Guest blogger Tonja Thompson, lists six of the most successful casual games on the AppStore…
If you own an iPhone, iPad, or any kind of tablet or smartphone you know how useful applications can be. There are apps for just about everything these days, from organizing your life to killing some time while you’re waiting in line. If you’re looking to cure some boredom, playing a game is the perfect way to entertain yourself. Many iPhone games have made their way into the public eye, through media references and plenty of merchandise (*cough* Angry Birds everything *cough*). We put together a list of six of the most popular iOS games from the last year, along with some information on just how successful they were.
Fruit Ninja
Develop your ninja skills with this fun app. Fruit will fly onto the screen while you swipe your finger across it to slice the food into bits. The point is to slice as much fruit as you can, while avoiding deadly bombs. There are four modes – classic, Zen, multiplayer, and arcade – which definitely can lead to many hours spent trying to beat your high score. Fruit Ninja currently has a 4 ½-star rating from 208,207 reviews on iTunes and total sales, across all platforms, were over 20 million as of March 2011.
Cut the Rope
This simple yet entertaining game will get your physics gears turning. Players cut the rope that suspends a piece of candy and try to get the treat into the little green monster’s mouth, all while collecting up to three stars.
There are various obstacles and challenges in each stage that increase in difficulty (and number) as you advance to each level. Develop your strategy to avoid disappointing the cute green critter. Cut the Rope won an Apple Design Award in 2011 and even has a comic book series based on the character.
Words With Friends
If you’re a lean, mean, word-creating machine, then this is your game. Two players take turns building words to earn points, curiously similar to Scrabble.
You can play with your friends or a randomly matched opponent. Feel a little nerdy that you’re oh-so-addicted to this vocab-based game? Don’t worry, even celebrities love it! John Mayer tweeted about his love for the game and Eliza Dushku even gave her Words With Friends screen name to all of her Twitter and Facebook followers.
Angry Birds
Everyone who hasn’t been living under a rock has heard of Angry Birds. If you haven’t played it, now is the time to get addicted. The insanely popular game centers on launching birds via a slingshot at pigs. The intent is to eliminate the pigs by hitting them with the birds or destroy the structures the pigs are located on. This game has been around for awhile (originally launched in December 2010) but it keeps growing in popularity. Merchandise includes toys, shirts, and Halloween costumes, and some celebrities who have confessed their love to the app include British Prime Minister David Cameron, Salman Rushdie, and Kevin Durant.
Tiny Tower
This simulation game was launched in July 2011 and has been successful since day one; within the first four days that it was released, over one million people downloaded the app. The game isn’t too different than any other sim game; in Tiny Tower, you slowly build each floor, one-by-one, including apartments which hold all of your Bitizens (cute!), who in turn work in the commercial floors of your building. You can stock each floor to earn money to help you grow your tiny tower into a giant skyscraper. This new app is definitely going to keep growing in 2012.
Doodle Jump
Doodle Jump is a simple platformer where you control a cute little creature to jump up and up, through an unending level of moving and static platforms. There are acceleration items, monsters to avoid or fight, and multiple different themed levels to choose from. The simple game play is what makes this app addicting, and the cute graphics are what sets it apart from other games. How successful is it? Well, besides the fact that Doodle Jump has reached over 10 million downloads on all iOS platforms, the game has been name dropped on none other than The Big Bang Theory by Dr. Sheldon Cooper himself.
This article was written by Tonja Thompson from T-Shirts.com, where you can find Angry Birds shirts and more.
