In last week’s App Smart column, I let the experts lead me toward a handful of great mobile games that I had somehow overlooked in recent years. There were puzzle games, kids’ games and shoot-‘em-up games, but strangely, none of my sources mentioned word games. Let’s remedy that, with a couple of oldies and one new game that will give word lovers reason to call in sick tomorrow. That new game is W.E.L.D.E.R. ($2 on Apple), which is short for Word Examination Laboratory for Dynamic Extraction and Reassessment. It’s wordy. Get it? Players are given a game board of 64 tiles with random letters and blank wild-card tiles and bonus tiles, à la Scrabble. The trick is to create words by swapping letters, but if you use too many swaps, you lose. Start it, and watch the hours fly by. Scrabble players who are great at using one or two letters to build Read More

On this week’s bonus edition of The TouchArcade Show, a crew of three -- count ‘em! -- chat with indie games visionary and creator of Canabalt [$2.99], Semi Secret Software's Adam Saltsman. The conversation kicks off with a light discussion of Adam’s oddly elaborate sandwich and then into other much more hard-hitting topics such as the themes and ideas that went into, ultimately, the creation of Canabalt, what Adam offers the indie games community, and several of his other games including Zits & Giggles and Wurdle [$1.99], one of the first iOS word games to hit the App Store. You can download this episode directly or stream it via the links provided below or, hey, you can even subscribe to our fair podcast via iTunes or the Zune Marketplace. This is an awesome and honest discussion that I think you’ll like. We’ll be back, of course, with another bonus episode next Read More

When you're waiting on the subway, sitting in the bathroom, waiting at the doctor's office or otherwise experiencing some empty time, there's nothing better than a casual iPhone game. You can play right away, quit whenever you want, and keep building up those high scores. Some iPhone games are more addictive than others, though. For many reasons, these five keep me coming back. It could be the quest for new items and higher scores, the quick learning curve, or the great graphics, but each of these games has its own unique combo of attributes that add up to high replay value. Check out the list for yourself, and then point out the ones I missed in the comments. I just picked this fast little number up for free during a promotion (it's normally 99 cents), and I haven't been able to put it down since. In Mega Jump, you control a Read More

I was about to embark on a three-and-a-half-hour trek home to Connecticut from Maine after a beach weekend. I had two youngsters in the back seat and, my wife and I would quickly discover, no food. But I had gadgets, and I had apps. And I was about to find out if they could mollify an 8-year-old boy, Luca, and an 11-year-old girl, Juliana, more effectively than snacks. A little preview: if you have a BlackBerry, pack lots of snacks. An Android requires fewer, and an iPhone (or, better yet, an iPad) may completely replace road food, if you choose your apps well. My general philosophy is that staring silently out the window is one of the more rewarding uses of brain power. But when that gets old, the children’s bickering gets loud and you notice that two nearby drivers are engaged in highway texting (for real), philosophy does not help. Read More

The Internet has been good to surfers and other water-sports enthusiasts, who can check a webcam or online surf report before taking a futile trip to the beach. Smartphones beat a desktop browser, however, because they put the Web in your hands when you have a few hours of free time, a long board on the roof rack and you want to check for waves. And, at least for surfers, the iPhone trumps other smartphones. Take the Surf Watch app ($10), for example. The software isn’t available anywhere on the wider Web, and sadly for BlackBerry and Android users, it’s not available on their mobile platforms. Before explaining, a little warning: for people who have no idea how coastal buoy data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration relates to a favorite surf spot, this app will mean a slight learning curve. But if, like many avid surfers, you know which Read More

To say that here at Mashable we “heart” word games is as much of an understatement as saying the ocean is a bit wet. Fellow wordsmiths know there are few things better than a good game involving language, but with the App Store brimming with such offerings, which ones do you go for? To save you the trouble of sorting through the hundreds of options, we’ve spent a considerable amount of time searching, downloading and testing (hard life, we know) and we’ve narrowed down the best to a top 10 list. Best of all, we’ve focused on free games (although be warned a couple on the list fall into trial version categories) so with this list, and for the grand total payout of exactly zero, you will never be bored again. Period. This really is a taster app to try and get you hooked enough to fork out the $3.99 for Read More

Rating: 7 out of 10 Pros: Well thought out game. Not only fun but educational. Cons: After reviewing the word list you can come away feeling a little dumb. Overall:Really fun addicting game. 2 player mode is enjoyable as it test two minds. You can purchase  Wurdle from the App Store for $1.99. Read More

We had the opportunity to meet with Bight Games at WWDC to discuss their upcoming games coming into the App Store on June 18th. Bight Games is a mobile gaming company that was founded in 2004. As seems to be the story of many mobile developers, Bight Games started doing primarily contract work. While they tried to publish their own original IP to mobile devices, the realities of traditional mobile distribution made it near impossible. The iPhone, of course, has changed many of these rules, giving developers an opportunity to much more easily bring their own titles to market. Bight Games has two of these original iPhone games coming out on June 18th. Big Top 10 Perhaps most efficiently described as "Wurdle with numbers", Big Top 10 is a puzzle game that will debut at only $0.99. Similar to Wurdle [App Store], the game revolves around sliding your finger across the Read More

22 May 2009 alle 19:15 Uncategorized Sei sviluppatori indipendenti hanno fatto un accordo ed hanno lanciato una sorta di nuova promozione periodica chiamata ““. Questa settimana (dal 22 al 31 Maggio) potremo quindi scaricare alcuni giochi ad un prezzo promozionale di soli 0,79€. Vediamo quali sono: Read More

May 22 to May 31 is Wonderful Word Games Week.  Fans of iPhone word games should take advantage of this week's $.99 sale on games from six independent developers: Hi! I'm from Dispel Games, a new startup company that commit to make games that will dispel you from the real world. Defender Corp is a game that marry the sliding to left and right game control element of the space invader with the castle defend strategy of tower defend type game while taking advantage of accelerometer and touch screen to create a unique gameplay experience that has not be found anywhere before. Do hope everyone here will give this game a go and would like to know all of your reply about this game! Thanks for your time!   #3   Today, 06:57 PM Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 2,155 well the first one is if you managed to Read More

Ian Marsh from Nimblebit contacted us recently to let us know that today marks the beginning of Wonderful Word Games Week.  The promotion is a joint effort between six independent developers to offer their games at a discounted price, and even though they are independent developers, they all have one very special thing in common, word games. Wonderful Word Games Week starts today and will run through May 31st.  It will feature some of the best word games available on the iTunes App Store.  All of the games included in the promotion will be on sale for $.99, and they will be marked with a badge so you can easily identify the participants.  The games and developers included in the promotion are: The promotion was organized by Christopher York from Blue Ox Technologies, but each developer had a hand in the creation of the promotion: “All of us make word games, Read More