#7 - Drop Brick

Game: Drop Brick

Price: £Free / $Free | App Store |
Genre: Puzzle
Developer: iFun Studio
Rating: 4+

Design: 3/10
Sound: 5/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Overall: 5/10

Put Those Stacking Skills To Good Use
Use your balancing and stacking skills to arrange a series of blocks on scales. Achieve the target height and weight to progress to new levels and take on advanced challenges, as long as you can prevent your blocks from falling off the scales. The game is as simple as that, but don't let the low scores put you off, as this is certainly still something worth playing.

Design
The design really lets the game down although it does ensure an incredibly simple interface and makes it quick and easy to play. The background is simply ruled paper and some variation here, although perhaps a little distracting, would have been nice to see. There is incredibly minimal variation in the actual blocks that the game is played with and some variety here really would have been easy to do and would have added a nice layer of detail. All in all, it feels as though the bare minimum has been done and although this is in keeping with the simplicity of the game as a whole, it causes a lack of engagement and causes the game to drag out.

Sound
The soundtrack to the game is pleasant and is just about ambient enough to ensure the, often frustrating gameplay, is not added to by an irritating song. That said, there is an enormous amount of repitition and combined with a complete lack of SFX (there's not even a sound for the bricks landing on the platform) you'll be saving your battery in silent mode almost immediately. Sadly, the chances are you'll be doing that to ensure you have enough left to play another game rather than this one!

Gameplay
The gameplay offers a reasonably well executed puzzler that utilises the accelorometer to good effect. The controls are simple and effective with drags and swipes moving the blocks into place. Sadly, there's a great deal of repitition here too with weight and height being the only measurements of success combined with only a handful of level styles. The game offers 77 levels that increase in difficulty ensuring a decent amount of playing time and there's a nice feature that sees a number of future levels unlocked everytime you complete a level ensuring you don't get stuck and bored by one particular level. Sadly, that doesn't prevent a number of levels from becoming incredibly frustrating as the difficulty increases and the accelorometer comes more into play.

Conclusion
Overall the game has very few highlights and is unlikely to keep you entertained for long, but with a £Free price tag, it's certainly worth a look as the developer has at least achieved something that will challenge you. A lot of the free games on the App Store lack quality or are the dreaded Lite versions but this game certainly does not fall into those categories. I think as long as you take it for what it is (a short fun puzzler), then you'll get enjoyment from playing it.

#6 - Pocket God

Game: Pocket God

Price: £0.59 / $0.99 | App Store |
Genre: Simulation, Adventure
Developer: Bolt Creative Inc.
Rating: 9+

Design: 9/10
Sound: 8/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Overall: 9/10

Their Future Is In Your Hands!
Welcome to the island. Situated in the middle of, er well... nowhere really, and inhabited by a small tribe of people called Pygmies, you play the role of their God and have complete control over their everyday life, or should I say death? What will happen to the Pygmies and their picturesque island today? That's for you to decide and implement *insert evil laugh here*.

Design
The game looks amazing and is crammed full of vibrant colours, exciting locations and fun features. There are loads of ways for you to impact on the Pygmies lives including volcano eruptions, tidal waves, lightning storms, giant spiders, deadly ants and angry dinosaurs! Discovering new methods is all part of the adventure. There are numerous island locations to interact with including the sacrificial mountain, haunted woods and snowy retreat as well as a number of fun minigames that could easily be stand alone app games themselves. To date, there have been a staggering 35 updates to the game, each adding a new feature, minigame or location. Game design does not get much better than this.

Sound
The soundtrack to the game is left wanting a little, but it's pleasant enough and adds to the fun nature of the game. It is easily made up with a large selection of great SFX and character mutterings though. The SFX are not only triggered by your actions, EG erupting a volcano, but also automatically as the Pygmies go about their day on the island. It all adds to the fun atmosphere and allows you to truly lose yourself in the game.

Gameplay
There is a huge amount of things that you can do in Pocket God. There must be upwards of 40 different ways that you can destroy the Pygmies with at least another 20 ways that you can interact with them and yet more ways that you can interact with their surroundings. That's added to by a number of minigames that can be accessed through your interactions EG the cloud jumping game is triggered by dragging a Pygmie up into the sky and dropping them on a cloud. There are no scores per say but everything you do can be linked with Openfeint to unlock achievements and share progress with friends. You can also customise your experience by tagging the Pygmies with names or downloading new themes. The developers add content at a ridiculously high rate ensuring fresh content more than once a month on average. I doubt there's a game that's updated more often, making the £0.59 price tag an absolute steal.

Conclusion
Pocket God is by far one of the greatest games to ever be released on the iPhone and at £0.59 is one of the best purchases that you can make. There are hours and hours of entertainment in this game and with regular updates you are sure to need a space for this app on the front page of your phone as you'll be revisiting it very regularly. Additional content is released often and though it started out very light on its feet back in the day, it has now become a vast game packed full of features. Give it a go now, you won't regret it!

#5 - Trace

Game: Trace

Price: £Free / $Free | App Store |
Genre: Action, Puzzle
Developer: Kevin Calderone
Rating: 4+

Design: 6/10
Sound: 8/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Overall: 7/10

Draw On Your Problem Solving Skills!
Take on various elements of the world and save your stick man from instant peril as you draw yourself a route through a vast series of challenging levels. This game will test your problem solving skills, but in a relaxing and enjoyable way. It's an odd experience really, so arm your drawing finger and take a closer look.

Design
It's probably one of the simplest designs of any game on the entire App Store, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. The game has deliberately used the most basic of graphics to give it a quirky look and feel that will have you focusing more on the gameplay. There are a number of moments where you'll have to take a good few looks in order to figure out what the developer has attempted to draw, badly, but somehow that actually adds to the fun. The developer is in no way pretending to be an artist, but has comfortably proven that you don't necessarily need to be one in order to achieve a great game. It feels like you're playing something that has been knocked up really quickly, but thanks to the addictive, intuituve nature of the game, it's thoroughly enjoyable and feels very personal. There are a huge number of levels, all placed into fun themes that will keep you busy for weeks.

Sound
The soundtrack is thoroughly enjoyable throughout with a new tune for each of the 6 themed categories plus the homescreen song. The music is incredibly soothing and adds to the experience very well. There are only a couple of SFX, but that is all that was needed really and it is by no means a bad thing. The music adds to the games relaxed design and gameplay that will leave you feeling very content as opposed to frustrated.

Gameplay
The main part of the game is to draw the platforms that your stick man can travel across in order to reach the shining golden sun (the goal), tweaking routes with your eraser as you go. However, you also have the additional controls in the form of left and right and jump, meaning that you have complete control at all times. You will fail if your man falls off the screen or is hit by an obstacle, but everytime this happens you simply go straight back to the beginning of the level and can start again instantly. It's quick and painless and makes for a very pleasant gaming experience with no loading time between attempts. All levels have a completion time that you can try and beat (offering repeat gaming) and there is an overall completion percentage challenging you to beat every single one of the 120 levels. Needless to say, the game offers incredible value for money!

Conclusion
This is a very unique gaming experience that, despite it's simple design and gameplay, is actually incredibly good fun to play and can be very challenging. The fact that you can attempt to complete each level in any number of ways makes it a very liberating experience and gives a puzzle feel to the game as you try to figure out the best route. It's not going to win any awards for its design, but if you can see past that and accept it as fun and quirky, then you will discover an awesome game that cost you nothing at all and will entertain you for hours and hours. Give it a go, it's free!

#4 - Paracute

Game: Paracute

Price: £0.59 / $0.99 | App Store |
Genre: Action, Scroller
Developer: Donut Games
Rating: 4+

Design: 7/10
Sound: 5/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Overall: 6/10

Parachuting Bears With A Big Brave Heart!
A peculiar game, to say the least, involving teddy bears, pillows and hearts but not aimed at just girls! Starting at the top of the cave, you glide the parachuting teddy bear safely through the nooks and crannies to the relative safety of the big fluffy pillow at the bottom. You must gather hearts to score points, avoid enemies and protect your parachute during your descent. Yes, it sounds awful! However, like most crazy, creative ideas by this vastly experienced developer, somehow it not only works, but works really well.

Design
Donut Games have released 24 games to date and they all follow a very similar, neat and polished design theme. They have used their typical colourful cartoony graphics in this game and it all looks great. There is not too much variety in place though, which is a real shame, but I accept that a game set in a cave is going to be tricky. There are just about enough changes as you progress through the levels, but it's all just a little too exact in its execution, as if a strict template has been followed for the creation of every level. Whilst this maintains a consistantly pleasant experience, it falls short of generating any excitement as you progress through the game.

Sound
Perhaps my hearing is a little off after the delights of Bit Pilot, but to me, this game really lacks a soundtrack! The background music is very unobtrusive with the emphasis placed on regular SFX from collecting items and obstacles. It's probably a wise move, given the amount of times you need to play a level in order to complete it, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be a little more variety of the unobtrusive music, rather than just one endless muttering. The SFX are all crisp and blend into the experience perfectly.

Gameplay
The game is incredibly simple to play with left and right the only taps on the screen. As you make your descent you need to gather as many hearts as possible with small ones gaining 5 points and large ones 50 points. There are obstacles such as hooks and fans, bonus items such as replacement parachute and shield and a small variety of enemies that will send you into freefall if you hit one. Each of the 30 levels has a 1, 2 or 3 star completion target ensuring replay value as you seek to fully complete the game. The game is perhaps a little too simple to complete and could do with some extra levels, but it's certainly challenging enough to attempt 3 stars on them all. There is not much variety on offer, but portals and 'helpers' on some of the levels bring something different to the table.

Conclusion
The lack of variety in the gameplay is perhaps the reason it has been limited to just 30 levels. The developers seem to have explored every possible avenue, so you are getting the best possible experience from them and it makes for a relatively good game. There is no question that it's a very enjoyable game to play, but it's likely that you'll complete it fairly quickly and may be left wanting a little more. The £0.59 price is definitely fair but Donut Games regularly have special offers where they put some of their games up for free, so just search Donut Games if you want to try some of their stuff out before commiting to a purchase. Overall, it's well worth a go and boasts some of the nicest looking cartoon graphics on the iPhone.

#3 - Bit Pilot

Game: Bit Pilot

Price: £0.59 / $0.99 | App Store |
Genre: Arcade, Retro
Developer: Zach Gage Sound: Sabrepulse
Rating: 9+

Design: 7/10
Sound: 9/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Overall: 8/10

It's What We Call A Global Killer... The End Of Mankind
An absolute classic game that will not only bring back old memories but also create fresh ones. It's a bid for survival dodging specks of mere space dust up to global killing asteroids whilst cruising around in your spaceship in deepest, darkest space. The longer you survive, the higher your score will rise but, simultaneously, the likelihood of going 'splat!' increases. Buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Design
It's a retro game so it's unfair to criticise the design based on other more colourful and graphical iphone releases. It has achieved exactly what it set out to by having the look and feel of an old skool arcade game, so with that in mind, it scores favourably. The graphics are very simple and although this is in keeping with the arcade theme, you could argue that perhaps an updated design would work better on the iPhone. Personally, I like the fact they kept it old, but I'm docking points as this has almost certainly put off new gamers.

Sound
The soundtrack to this game is unbelievably good. I'd buy the game just to listen to the music. There are a selection of songs to choose from (or you can have it set to random) and they have each been produced by Sabrepulse, an 8 Bit techno producer who is amazingly good at his job! The SFX have been tweaked perfectly and the whole package combined offers one of the greatest gaming soundtracks of all time. My only criticism would be that there should be more songs, but having said that, there's a certain charm about only having a few and there's always Youtube for the biggest fans.

Gameplay
Survival is your only mission. Using your thumb (my preferred method) or thumbs (can be hard to see) to swipe or stroke your spaceship movements between increasingly fast and large asteroids within a limited rectangle of space. That's not to mention the random enemy explosions that try to destory you every so often. Your score increases the longer you survive and there are regular power ups in the form of blue (shield) and green (bonus points) coloured pills - presumably a play with the themes related to techno music! The first few times you play the game, you wonder what it's all about and perhaps even grow a little bored. Then you have one amazing run where you score upwards of 10,000, hear nearly the entire length of a quality techno tune and suddenly you're hooked. The game offers two difficulty settings (Easy and Normal), Open Feint online scoring and a bunch of unlockable content, making it a very competitive and rewarding experience.

Conclusion
It'll take you a little while to appreciate this game, but after a few plays you'll experience one of the simplest yet most entertaining gaming experiences available on the iPhone. The music is amazing and I say again that I would pay the price just for the tunes. Coming in at £0.59, this game really is a steal and one of the biggest 'hidden gems' on the entire App store. It's games like this, developers like Zach Gage and musicians like Sabrepulse that I started this blog to promote. I highly recommend you grab this game and I challenge you to top my highscores on Easy (E) and Normal (N)!

#2 - Deep Deep Dungeon

Game: Deep Deep Dungeon

Price: £1.19 / $1.99 | App Store |
Genre: Action, RPG
Developer: iQubi Inc.
Rating: 9+

Design: 5/10
Sound: 4/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Overall: 5/10

I'm Going Deeper Underground!
A very structured and challenging action game that contains tiny traces of RPG. After selecting to be a guy or a girl warrior, you must make your way through countless dungeon floors eliminating enemies, levelling up on xp, gathering gold and finding the exit. After every 10 floors you will face a boss battle and upon their anhilation, advance to a new dungeon with a new theme and new enemies. Along your travels you are free to return to the safety of your camp where you can stock up on health potions as well as purchase weapon and armour upgrades. Sounds like fun, right? Let's see.

Design
The game gets off to a pretty good start with reasonably well drawn characters and a pleasant enough base camp. However, things rapidly become repeated and you soon find yourself labouring through the same old dungeons eliminating the same old enemies. Some of the enemies are particularly well drawn, but for the most part, there's nothing special. The whole game has a very cheap look and feel to it, and though this does keep things incredibly simple, it damages the experience and leaves you frustrated. The attack screen lacks animation and creativity in general with the only saving grace being the inclusion of the timed tap to attack, with the yellow bar resulting in a hit and the tiny red section getting a critical hit.

Sound
The soundtrack is terribly repetitive and it's unlikely you'll have the game out of mute more than once! The dungeon maps have no sound at all, not even the odd eery, atmospheric SFX which would have been very simple to do. The SFX in general are quite poor and there is a real lack of variety throughout the game.

Gameplay
The aim of the game is to level up your character and conquer the series of dungeons laid out before you. The game's one true saving grace is that it is quite challenging whilst being very quick and easy to pick up and play. It will definitely have you coming back to it regularly. In my experience, in order to progress with any real chance of success, you need to repeat dungeons to gather extra gold and xp to upgrade weapons and level up. This gets quite tiresome, but the Shop feature can be rewarding as you use your new upgrades to slay enemies more easily. The controls are perfect for the game. A single tap to move and a single timely tap to launch an attack. It's also refreshing to see a game of this style being played in portrait, allowing you to play with one hand - perfect for holding on when on the tube!

Conclusion
If you're looking for an easy, pick up and play RPG styled game, then this is pretty much the best I have come across so far. Anyone new to the RPG genre might like this as a starting point, as it utilises the key elements in their simplest form, although I must stress this really isn't a true RPG. Overall this game is dissapointing although the release in its current form could have been a great starting point. In my honest opinion, it should be free for now whilst they make developments. However, there are far worse games than this on the App Store and some of them charge significantly more, so I'd not write this off completely. I've been playing it for about a week now and I am intent on completing it. Whether I'm enjoying the experience though, is truly debatable!

#1 - Monster Dash

Game: Monster Dash

Price: £0.59 / $0.99 | App Store |
Genre: Action, Scroller
Developer: Halfbrick
Rating: 9+

Design: 7/10
Sound: 6/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Overall: 7/10

Do The Monster Dash!
A fast paced action scroller from the makers of Fruit Ninja and Age of Zombies promises to pack a punch. Armed and dangerous, you jump and shoot your way through the automatically scrolling levels in your bid to survive the longest possible distance. As you progress, the background themes change, new weapons become available and different monsters meet their match. Here's a quick review. Must dash...

Design
A colourful array of backgrounds, monster styles and themes keep a reasonable amount of interest and the random manner that levels and monsters appear promises a different game everytime. Levels include Transylvania, Great Wall of China and Tokyo Rooftops with monsters such as Vampires, Yetis and Zombies. Your arsenal of weapons start with the unlimited default shotgun which is then trumped by limited allocations of weapons you pick up on the go such as The Pacifier Magnum, Rocket Launcher and some creative inclusions like the Machine Gun Jet Pack.

Sound
The music is suitably catchy and each themed level triggers a remix of the ongoing song. There is certainly room for more variety, but the subtle changes are enough to stop you getting annoyed. The SFX are few and far between, but that's the nature of the game - you spend all your time jumping and shooting! Even if there were more monster and background sounds, I'm not sure you'd be able to appreciate them with the constant shooting and the soundtrack.

Gameplay
The aim of the game is to secure the highest possible score both locally amongst friends and through the use of Open Feint online scoring. There are no challenges or tasks to give an idea of progress, but this is mildly dealt with by the unlockable Achievements and playing Statistics. The controls are simple enough, with left taps jumping and right taps firing but you will find that it gets difficult very quickly with the pace of your running increasing all the time. Death is met by losing all your hearts through monster contact and obstacles or, most commonly, losing all your hearts in one go by failing to make a jump.

Conclusion
Overall this is a very addictive and catchy game, but only to a point. It's likely you'll play it endlessly for the first week and then it'll drop off your radar a little as the next distraction gets released. If the developers can add a new level, monster and weapon every so often, it'll spark a little more interest. However, some new playing styles are badly needed to keep this interesting such as challenges and tasks or just some form of completion other than endlessly chasing the highscore! At £0.59, it delivers some entertainment and it's well worth a look.