socialrosiechen: Five addictive iPhone games to kill some time

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Five addictive iPhone games to kill some time

When you're waiting on the subway, sitting in the bathroom, waiting at the doctor's office or otherwise experiencing some empty time, there's nothing better than a casual iPhone game. You can play right away, quit whenever you want, and keep building up those high scores.

Some iPhone games are more addictive than others, though. For many reasons, these five keep me coming back. It could be the quest for new items and higher scores, the quick learning curve, or the great graphics, but each of these games has its own unique combo of attributes that add up to high replay value. Check out the list for yourself, and then point out the ones I missed in the comments.

Mega Jump

I just picked this fast little number up for free during a promotion (it's normally 99 cents), and haven't been able to put it down since. In Mega Jump, you control a cute, coin-collecting little monster who rises higher through the forest as he grabs more coins and powerups. This game is very similar to Doodle Jump, but more fast-paced and more fun. The object is to get the most coins and rise to the greatest height, adding up to a better score. The controls are easy: you rise automatically, until you can't find any more coins to grab onto, and you move from side to side by tilting the phone.

Mega Jump is addictive because it's easy to learn, quick to play, and offers tons of bonus characters and levels to hook you. It takes forever to get a new level or character without buying Mega Points, though, so make sure you know what you're getting into before you get hooked. Personally, I'm saving up for the panda.

Plants vs. Zombies

I could have picked any tower defense-style game for this slot, but Plants vs. Zombies separates itself from the pack with great artwork, an extensive adventure mode, and tons of achievements to collect. A recent update added 12 new achievements, sucking me back in when I thought I was done. There are other TD games with more level ups to get, but it's so satisfying to beat a Plants vs. Zombies level with just exploding plants, or kill a big pile of zombies with a single squash.

Robot Unicorn Attack

This is another simple game that has great replay value. You control a robot unicorn who runs forward automatically, and your powers include jump, double-jump and dash. Your score goes up as you survive without crashing into anything, and you get bonus points for grabbing fairies or smashing stars with your dash. You can play with on-screen buttons or with gestures (tap to jump, swipe to dash).

Really, the best part of Robot Unicorn Attack is the campy '80s Erasure song, "Always," that plays in the background. After a few plays, you'll have to turn off the sounds before you find yourself singing along.

Angry Birds

Angry Birds is the bestselling game on the App Store for a good reason: it's got oodles of levels and a satisfying premise. You shoot your birds from a slingshot, aiming to destroy all the pigs on the board, and crush their towers for maximum points. Each type of bird has a different ability -- zooming through wood, splitting up to hit a wider area, exploding, or boomeranging. If you score above a certain points threshold in each level, you're awarded three stars.

I've three-starred every single level available so far, which is a testament to how addictive Angry Birds is. Beating the level isn't enough ... you've got to figure out how to beat it the right way. There's also a global leaderboard, but I'm afraid that might turn into a very dangerous use of my time, so I've avoided it thus far.

Wurdle

How can a word-find be so enticing? Well, Wurdle is a little more than a word-find ... you've got a grid with some letters and a timer, and you have to draw out as many words as you can in a short period of time. Longer words are worth substantially more than short ones, so it pays to find as many as possible. Unlike in Scrabble, the letters are all valued equally, so it doesn't pay to spend time going for fancy words.

What brings me back to Wurdle is the competitive aspect. I like to try to beat my own high scores. Wurdle is a state of mind, though, and I get rusty when I've been away from it for a while.

If you want a more traditional multiplayer Scrabble game, go for Words With Friends. It's not as great a time-waster as Wurdle, though, because you need to be online to play, and you have to wait for your opponents' turns.