCidu has a simple yet versatile gameplay concept: find the best path to the finish. At the initial levels the shortest path must be found, to become used to the playfield. On a grid a frog called Rana hops from square to square. Each square contains an animal that represents the directions of the next possible hops. To make life easy a frame is drawn around each allowed neighbour square. At the higher levels there are all kind of variations in the targets: find the longest path, visit a number of animals, or collect an amount of points. And there are features such as forced visits and freeing animals from their cage.
Your score is computed based on the visited animals, the number of hops, and the time spent. After finishing a level, it is shown by a small animation of a rhinoceros. A leaderboard shows the latest scores of other players. This gives an idea how well you played. Flinging the header above the scores shows 2 other leaderboards: all time high scores and the friend scores.
Each level costs a coin. But you need to pay this only once. After failing a level you can freely keep retrying. And, if you finish a level perfectly you gain another coin! In this way you can stay playing all the 80 levels. Still, when out of coins you can buy them by in-app-purchases. However, it is much cheaper to invite one of your friends, for gaining another coin. Also clicking on the ads seems to speed up gaining coins.
Some levels are pretty tough. In a dead and situation you can takeback the last hop(s), so that there is no need to start a level all over. In fact the takeback button is a helpful part of the game. Especially for levels where a visited animal is replaced randomly by another animal. You can use that info to have the new animal at a different square. Furthermore, there is also a hint button, that shows the optimal squares for a coin. This powerful feature is unique for logic games!
The innovative gameplay of RanaCidu is a grateful addition in the well-known area of match-3 games, maze games, etc. RanaCidu is a game for those who love the challenges of a tough logic game. You have to think about global strategies and solve local puzzles. So, this means a lot of fun, and the game is for free.