Five More Games for your New iPhone

So your wait is finally over! You’ve stubbornly held out until the iPhone was available outside of AT&T’s crappy network and are now happily joining the rest of us Angry Bird and Doodle Jump addicts thanks to Verizon and that creepy “I can hear you now” guy.

“Sure”, you say to yourself, “GGG! has given me quite the list of great iOS game suggestions… but I want more!” Of course you do. And I aim to please! Here are five more excellent games, each from a different genre, to help fill up that fancy new phone of yours…

Frotz (free)

Frotz is an interpreter for interactive fiction with versions for both iPhone and iPad. It has an excellent and expansive library of free text adventures (reminiscent of, but in many cases, more creative than the original Zork games) providing nearly endless game play. Although Interactive Fiction is an acquired taste, Frotz provides a very accessible way of sampling this unique form of game. I would suggest starting with Emily Shorts’ Bronze, one of the games provided, if only because she wrote an excellent manual for it that also doubles as an introduction to Interactive Fiction.

Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor ($3)

I can’t talk iOS games without mentioning Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor. It is still one of my favorites, and definitely the first to keep me up late. I can go on and on about it’s “mood” and “design”, but the most impressive thing is that it was created from the ground up to take full advantage of the platform, and that makes such a difference on the iPhone. You play a spider wandering through an old dusty mansion gobbling up bugs using “swipe” to craft webs. Although the spider doesn’t care, it’s exploration reveals visual clues to the “secret” providing a far deeper narrative beyond “spider eats so many bugs in time allotted”. It’s a must play.

WordJong ($2)

WordJong. I love WordJong. It’s essentially Shanghai meets Anagrams, but instead of having a collection of puzzles to play through, WordJong for the iPhone offers a new puzzle every day (and the ability to go back a play past puzzles). It was very popular for what seemed a blink of an eye, and definitely deserves a new audience since it’s one of the best word-building games in the App Store.

Drop7 ($3)

Originally designed for an ARG promoting a television show, Drop7 quickly became my favorite drop puzzle on the iOS. It’s a pretty straight forward game, numbers drop from the top and you clear them out by arranging them in groups equal to their value — trying to last as long as you can, Tetris-style — but it’s real strength is it’s modern, simple design and very relaxing pace. Need to kill some time, but want to chill as well? Drop7 is your game.

Phoenix Wright ($1)

Since the four games above represent a great sampling of more or less indie games found in the App Store, I’d like to end this list with a mainstream game that many may not even realize can be found on the iPhone. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is an immensely popular courtroom-based adventure originally created for the GameBoy Advanced that has spawned a series of best-selling games on the Nintendo DS. This iPhone version, based on the original GBA version, offers Phoenix’s first five cases, and even adopts a DS-like double screen environment to maintain the classic look. Though not for fans of the series, Phoenix Wright for iPhone will give newcomers a inexpensive introduction to it (and a great reason to go buy a DS).

- Andy