Last updated on November 24th, 2025 at 07:50 am
Pop the Lock – Casual Game Review
Pop the Lock is a Casual/Puzzle game from Simple Machine, LLC, first launched in 10th September 2015.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 3,407+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Pop the Lock Stand Out
Tap in sequence to crack the code and pop the lock, but don't make a mistake or you'll have to start from the beginning.
How far will you go?
This Casual game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Pop the Lock is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 2nd February 2019
Recent improvements include:
- small tweaks and bug fixes
Download & Availability
Pop the Lock is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
How do you do it to go infinite without stoping.
Ok so the concept of this game is awesome. Almost no ads! We love the customizable lock and the simple design of the game. It isnt well made though. The game has this system in it where if you miss the yellow circle, the indicator line will stop, and the yellow circle will disappear until you begin a new game. Im guessing the reasoning behind the disappearing circle is because when the game glitches and you hit the circle but it counts as a miss, the player doesnt realize and tacks the loss up to their error in timing. HOWEVER there is a glitch very occasionally where the circle doesnt disappear after you miss and you can see how far off you are from hitting it. Mostly the indicator line is off but sometimes its in the yellow circle, yet it still counts as a miss. Kinda frustrates us especially as we get up to higher levels. Btw we have screenshots to prove the glitch. If youd like to talk more on it, you can contact us through 443-569-1925.
This game is toxic. They make you lose on purpose then offer you to watch an ad in order to revive. Everytime youre about to win you get lagged off the you end up losing. Dont even download pop the lock. Actually toxic. Banned from chat.
Dear God, we keep trying to play this game ever so often, only to delete it. Now, once again, we find that with this version, we can no longer avoid your stupid, ridiculous hats. All we wanted, all anyone wants, is a way to zen out with a simple game. No ads, no hats, no share this with Facebook (who would care?, and no second chance. You could have monetized this game from the start. People would have paid to get rid of your endless interruptions and distractions. We would have gladly paid ten bucks to have the game itself and nothing else. You could have had them pay other smaller amounts to design their experience to the way they chose. But no. You continue to drive people away. Please have someone else do your thinking for you.
All you do is tap and try to get the timing right. Was bored in less than 5 minutes. Also very laggy. Spent more time watching adds than playing the game.
We can never restore the paid version..we know Ive paid for it at least twice..This is seriously annoying.
Really frustrating make it all the way to level 44 then it pretty much freezes so the only thing we can do is delete it and start over which Im not gonna do…Im just deleting it…you guys need to fix some stuff on this game and we would keep it and give it a higher rating.
Worked well for a while, then had an update and wouldnt let us play so we had to delete it and start over and then the red bar was moving at all different speeds and was going too fast for us to pop the lock even on level 3.
Went to level 4 and our game is softlocked, the pin moves so fast that we only see it for three frames.
Its way too fast on the very first levels we mean give us a chance too get to four.
We have put 3 years of this game on our phone and once this new update came out it took away all our unlocked hats and made the game speed faster.
We left a review before about the constant ads, but Im very surprised to say they fixed it! Now this is the game we know and love, and Im excited to be playing it again. Its a great way for us to relax.
We would love to play this game just little more often but have deleted do to adds being way to close together it just gets annoying theres not really any game modes it gets boring way to fast and we wont let it keep taking up space on our phone there for we deleted it.
You need to give people the option on which lock head you want. We like the idea of having a negative balance of stars. But this game needs improvements, since it it laggy. Could you also please add a main menu? It is annoying to not have one.
Great game, addictive. Im at 180 and many times we stop the bar on the circle but the game stops as if it was not in the circle which cost us.
An absolute torture sometimes, but overall, a pretty good game.
When we play when we get to the end it keep crashing and kicks us out of the game.
The game is great, but it crashes every time you open it so it's unplayable. We used to play this a lot and tried to play again today, but it crashed immediately.
We downloaded this game years ago & forgot about it until scrolling through our Game Center. Im killer at this game at DAVE & BUSTERS! Even when at D&B we realized the game had looked familiar & we were the only person able to hit the jack pot but it still never clicked until right now. Amazing, simple, fun game. Sad to see it hasnt got much recognition. We feel as though it would be a hit if it was advertised more. People love simple games. Thanks for making us a natural at the arcade people think we got insane reflexs haha.
Love this game and helps practice for the arcade game.
We got home from the arcade and we loved this game there and it gives you more of a competition to win that jackpot there.
Bro so many adds JUST TURN OFF YOUR WIFI.
This game is fun and gives us what it advertises. We got this game in January 2023 so it doesnt lag (so far) which was an issue with some other people, but we would guess this game has been up updates several times in the years it has been out . And hardest any ads, we are not level 38 and we have had no more than 4-5 ads while playing! Great game, very simple (which is good for this game) and would recommend if you like this type of thing. 5 stars.
It was a simple and fun game. It was not making us rage witch is good as Ive broke 3 controlers playing Minecraft. Recommend good buy.
Im addicted to the game, but it does need some work. We stop in the right spot many different times, but it doesnt count it. On level 101 and am in the top 1%.
We love pop the lock, we originally got it to help with our reflexes but ever since ive started we cant stop. We live the feature where you can go into debt, as a gambling addict, we love that rush when our lifes savings diminish into a number below zero, it fills us with joy. Thank you pop the lock.
Pop the lock is a great game and helps kill time. Its super calming and fun, but one small thing, lag! Lag is super annoying especially when you are super close to finishing and its really annoying, but other than that its great 5/5 rating.
Ive been reading the reviews for this game and finally decided to download it. Everyone says that theres so many ads that you barely get to play the actual game. Our experiences with this game area lot different. For us there are no ads. We dont know if we accidentally paid for something but there is no ads for us. The game itself is extremely easy. Well at least for us. This game is AMAZING.
We really love this game it is so addicting.
We took our nephew and brother to Chuck E. Cheese and we were hooked on this game lol Im so glad we found the app.
Yall should add more like an infinity mode where you try to get a highscore and also a worldwide leaderboard we feel like that would make the game better.
A simple and fun game :D 5 stars (Just maybe less ads other then that ).
When the yellow dot is centered at the bottom of the lock, we cant do anything about it because it will always act like we missed the dot even though we hit it. Other than that, we love the game a lot and its very satisfying.
We use this app to train for the arcade version and it really helps.
Ive had this game for a day and we cant stop playing it.
This game is very enjoyable we set a goal level and by the end of the day we have to get past a level. When we were looking at the reviews we saw lots of people wrote we wish there was a number two .Well know there is!!! Check out our review on that.
Umm love it yolo boiiiiiiis dis game lit fam dab our guy.
The game loves to crash on us it happens when we log in or we get an achievement. So now because it crashes we cant play the game anymore Soo PLsS fix this glitch because this game is addictive.
This game is a great boredom fixer. It is challenging yet fun. It will have you playing for hours.
This is a fun game tbh , but idk it makes us so mad whenever we get pass a lock and we try to go to the next level and it takes us to some website ..like ? But anyways yea ik they aint gonna read this but atleast give us 2 chances to pass the coin.
We bought this cuz we LOVE the real game at arcades and stuff so we bought it and right when we saw the beginning we saw the dots were way smaller than the one at arcades and there is not an infinite mode so thats why it is not 5 maybe it would be 3.8 out of 5 but if ypu added these we and made circles bigger we will be happy happy haapy.
The first thing is the unregulated timing of the yellow dots, so you have less time to react to pop the lock, but thats fine and not really an issue. The second thing is that we caught eye of an advertisement for an app that is a scam. It doesnt change the quality of the gameplay but definitely something to fix. (The Game is called Dragon Merge Ball or whatever) The third thing is the reason why we made this review. Sometimes when we still pop the lock but there is a slight tilt, it makes us start over again. We dont know if this is a bug or an unpleasant feature, but it takes away from the fun of the gameplay. Besides that, it is a very fun game to play by yourself or with your friends.
Honestly pretty alright, kinda like color switch and doesnt have too many ads, we set a timer and we only really got one every 7-10 minutes after we beat a level . Its as advertised as well which is a bit rare these days too. And unlike other games nowadays an option to fully remove ads if you want to [[without paying monthly or something, looking at you majong masters >:/ ]] . But yeah the only improvement we would do is add a sound cue , like a wooden block being bonked or a metronome to keep your rythm.
When the yellow dot is at the bottom it doesnt count it ever even though we definitely hit it.
Honestly, we want to start off by saying that we love this game. Its a great way to pass the time while working on your reflexes. We honestly think that the whole hat idea is rly cute. Now we want to move on to problems. 1. The lagging. Its kinda laggy and it gets in the way 2. A Glitch With The Hats. There is actually 2 glitched in the hats. One time, we clicked get a new hat and it landed on the default hat, the lock so we wasted 100 stars and didnt get anything. Another things is that we were able to click get a new hat before we got to 100 star and then we were sent into the negatives. Ngl, it was kind of funny, but it was annoying having to save more up than usual. Other than that, great game.
We love this game. Its addictive, you can get cool hats.. Whatever. But sometimes when we go to buy a new hat, it glitches and doesnt give us the hat. This has happened multiple times and its really annoying. Please fix this! But other than that, 5 stars.
A great way to kill time or practice your reflexes, but when a ball appears at the very bottom of the lock, it is impossible to get it. You fail no matter what. This is fine for the first few levels but quickly becomes annoying on the longer levels that are more likely to have it.
The game seems to mess up a lot. It either lags or says you messed up when you didn't. We have plenty of screenshots of the game when it messes up. Although it makes a mistake and can be frustrating, it does not happen all the time and the game is still fun.
Saw this on the iconic Arcade Matt YouTube channel and we just needed to play it for ourselves.
Needs to be updated for iPhone XR.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 2.0.11
- Size: 99.57 MB
- iOS: 11.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Simple Machine, LLC
Last updated: 2nd February 2019 | Genre: Casual, Puzzle | Developer: Simple Machine, LLC