I think I’ve spent more time playing games on my iPhone than I have on my old Playstation, Playstation 2 or Wii. It simply boils down to the fact that whenever I’m standing around waiting in a line, waiting for the train or in a dentist’s office, I can pull out my phone and have a quick game of something. Having a great choice of games in your pocket means you never need to be bored again while waiting around.
Here are my 21 favorite games to wait around with. The key common features for these games are that they’re quick to start playing and that you can achieve goals quickly with available playtime of as little as a minute. There are no long drawn out strategic battles, epic adventures or quests to get absorbed into.
Aztec Quest
Website – iTunes: 99 cents – iTunes: Free
My new favorite puzzler, Aztec Quest requires you to get the ball to the destination utilizing the available gadgets with some great physics based puzzles.
BeeCells
Website – iTunes: $1.99 – iTunes: Free
BeeCells is a simple puzzle game where you need to clear the colors by moving at least six of the same colors next to each other. After each turn, more colors appear and its a race to clear cells before they inevitably fill up.
Aurora Fient II: Arena Daemons
Aurora Fient offers an epic level-upping RPG with multi-player (of sorts) game play, based on a simple puzzle clearing game (matching three or more of the same blocks), offering the same gameplay with different twists, power ups and great sounds and graphics. This gives you quick gameplay wins with long gameplay goals to obtain. Aurora Fient costs $4.99 and is easily worth it in my opinion.
Toobz
Website – iTunes: 99 cents – iTunes: Free
Toobz is a simple pipe game where you try to get the water to the edge. While the graphics are plain, the game play can be addictive and good fun.
Geared
Website – iTunes: 99 cents – iTunes: Free
Geared presents you with gears you need to layout in the allowed spaces to make the required preset gears rotate.
Flood-It!
Website – iTunes: 99 cents – iTunes: Free
Make the screen one color by flooding the pixels with colors in the least number of moves. The flood always starts in the top left and floods all matching colors.
Pocketball
Website – iTunes: 99 cents – iTunes: Free
One or more balls will drop from the top, leaving you to guide them to the correct bucket with ropes attached to pegs.
Gravity Sling
Website – iTunes: 99 cents – iTunes: Free
Send the astronaut back to the space shuttle by flinging him around planets.
TanZen
Website – iTunes: 99 cents – iTunes: Free
TanZen is very peaceful and relaxing, aligning up triangles into the silhouetted shape.
TimeLoop
iTunes: 99 cents – iTunes: Free
In TimeLoop you need to perform multiple actions at once, but you only have one guy. So you need to go back in time to help do all the necessary parts.
Tiki Towers
Website – iTunes: 99 cents – iTunes: Free
Build bridges and towers by assembling bamboo sticks, so your monkeys can get to where they want to go.
Toople & Topple 2+Plus
Website – iTunes Topple 2+Plus: Free – iTunes Topple 1: Free
Stack different shaped blocks and see how high you can go. Topple 2+Plus enables online leaderboards and profiles. Both are now free.
KittyPuzzle
Website – iTunes: $1.99
KittyPuzzle is a simple tile sliding game, but with gorgeous kitten pictures to reward you at the end. You can also use your own photos.
Peggle
Peggle shouldn’t need an introduction, a cross between pinball and color clearing games it is one of the most addictive games ever.
Zen Bound
Website – iTunes: $1.99 – iTunes: Free
Relax and paint objects by covering them with rope. Utilizing the accelerometer and touch screen perfectly, this is one of the best original games for the iPhone.
Zentomino
Website – iTunes: $1.99 – iTunes: Free
Zentomino is the same concept as TanZen, filling the silhouette but with pentomino pieces instead of triangles.
Orba
Website – iTunes: $1.99 – iTunes: Free
Orba is a color clearing game, where each game does go on for a while, but is the type of game that can be put down, saves your position and can be instantly picked up to resume clearing to end with the highest score. Simple and addictive.
Totemo
Clear the screen by matching various configurations of totems.
Vortex
Get the spaceship back to earth by strategically placing black holes, planets or various gadgets to assist.
Polyhedra
Website – iTunes: 99 cents – iTunes: Free
Fill up the screen by making shapes as big as you can in the available area, without letting them be touched by the critters while growing and using the accelerometer to change the direction of gravity to your advantage.
Minesweeper Classic
Website – iTunes: 99 cents – iTunes: Free
Figure out where the mines are in the field, in a perfect translation of the Windows classic game.
