Crosswords work great on touchscreens. But sometimes, to really kill the time, you need something more colorful and animated.
Orbital
Orbital is like a cosmic snooker match. You aim a cannon that fires colorful glowing orbs onto a grid. Each sphere is destroyed when it taps another one three times. You have to ensure that they ricochet around and collide the necessary times yet don’t rebound so far that they risk hitting your cannon at the bottom of the screen.
WIRED Lovely particle-heavy graphics. Can play music from your library.
TIRED You’ll need your own music; the included soundtrack is a dud.
$2.99 iOS | $3 Android | $2.99 WP | Orbital
Scribblenauts Remix
There’s a star on top of a tree. Type in something that your character might use to get it down and that thing will appear onscreen. Type “ladder” or “ax” and voilà—there it is. The game presents scores of challenges, and the fun is in thinking of the most roundabout ways to achieve the goal—try to claim your prize with a helicopter or a lumberjack or a flamethrower or …
WIRED The game’s remarkably large vocabulary lets you go nuts.
TIRED Movement controls lack precision.
$0.99 iOS | Scribblenauts Remix
World Of Goo
Finally, a game that lets you control a puddle of disgusting gelatinous nodules! Tug at the goo balls with your finger to build them up into a tower that reaches the exit pipe at the top of the level. Your viscous architecture needs to be structurally sound or the realistic physics will pull it down.
WIRED One of the most challenging and creative teasers out there. Level design gets increasingly inspired.
TIRED Controls are a bit too imprecise for phone screens (though fine on a tablet).
$2.99 iOS | $4.99 Android | World Of Goo
Drop7
Think of this as Tetris with a touch of math. Random digits appear at the top of the screen, and you have to drop them onto a grid; instead of creating shapes, you make sudoku-like chains and sequences. Few things in mobile gaming compare to the satisfaction of clearing a Drop7 screen with a brutally effective numerical combo.
WIRED Easy to learn but well-nigh impossible to master, especially on the hardcore difficulty level.
TIRED Minimalist electronica score gets annoying.
$2.99 iOS | $2.99 Android | Drop7
Amazing Alex
Help a juvenile genius build elaborate Rube Goldberg devices out of household objects. Bonus points for rigging your contraptions so they collect all three gold stars on the way to reaching their goal. Each level is a unique physics puzzle—position benches to guide the descent of a soccer ball, or arrange shelves to direct a floating balloon.
WIRED Engaging brain teasers from the folks who brought you Angry Birds.
TIRED Lacks the oh-God-have-I-really-been-playing-for-an-hour addictiveness of Angry Birds.
$0.99 iOS | $0.99 Android | Amazing Alex
App Guide: Puzzle Games
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App Guide: Puzzle Games
