Yesterday, the Mobile Madhouse team got together and picked our top ten Android games. Today, we’re going to be doing something similar: our favourite ten pure utility applications from the Android store. They may not be as glitzy, and they may not eat up as much of your spare time, as their counterpart games – but when it comes to usefulness and utility, our picks are always peerless!
10 – SetCPU
One of the most bare-bones and utilitarian applications from our selection, SetCPU nevertheless boasts a variety of uses. At its base, SetCPU is a tool for altering the CPU settings of a rooted Android Smartphone: in purely technical terms, that means it’s capable of performing feats like overclocking your processor, to allow for greater multitasking potential, or dialling down the speed of your CPU to conserve battery life as long as possible. Its true strength, however, lies in its ability to construct dynamic profiles, operating on sophisticated yet easy-to-use #IF statements.
That means that if certain conditions are met, the profiles will kick in and perform their set function. For example, you could overclock your processor up until it reaches a certain temperature; and at that point, automatically cause it to return to default factory settings (or even reduce CPU speed further, to allow swifter cool-down). Or you could set your mobile to automatically enter sleep mode during a certain time of the day, ensuring that you don’t compromise your battery by forgetting to turn your phone off after bedtime, or during work hours. It’s far from the most exciting application out there, but if you’re looking to have total control over the technical aspects of your device, there are few better applications out there.
9 – FlightTrack
If you’re in a line of work which necessitates repeated plane travel, FlightTrack will be literally indispensable to you. It does exactly what you’d expect, based on the title: tracking over 16,000 airports worldwide and covering more than 1400 airlines, FlightTrack gives you real-time, constantly updating information about all the minutiae of any flight you’re embarking upon: departure times, gate statuses, and even direct links to alternate flights. In the event that yours is cancelled, you can find a replacement in a mere tap!
In addition to this basic utility, FlightTrack has a number of other features; including the ability to share the status of your flight via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, the capacity to view your seat in relation to the rest of the plane, and even fully imaged tracker maps, which will detail the type of weather your flight can be expected to encounter on-route. It’s refreshing to see an application with such a clear-cut use include so many fringe features like this, to make the experience that much more user-friendly.
There are only two real disadvantages to be found with FlightTrack, in fact – first, the fact that charter flights are not supported via the application; secondly, the fact that its many features means that it’s a real drain on the battery power of your Smartphone. Perusing it for any kind of extended period can be devastating. With that said, FlightTrack has anticipated even this failing, by incorporating a simple homescreen widget, to allow you to track your flight of choice even when the application is closed. For the constant traveller, there’s no better companion to be found than FlightTrack.
8 – Nova Launcher Prime
Nova Launcher Prime is, essentially, a homescreen replacement compatible with Android 4.0+ Smartphones, for those who want a more performance-driven UI than the default Ice Cream Sandwich. With that said, the amount of features Nova possesses marks it apart from other, lesser overlays. For a start, it’s very intuitive; there are a number of default gestures that you can perform to swiftly (in some cases, automatically) launch applications on the homescreen, such as pinching, swiping, or two-finger tapping, which cuts down on the clumsy touch-screen fumblings that some overlays encourage.
In addition to its intuitive interface, Nova Launcher’s smart features perform automatic tasks like hiding little-used applications on the desktop, ensuring that there’s less clutter to be found, and features an automatic count of any missed messages, ensuring that you’ll never lose important information from your Gmail or SMS. There is the capacity for unlimited custom tabs, and apps can be organized into individual tabs or custom folders. It’s a much cleaner and more utilitarian option than the messier ICS default screen, and for that, it has the Mobile Madhouse recommendation!
7 – SketchBook Mobile
While desktop computers possess far greater power when it comes to drawing/editing applications such as Photoshop, most of the artists I know prefer to perform on a tablet computer. That’s because it’s a far more intuitive and personal experience, and probably also because it’s more evocative of classical art: it’s almost like an electronic sketchpad. So I’m always excited to see a mobile and tablet-oriented piece of drawing/editing software, especially when it’s of such a high-quality standard as SketchBook Mobile.
It possesses most of the same features an illustrator would expect of Photoshop: the capacity for multiple layers, many different brush types, a full spectrum of colours to choose from and even some fairly basic editing software. It has an attractive UI, a negligible price tag and is very responsive to pen strokes: everything, in short, that you would require from your editing software.
The only common complaint I’ve heard about SketchBook relates to its “pen pressure support” feature; theoretically, the application should be able to detect how hard you’re pressing down with the pen, and adjust the resultant illustration accordingly in terms of line thickness/depth of shading. But many customers claim this functionality is stunted or completely absent on their device. While I can’t say that’s a crippling loss for a casual sketcher like myself, it may well be a deal-breaker for a desktop-user, accustomed to fine-tuned detail and unwilling to compromise on perfection. With that said, the price of SketchBook Mobile, coupled with its plethora of features, means that it’s hard to get angry about even its failings. At it's core, it remains a very competent and very fun app.
6 – SoundHound
Following in the footsteps of applications like Shazam, SoundHound is specifically designed to circumvent one of life’s major irritations – having a song lyric or tune stuck in your head, without remembering the song name or artist. Unlike Shazam, however (whose major draw was the capacity to hold your device up to a radio, and have information about the song rapidly show up on screen), SoundHound also possesses the incredible ability to recognise songs when sung or hummed by you, making it far more useful on-the-go.
In addition to its primary function of swiftly recognising different songs, SoundHound has a number of fringe features, too; links to the social networking sites of identified artists, links to YouTube to watch song videos, optional auto-sharing so your friends can see the songs you’ve listened to, and even the capacity to buy songs in several different formats, once they’ve been identified. For ease of use, there’s a homescreen widget which permits you to identify music without having to launch the application. And for the purposes of nostalgia, the application can even remember the location you first discovered a song, in case you want to get a little teary-eyed over that Rod Stewart ballad. So if you have a bad memory, and a passion for music, you should make SoundHound your first priority.
5 – Star Chart
Some of the applications we reviewed were utilitarian to the extreme, focusing only on bare-bones utility; of them all, only Star Chart surpassed its base usage to transcend into something of gorgeous aesthetic appeal. All you have to do is point your Android device up at the sky, and hey presto – Star Chart will identify the star (or planet) you’re looking at. Utilizing state-of-the-art GPS technology and 3D imaging techniques, Star Chart also calculates the positions of every other star and planet in the sky based on your initial image, permitting you to know precisely what’s going on in the sky – even in broad daylight!
But, of course, that isn’t all. The constellations are rendered as beautiful pieces of artwork (inspired by the art of a 15th century astronomer), lending an elegant and classy air to the application. It also permits you to explore the night sky through finger-tapping, allowing you to play at being an armchair astronomer yourself – and with accurate, photorealistic depictions of the 5000+ different stars visible from Earth, you may even be caught up in the illusion yourself! Additionally, you can find out more information about any celestial body of your choice by simply clicking on it - allowing you to find out its diameter, distance from the sun, and more!
Fully configurable to your exacting specifications, Star Chart allows you to ignore any object you’re not interested in. If you just want to view the constellations responsible for star signs, you can; if you only want to see planets, and no stars, you can do that too. You can even manually enter a location to discover what the night sky looks like from a different continent. The crowning achievement for me, though, is the capacity to point your Android device at the ground during daytime, and see the opposite hemisphere’s star system. Even if you have no interest in astronomy or the solar system at large, you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t give Star Chart a look; you won’t find a cheaper way to blow apart your mind and your expectations!
4 – Titanium Backup PRO
No frills, no fancy widgets, no overlays – the Titanium Backup PRO is usable and useful, a no-nonsense application with a clear-cut mission statement and a dedication to fulfilling it. Its primary function, obviously, is to back up your files: its utilitarian interface allows you to quickly and easily set up a backup system. Whether you want to individually back up your save game files and applications, or have them automatically backed up en-masse at preset intervals, Titanium Backup has the capacity to cater to your exacting specifications.
It also possesses a number of auxiliary functions, such as the capacity to freeze apps, encrypt your files to ensure they are secure, sync itself to cloud-based storage systems such as Dropbox... it can even backup your applications without closing them down - ensuring total system security even when you’re, say, playing Angry Birds on the sly. The developers are constantly adding new functionality as and when appropriate; the capacity to sync to Google Drive was enabled less than three days after its initial debut! With constant free updates, you can’t really say no – so if you don’t want to lose any vital information on your Android mobile, make sure to invest in Titanium Backup.
3 – Paper Camera
Another stylish novelty application, Paper Camera is one of a plethora of applications that allows you to set a filter, which will subsequently be applied to any photograph you take with your phone’s camera. Though a fairly simple proposition, the sheer number of filters available (including sketches, neon, and film noir style) ensures that you have a huge amount of choice when it comes to your photography. Additionally, it differs from many other applications that utilize such filters, in that the filter is pre-set prior to taking the photograph, rather than acting as a post-effect (which can compromise on the quality of the photographs).
The watchword of Paper Camera appears to be “convenience”, because the whole experience is streamlined and stripped down. Once a photograph is taken, it is automatically placed into your gallery; there’s no need to save it, or introduce a file name. The interface is practically idiot-proof; without any complex editing options to trip up the casual user, there’s virtually no learning curve whatsoever – once you’ve enabled your effect of choice, you just snap, snap, snap to your heart’s content. That’s what really makes Paper Camera so special, compared to competition which is often more polished and professional; while it’s a little rough around the edges, it has heart to fall back on.
2 – Smart Tools
Smart Tools is, essentially, a portmanteau application: a combination of five separate applications, released (for free) individually under the aegis of the titular Smart Tools Co: Smart Ruler Pro, Smart Measure Pro, Smart Compass Pro, Smart Meter Pro and Smart Light Pro. As you might be able to guess, Ruler was designed to measure things like length and angle; Measure was designed to measure height and distance; Sound Meter is a sound-level meter with a vibrometer attached; Compass is (of course) a compass, with a GPS and metal detector also attached; and Light is an application which simulates a flashlight.
Individually, these applications were all useful pieces of utility, but together they constitute the software equivalent of a Swiss penknife: multi-purpose and innately adaptable. If you ever find yourself wondering how long your pen is, or how far exactly you are from the nearest toilet, you now have the capability to satisfy even the most meandering supposition! Smart Tools may not be nearly as glamorous as an application like Paper Camera, but of all the applications we downloaded in preparation for this list, Smart Tools assuredly saw the most use.
1 – SwiftKey X Keyboard
You might be a little underwhelmed by the notion of a digital touchscreen keyboard taking precedence over flashier (and, let’s be honest, more groundbreaking) applications like SoundHound in our estimation, but anybody who has used the SwiftKey X Keyboard will attest to how incredibly useful it is. It possesses much more sophisticated technology than other digital keyboards; while many keyboards have the capacity to “learn” words, ensuring that they become more synchronized with your idiom and vocabulary as time goes on, SwiftKey X – as the name implies – is much faster at synonymising itself with you.
In addition to this swift learning capacity, the SwiftKey X can also predict the structure of your sentences, meaning it will offer suggestions on words you’re likely to use next. After building up a bit of a rapport with your keyboard, it’s even possible to construct sentences “mad-libs” style, by just allowing the keyboard to predict the words you want. It also has a spellchecker of unparalleled sophistication; even the sloppiest typographical errors are magically transformed into cohesive sentences. As if all that wasn’t enough, the keyboard can be resized at will, meaning that an individual with smaller or larger hands won’t suffer unduly while typing – all they have to do is alter the settings of the application!
With thirty five different language keyboards to choose from, and more on the way, SwiftKey X Keyboard truly deserves its lofty position in the top five rankings of Android’s (paid) application store. At less than £2, it’s one of the best bargains available there, too – you really stand to lose nothing by giving it a try. It comes highly recommended, and is, by common consensus, the favourite utility application of the Mobile Madhouse team!
That means that if certain conditions are met, the profiles will kick in and perform their set function. For example, you could overclock your processor up until it reaches a certain temperature; and at that point, automatically cause it to return to default factory settings (or even reduce CPU speed further, to allow swifter cool-down). Or you could set your mobile to automatically enter sleep mode during a certain time of the day, ensuring that you don’t compromise your battery by forgetting to turn your phone off after bedtime, or during work hours. It’s far from the most exciting application out there, but if you’re looking to have total control over the technical aspects of your device, there are few better applications out there.
9 – FlightTrack
If you’re in a line of work which necessitates repeated plane travel, FlightTrack will be literally indispensable to you. It does exactly what you’d expect, based on the title: tracking over 16,000 airports worldwide and covering more than 1400 airlines, FlightTrack gives you real-time, constantly updating information about all the minutiae of any flight you’re embarking upon: departure times, gate statuses, and even direct links to alternate flights. In the event that yours is cancelled, you can find a replacement in a mere tap!
In addition to this basic utility, FlightTrack has a number of other features; including the ability to share the status of your flight via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, the capacity to view your seat in relation to the rest of the plane, and even fully imaged tracker maps, which will detail the type of weather your flight can be expected to encounter on-route. It’s refreshing to see an application with such a clear-cut use include so many fringe features like this, to make the experience that much more user-friendly.
There are only two real disadvantages to be found with FlightTrack, in fact – first, the fact that charter flights are not supported via the application; secondly, the fact that its many features means that it’s a real drain on the battery power of your Smartphone. Perusing it for any kind of extended period can be devastating. With that said, FlightTrack has anticipated even this failing, by incorporating a simple homescreen widget, to allow you to track your flight of choice even when the application is closed. For the constant traveller, there’s no better companion to be found than FlightTrack.
8 – Nova Launcher Prime
Nova Launcher Prime is, essentially, a homescreen replacement compatible with Android 4.0+ Smartphones, for those who want a more performance-driven UI than the default Ice Cream Sandwich. With that said, the amount of features Nova possesses marks it apart from other, lesser overlays. For a start, it’s very intuitive; there are a number of default gestures that you can perform to swiftly (in some cases, automatically) launch applications on the homescreen, such as pinching, swiping, or two-finger tapping, which cuts down on the clumsy touch-screen fumblings that some overlays encourage.
In addition to its intuitive interface, Nova Launcher’s smart features perform automatic tasks like hiding little-used applications on the desktop, ensuring that there’s less clutter to be found, and features an automatic count of any missed messages, ensuring that you’ll never lose important information from your Gmail or SMS. There is the capacity for unlimited custom tabs, and apps can be organized into individual tabs or custom folders. It’s a much cleaner and more utilitarian option than the messier ICS default screen, and for that, it has the Mobile Madhouse recommendation!
7 – SketchBook Mobile
While desktop computers possess far greater power when it comes to drawing/editing applications such as Photoshop, most of the artists I know prefer to perform on a tablet computer. That’s because it’s a far more intuitive and personal experience, and probably also because it’s more evocative of classical art: it’s almost like an electronic sketchpad. So I’m always excited to see a mobile and tablet-oriented piece of drawing/editing software, especially when it’s of such a high-quality standard as SketchBook Mobile.
It possesses most of the same features an illustrator would expect of Photoshop: the capacity for multiple layers, many different brush types, a full spectrum of colours to choose from and even some fairly basic editing software. It has an attractive UI, a negligible price tag and is very responsive to pen strokes: everything, in short, that you would require from your editing software.
The only common complaint I’ve heard about SketchBook relates to its “pen pressure support” feature; theoretically, the application should be able to detect how hard you’re pressing down with the pen, and adjust the resultant illustration accordingly in terms of line thickness/depth of shading. But many customers claim this functionality is stunted or completely absent on their device. While I can’t say that’s a crippling loss for a casual sketcher like myself, it may well be a deal-breaker for a desktop-user, accustomed to fine-tuned detail and unwilling to compromise on perfection. With that said, the price of SketchBook Mobile, coupled with its plethora of features, means that it’s hard to get angry about even its failings. At it's core, it remains a very competent and very fun app.
6 – SoundHound
Following in the footsteps of applications like Shazam, SoundHound is specifically designed to circumvent one of life’s major irritations – having a song lyric or tune stuck in your head, without remembering the song name or artist. Unlike Shazam, however (whose major draw was the capacity to hold your device up to a radio, and have information about the song rapidly show up on screen), SoundHound also possesses the incredible ability to recognise songs when sung or hummed by you, making it far more useful on-the-go.
In addition to its primary function of swiftly recognising different songs, SoundHound has a number of fringe features, too; links to the social networking sites of identified artists, links to YouTube to watch song videos, optional auto-sharing so your friends can see the songs you’ve listened to, and even the capacity to buy songs in several different formats, once they’ve been identified. For ease of use, there’s a homescreen widget which permits you to identify music without having to launch the application. And for the purposes of nostalgia, the application can even remember the location you first discovered a song, in case you want to get a little teary-eyed over that Rod Stewart ballad. So if you have a bad memory, and a passion for music, you should make SoundHound your first priority.
5 – Star Chart
Some of the applications we reviewed were utilitarian to the extreme, focusing only on bare-bones utility; of them all, only Star Chart surpassed its base usage to transcend into something of gorgeous aesthetic appeal. All you have to do is point your Android device up at the sky, and hey presto – Star Chart will identify the star (or planet) you’re looking at. Utilizing state-of-the-art GPS technology and 3D imaging techniques, Star Chart also calculates the positions of every other star and planet in the sky based on your initial image, permitting you to know precisely what’s going on in the sky – even in broad daylight!
But, of course, that isn’t all. The constellations are rendered as beautiful pieces of artwork (inspired by the art of a 15th century astronomer), lending an elegant and classy air to the application. It also permits you to explore the night sky through finger-tapping, allowing you to play at being an armchair astronomer yourself – and with accurate, photorealistic depictions of the 5000+ different stars visible from Earth, you may even be caught up in the illusion yourself! Additionally, you can find out more information about any celestial body of your choice by simply clicking on it - allowing you to find out its diameter, distance from the sun, and more!
Fully configurable to your exacting specifications, Star Chart allows you to ignore any object you’re not interested in. If you just want to view the constellations responsible for star signs, you can; if you only want to see planets, and no stars, you can do that too. You can even manually enter a location to discover what the night sky looks like from a different continent. The crowning achievement for me, though, is the capacity to point your Android device at the ground during daytime, and see the opposite hemisphere’s star system. Even if you have no interest in astronomy or the solar system at large, you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t give Star Chart a look; you won’t find a cheaper way to blow apart your mind and your expectations!
4 – Titanium Backup PRO
No frills, no fancy widgets, no overlays – the Titanium Backup PRO is usable and useful, a no-nonsense application with a clear-cut mission statement and a dedication to fulfilling it. Its primary function, obviously, is to back up your files: its utilitarian interface allows you to quickly and easily set up a backup system. Whether you want to individually back up your save game files and applications, or have them automatically backed up en-masse at preset intervals, Titanium Backup has the capacity to cater to your exacting specifications.
It also possesses a number of auxiliary functions, such as the capacity to freeze apps, encrypt your files to ensure they are secure, sync itself to cloud-based storage systems such as Dropbox... it can even backup your applications without closing them down - ensuring total system security even when you’re, say, playing Angry Birds on the sly. The developers are constantly adding new functionality as and when appropriate; the capacity to sync to Google Drive was enabled less than three days after its initial debut! With constant free updates, you can’t really say no – so if you don’t want to lose any vital information on your Android mobile, make sure to invest in Titanium Backup.
3 – Paper Camera
Another stylish novelty application, Paper Camera is one of a plethora of applications that allows you to set a filter, which will subsequently be applied to any photograph you take with your phone’s camera. Though a fairly simple proposition, the sheer number of filters available (including sketches, neon, and film noir style) ensures that you have a huge amount of choice when it comes to your photography. Additionally, it differs from many other applications that utilize such filters, in that the filter is pre-set prior to taking the photograph, rather than acting as a post-effect (which can compromise on the quality of the photographs).
The watchword of Paper Camera appears to be “convenience”, because the whole experience is streamlined and stripped down. Once a photograph is taken, it is automatically placed into your gallery; there’s no need to save it, or introduce a file name. The interface is practically idiot-proof; without any complex editing options to trip up the casual user, there’s virtually no learning curve whatsoever – once you’ve enabled your effect of choice, you just snap, snap, snap to your heart’s content. That’s what really makes Paper Camera so special, compared to competition which is often more polished and professional; while it’s a little rough around the edges, it has heart to fall back on.
2 – Smart Tools
Smart Tools is, essentially, a portmanteau application: a combination of five separate applications, released (for free) individually under the aegis of the titular Smart Tools Co: Smart Ruler Pro, Smart Measure Pro, Smart Compass Pro, Smart Meter Pro and Smart Light Pro. As you might be able to guess, Ruler was designed to measure things like length and angle; Measure was designed to measure height and distance; Sound Meter is a sound-level meter with a vibrometer attached; Compass is (of course) a compass, with a GPS and metal detector also attached; and Light is an application which simulates a flashlight.
Individually, these applications were all useful pieces of utility, but together they constitute the software equivalent of a Swiss penknife: multi-purpose and innately adaptable. If you ever find yourself wondering how long your pen is, or how far exactly you are from the nearest toilet, you now have the capability to satisfy even the most meandering supposition! Smart Tools may not be nearly as glamorous as an application like Paper Camera, but of all the applications we downloaded in preparation for this list, Smart Tools assuredly saw the most use.
1 – SwiftKey X Keyboard
You might be a little underwhelmed by the notion of a digital touchscreen keyboard taking precedence over flashier (and, let’s be honest, more groundbreaking) applications like SoundHound in our estimation, but anybody who has used the SwiftKey X Keyboard will attest to how incredibly useful it is. It possesses much more sophisticated technology than other digital keyboards; while many keyboards have the capacity to “learn” words, ensuring that they become more synchronized with your idiom and vocabulary as time goes on, SwiftKey X – as the name implies – is much faster at synonymising itself with you.
In addition to this swift learning capacity, the SwiftKey X can also predict the structure of your sentences, meaning it will offer suggestions on words you’re likely to use next. After building up a bit of a rapport with your keyboard, it’s even possible to construct sentences “mad-libs” style, by just allowing the keyboard to predict the words you want. It also has a spellchecker of unparalleled sophistication; even the sloppiest typographical errors are magically transformed into cohesive sentences. As if all that wasn’t enough, the keyboard can be resized at will, meaning that an individual with smaller or larger hands won’t suffer unduly while typing – all they have to do is alter the settings of the application!
With thirty five different language keyboards to choose from, and more on the way, SwiftKey X Keyboard truly deserves its lofty position in the top five rankings of Android’s (paid) application store. At less than £2, it’s one of the best bargains available there, too – you really stand to lose nothing by giving it a try. It comes highly recommended, and is, by common consensus, the favourite utility application of the Mobile Madhouse team!
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The controls are simple and intuitive – a directional pad sits on the left hand side of the screen, while the jump and shoot buttons rest on the right. The level design is uniformly superb, and the bosses – massive behemoths, compared to your skinny cowboy – are challenging in all the right ways. In short, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable shoot-‘em-up: not particularly deep, perhaps, but capable of sucking up your lunchtime without you even noticing. The only real issue is the difficulty curve, which is fairly steep for the majority of casual gamers. But if you were weaned on the type of games which inspired Gunman Clive, you’ve probably come to expect some real challenge from your shooters anyway!
9 – Pocket Minecraft
Most gamers will have heard of Minecraft by now. Launched by Swedish developer Markus “Notch” Persson in 2009, it attained incredible success while still in Beta, with rave reviews, hundreds of thousands of downloads, and such rapid development that Persson was forced to throw together an impromptu game company, Mojang, to deal with it all. Though it wasn’t given full release until late 2011, the amount of goodwill its close-knit community had engendered led to literally millions of sales just a few short months after release, making it one of the most popular online single-player games of all time.
So it was a no-brainer for Mojang to develop versions for the iOS and Android operating systems. Due to system limitations, Pocket Minecraft is considerable more stripped down than its parent; the world space is massively smaller (only 255 x 255 blocks), it lacks the varied biomes that makes exploration so unique, the sky is not visible, you cannot set your spawn point after death, and online mode only permits a maximum of five players. But it’s still Minecraft – still the open-world, sandbox gaming experience that permits incredible feats of architecture… even if a fair degree of the exploration has been pared down. Nevertheless, it’s still worth paying the modest price tag for, no matter how “baseline” this experience may be compared to the original and uncut edition. If nothing else, it might inspire you to buy the P.C version, to find out what you’re missing!
8 – Doodle Jump
This is one of the simpler and cutesier titles that we reviewed. As in most other endurance platform titles, the goal is to scale up a vertical shaft, while avoiding the hazards, obstacles and pitfalls that could cause harm to your harmless little doodle avatar. Despite its simplicity, the game enjoyed millions of downloads after its initial release in 2009, due to its intuitive control system and uniquely cartoony character designs.
The control system is incredibly simple; tilt the screen to alter the direction in which the titular Doodler will leap, and tap the screen to shoot a projectile from his mouth. With that said, the variety of different enemies, unique power-ups and reskins gives the game a huge amount of replayability, and its very simplicity means that you just want to play it again and again. It’s the kind of game that eats up hours of your time without you even realizing!
7 – World of Goo
World of Goo, like Doodle Jump, is a game that initially earned its stripes in the iOS app store, before the inevitable Android port was announced. Unlike Doodle Jump, however, which is a simplistic platform game with cutesy graphics, World of Goo is an altogether deeper experience. The art style is significantly more subdued, and the plot considerably stranger than “leap upwards”. The goal of World of Goo is to construct buildings out of the titular goo-balls – childlike little blobs with cartoonishly oversized eyes – to help them and their friends reach the exit pipe at the end of each stage.
Though the concept sounds deceptively simple, the often bewildering plot, coupled with the surprisingly challenging difficulty curve, ensures that World of Goo is anything but a walk in the park. Goo balls are subject to the whims of gravity, and can easily fall into spike pits or down bottomless chasms; there’s nothing more frustrating than building up an impressively complex tower of goo, only to find it caves in on itself just short of the exit due to a lack of structural integrity. But the challenge is what really makes World of Goo such a fun and engrossing game – and it’s hard to deny that it’s a lot deeper than its competitors.
Interestingly, there’s a additional pre-packaged mode in the game called “World of Goo Corporation” (the monolithic entity which serves as the de facto villain over the course of the single player game). When you collect more goo’s than are required to finish a level, the excess are piped directly to this level. The goal is to amass as many as possible and begin building a huge goo tower. The game actively tracks the height of other player’s towers, representing their peaks as clouds which bear the name and nationality of the player in question, as well as the height of the tower and the number of goo balls used in its construction. This “multiplayer” mode is a welcome addition to the game – if only as a way of showing off to your friends.
6 – Flick Golf
We’re going back to basics with this one. Flick Golf is exactly what it sounds like: as a golf simulator with a touchscreen input, the natural hand gesture to tee off is a flick. Though the controls are as simple and intuitive as they come, and there’s a deficit of different game modes to choose from, the breathtaking graphics and engrossing obstacles (including the in-game wind, which has a nasty habit of blowing your best-planned shots off course) ensures that your interest will be retained over time.
In addition to the visuals, Flick Golf – uniquely amongst budget golf simulators – isn’t just about how hard you can hammer the ball; by altering your finger movements only slightly, you can influence the ball’s flight path and destination. You can even fine-tune the flight path in mid air by swiping the screen with your finger, permitting an unparalleled degree of control over its ultimate location. This, coupled with the game’s natural difficulty, means you might clench your teeth when you fail to get the coveted hole-in-one… but you’ll still come back again to try for more!
5 – Fruit Ninja
Another simple offering, with another simple input interface: this time, though, a slash instead of a flick. In Fruit Ninja, you play the role of a ninja – one who is apparently training under a Mr Miyagi-style sensei who is obsessed with chopping up fruit, instead of “wax on, wax off”. Consequently, it’s your job to take up his sword (in the form of your index finger) and swipe it across the screen to chop up a variety of fruit. But to spice things up, the occasional bomb is thrown into the mix; as you can imagine, trying to chop up a bomb is not recommended.
And that’s pretty much all there is to it. Fortunately, though, there’s enough replayability to stop the game becoming dull: there are achievements to unlock (permitting different background designs and different coloured sword strokes) and different modes to play (arcade mode has great replayability due to its power-ups, classic mode can be played endlessly until you “die”, and Zen mode functions essentially as a time attack; 90 seconds to get as high a score as possible). And to be honest, there’s just something viscerally satisfying about slicing a banana cleanly down the middle with a mere sweep of your hand.
4 – Osmos HD
This is my own personal favourite from the selection. Osmos has a deceptively simple concept: you’re a… thingy floating through space, surrounded by other… thingy’s. (Anomalies? Planetoids? There’s probably a better appellation I’m not thinking of.) To succeed, you must propel yourself into other, smaller objects (there we go!), which causes you to consume them; but if you are propelled into a larger object, you are at danger of being consumed yourself. So you must build up your mass until you’re the largest thing on-screen (though some levels have an auxiliary win condition, such as “devour this ‘boss’”), to ensure your dominance.
But there’s a delicate balancing act to be found, because the only way to move yourself in Osmos is by ejecting your own mass behind you to build up momentum. This means that in order to propel yourself over to potential food, you have to become smaller to do it – meaning that meals only slightly smaller than yourself can rapidly become menacing predators, if you’re not careful. And that doesn’t mention the other dangers to be found – like gravity pulling you towards a lethal star, or drifting off the edge of the map, or even having a huge proportion of yourself sucked away by dark matter, leaving your deflated, osmotic avatar practically defenceless.
So Osmos can be a challenging game, despite its simple concept. Yet the challenge is, often, what makes it so fun to play; and unlike many other correspondingly challenging games, which can be stressful to play, the trippy colours and relaxed, instrumental electronic music of Osmos means that even the most frustrating moments are muted compared to, say, Dead Space. It’s the kind of game that’s perfect for hunkering down with in your bed in winter – soothing, relaxing… even comforting, in a strange way. I’d give you two pieces of advice if you’re considering buying it, though: first, use headphones to get the full impact of the superb musical score; and second, make sure you play it on a tablet – playing it on a mobile (even a large-screen Smartphone) often feels like an exercise in frustration. And not the good, trippy kind, either!
3 – Riptide GP
Riptide GP is a Smartphone game that demonstrates just how far we’ve come, technologically, in mere decades. It boasts the kind of graphics that would’ve been impressive on a home gaming console in the early 2000s, with water effects that look stunning even by today’s lofty standards. If you’re playing on a recent device (especially a tablet with any kind of clout), you’re virtually guaranteed to be blown away by the attention to detail the developer’s put into the graphics. You could almost believe you were there.
With that said, the game is not without flaws. Though ostensibly a racing/stunt game, the tracks are all fairly similar, which means there’s no real difficulty curve to speak of. The stunts you can perform don’t add to your score (in fact, you don’t have a score at all), though they do replenish your turbo charger, which can lend you the edge in some of the tougher races. There’s not much variation in vehicles (and not very many vehicles to choose from), the music can become irritating, and the lack of variation in controls means that people unused to tilt input (this guy!) will have to grit their teeth and just get on with it, if they want to play. It remains a fun game and capable of eating up an hour or two at a stretch – but make no mistake, it’s a lunchtime quickie with little depth to fall back on.
2 – Rebuild
Zombies are increasingly coming into their own as a genre. From their humble beginnings, shambling about the background of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and lurching, ungainly, through the backwoods legends of voodoo in the Deep South and Africa, they’ve become a cultural phenomenon eclipsed only by the recent trend towards vampires. So it’s no surprise that there’s been a corresponding boom in zombie-related gaming experiences; what is a little surprising, though, is Rebuild: a zombie-themed strategy/resource management game.
The plot is simple – the zombie apocalypse has occurred, and it’s your job to fortify your city of choice and render it zombie proof. It’s a deceptively simple concept, because in execution, Rebuild can sometimes be fiendishly tricky, especially on a higher difficulty setting. Managing your resources and available space is a real juggling act; if you don’t have enough farms in your city, for example, people will begin to starve.
Unusually for a strategy game, Rebuild is extremely slow-paced; the emphasis is largely on the resource management, rather than risk assessment (though there is still some of that – it’s always nail-biting to send citizens on an expedition into a zombie-infested building to try and find resources). With that said, it’s an extremely addictive little game, largely due to the fact that its intuitive gameplay allows it to be picked up and put back down again at a whim – yet also be suited to marathon, all-night play sessions.
1 – Cut the Rope
Currently peaking as the number one (paid chart) game in the Android application store, Cut the Rope has achieved renown as the most addictive lunchtime game you’re likely to find outside of the ubiquitous Angry Birds. The object of the game is simple: a piece of candy is suspended on a rope (or multiple ropes!) in each level, and it’s your job to guide it into the mouth of the cute little mascot character, Om Nom, by slicing the ropes with your finger in the correct way. If you manage to collect stars on the way down (there are three in each level), you get a higher score and can unlock new levels as the game progresses.
Though this may seem like a fairly simple concept, there are new obstacles to face (and objects to utilize) in each level pack, ensuring that no two levels have the same solution – whether you’re using bubbles to propel the candy upwards or manipulating a devious and dangerous spider, to swing it back and forth on a string, there’s an endless permutation of different head-scratchers to be found, ensuring excellent replayability for your investment. Fortunately though, despite the occasional difficult level, the intuitive controls and detailed, well-written instructions never leave you feeling overwhelmed; Cut the Rope is the perfect combo platter of challenge and fun.
