Mobile Monday
Several major casual gaming franchises are still making their way to the iTunes App Store, including the fan-favorite Virtual Villagers series! I'm pleased to report the miniaturization has gone surprisingly well, so if you had a hard time tearing yourself away from Virtual Villagers before, good luck resisting the temptation to pull your iPhone out of your pocket...
We're still giving away iTunes gift certificates to cover the cost of every game featured in the current Mobile Monday article. Simply sign-in with a Casual Gameplay account, leave a comment giving feedback about one of the games, then check back the week after to see if you've won. Simple! Congratulations to last week's winner, jupchurch!
Flight Control - Ever wanted to be in charge of routing flights safely from the air to the ground? Me neither, but somehow Flight Control makes it fun. Tap and drag an airplane to set its path to the runway. Make the trail as long and windey as you like, as long as the plane makes it to the ground and doesn't smash into another plane, you're good to go. See how many vehicles you can safely land in one sitting!
Virtual Villagers 2: The Lost Children - Yup, it's Virtual Villagers on your iPhone! The same village managing, puzzles-solving, science-researching, fishing and gathering fun from the PC/Mac versions has been miniaturized for the touch screen platform. Everything has been preserved and made portable, including the "always on" gameplay that continues while you're away. Also available is the free Virtual Villagers 2 Lite! The original Virtual Villagers - A New Home is also available. Unlike Virtual Villagers 2, this one isn't a direct port of its big-screened cousin, so don't be shocked when you see the new visual style!
WordJong - It's like mahjong, but, you know, with words! Tiles with letters are piled on the screen, and in order to remove them you must spell words. A new puzzle is added every day and you can compete for the biggest score with other WordJong players. Clear the screen with the longest words you can to score big points. Also available in a free lite version.
Flood-It! - A very simple puzzle game where the object is to flood the entire screen with one color. Tap one of the colored circles at the bottom of the screen and that color will be flood-filled from the top-left corner of the grid. Continue tapping colors until you've taken over the entire screen! You have a limited number of moves, though, so be efficient. Best of all, Flood-It! happens to be free!
NOTE: Games listed may not be available outside of North America. Prices are subject to change and are therefore unlisted. Please see the individual game pages for purchasing info.
Prices as of the date/time of this comment:
Flight control................$0.99Virtual Villagers 2 (lite)....Free
Virtual Villagers 2...........$1.99
WordJong (lite)...............Free
WordJong......................$2.99
Flood-It!.....................Free
Flight Control...
I got this game a few weeks ago. It is a very well put together game, and it gets fun, albeit frustrating. I think it's got a pretty good difficulty ramp-up, and as the difficulty increases, so does the tension.
The planes all move so slow, but because there are so many you must move really quickly to avert disaster. This style of gameplay doesn't appeal to me, I prefer there to be more action on screen rather than represented by my fingers getting tangled. Getting so tense over such slow moving planes doesn't seem worth it. Though the difficulty ramp-up is very good for the first time player, it is annoying to sit through it to try to beat your last high score; and beating your last high score is the only reason to come back and play again.
I'm sure this one will be a hit with the more casual crowd.
Oh man, flood it is such a time sink in browser form, I can't imagine how much of my life it will eat on my ipod...
Flight control does get repetitive. You can tell what plane is coming just by where it enters the screen. It is frustrating that once I loose I have to start at the very beginning to continue on. I really think that the first 15 planes are no brainers, and it takes a couple minutes to get through those. I think the game would be better if there were levels where you can save your progress.
Not bad for a 5 minute time waster though. and worth the $.99 (My high score is still only 70)
I haven't tried flood it yet, but I love it in my browser. This will be a definite add, especially for the price.
Looks like there are some great games this week. I can't wait to check out them out. WordJong looks like great fun.
Oh boy, Flood was fun enough in flash. Having it on my ipod may cause a drop in productivity...
Definitely a fan of Flood-it! I just wish it had a confirmation screen when I reset the boards- I just keep on going until I get a good start board!
Best of 14 on the Small size.
Nice that flood it has a variety of color schemes -- ups the odds that those of who are color blind can find a set of contrasting colors.
Strategy towards the end of the game seems pretty straightforward, but how about at the beginning? I try to pick moves that let me expand the most, but it's kind of complicated to plan more than a couple of steps ahead.
Hmm, this is the first mobile monday where I don't actually own any of the games. I do have Virtual Villagers on a different platform; how well do the controls translate to the iDevices?
I actually have the first Virtual Villagers and I think that it was very addicting. I've tried the lite version of Virtual VIllagers 2 and it also had the same effect to me. Its graphics are much better than the first one. I particularly liked the 'fast' option, where the islanders are fast at working and walking on the original game. On the lite version, the characters were slow to travel to their destination, and it is kind of a problem. But I think overall, even from the lite version, I think Virtual Villagers 2 was very addicting.
I think Flood It! is very interesting... It doesn't require much work.
I always loved Flood It!
I like flight control. It is a nice entertaining game it just wasn't what I thought it would be. I thought it would have goals or something to make it more worth while.
If your one who likes using the touch screen though, it is not a bad game.
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