iPhone Games

Over the months I’ve had my iPhone, I’ve picked up only a few games. I never intended to bother with games, or any apps, really, but it’s kind of easy to slowly collect them, just kind of impulse buys, (for free or 99 cents).

The first game I got was Pocket Frogs. One of Calfgrit10’s friends mentioned his dad had it on their iPad, and his dad lets him play it. I sort of took that as a personal challenge to my manhood, (actually more a challenge to my game geekitude). So I had to get it for my boys to play on my iPhone. I first just got the free version, but soon updated to the 99 cent full app.

There really isn’t all that much “game” to this app. You collect frogs, tapping them around a pond to eat flies, and then breed them to create more frogs. It’s an okay time waster, and the some of the many various frog breeds, (designs), are interesting, but there’s not really any kind of challenge or strategy to it. I really wouldn’t even call it a game.

A couple months later, I read a good reference to Angry Birds.

I downloaded the free version, and within a couple days, I beat those levels. I immediately downloaded the 99 cent levels. This is a true game. A truly challenging and maddeningly addictive game. I was so impressed with it, I gifted it to brogrit. I’ve long since beat all the levels, and now I’m going back through trying to get at least 2 stars (out of 3) on each level. Just when I think it’s impossible to do better than my highscore on a level, suddenly tactics and luck come together for a higher score with more stars.

Then a couple days ago, brogrit asked me if I had the Words app. I hadn’t even heard of it at that time, but I looked into it and downloaded the free version.

Brogrit challenged me to a first game, and within a couple turns, I’ve come to love this game.

It’s basically Scrabble, but strangely for a reader, writer, and editor, I’ve never actually played Scrabble. Now that I’m playing Words, (still on my first game with brogrit), I’m saddened to learn what I’ve been missing.

I must admit, too, that I felt like I had to do really good at this game versus my brother. A word game battle between a writer and a musician? Yeah, there’s some professional ego on the line, here.

To be honest, though, I really don’t use a lot of long words in my normal vocabulary. As you can see by reading this blog, hell, I don’t even use many long sentences. And surprising to me, playing Words doesn’t really lend itself well to playing long words, anyway. I’m surprised by how just 2- to 4-letter words are really the main tools.

And I’m not used to looking at words scrambled. I’m especially not used to figuring out words scrambled and mixed between letters in my hand and letters on a board. I can usually figure out a few words from the letters in my hand, but trying to figure how to fit them on the clustered board is crazy boggling.

And to make it even harder and more frustrating, every time I’ve figured out where I’m going to play my next word on the board, brogrit puts his word there and sets me back to figuring everything out all over again.

But I do love this game. I like playing a game with my brother, and with the way this lets you take turns as you get the time in your day, this is a perfect fit for playing with him. Even separated across different states, I almost feel like I’m just sitting across the kitchen table from him. This is a great way to stay connected.

Bullgrit