Freebie Friday

Next week I'll be taking a look at my Droid's two month anniversary which has become an even more interesting event given the Nexus One's debut. I see ads for it everywhere and Google has the edge given that they're advertising heavily on their own content network. In any event, let's see what's new...

Space Dodger is a simple vertical scroller where you have to navigate or blast through the asteroids. The developers says it's simple and is correct although I think it shows the devs have talent for more as the game operates well and all, but as it is it doesn't provide much longer than a minute or two of entertainment. Delete.

Summing Cells is a puzzle game where you have a grid with numbers filling the spaces in the middle and leaving an edge for you to play numbers. Then you have a look ahead of 4 or 5 numbers for planning and can place the next number in the queue in any empty space. If the ones digit of the sum of all surrounding numbers match the middle number then all of those spaces are cleared and your goal is to clear the board. Honestly, for me it just seemed like a lot of math and I prefer a bit more logic (like Sudoku) in my puzzles, but that's just me. Might be a keeper for some.

Blast Nine - home run derby - caught my attention due to the stellar iPhone game based around the same premise, but this version is kids stuff. Once you get the basic pattern down belting home runs becomes trivial, the graphics are stick figure quality, and the game plays slowly as it takes an eternity for a well hit ball to leave the park. Delete.

Touch n Tilt Lunar Lander is a lunar lander clone where your goal is to balance left, right, and center thrust against a planet's gravity and bring the lunar module in for a safe, smooth landing. That seems like a good way to use the accelerometer, but in this version the controls are hypersensitive and the lunar module is way too big yielding serious control issues. Delete.

Ball Madness is an interesting breakout variant with 20 levels. Essentially you have a ball and have to smash all of the bricks, but instead of bouncing off of a paddle the area is enclosed on all four sides. Instead, you lose a ball if you hit one of the skull bricks. Furthermore, there are bricks of different color and bricks that change the color of your ball so to knock out red bricks you first have to change you ball's color to red and then start smashing through those bricks. This one is a keeper.

TapJack is a game I pulled down mainly to play with the kids in a restaurant or such. Its SlapJack coupled with technology... two decks of cards in which players alternate dragging a card out onto the pile. Once revealed you have to quickly touch your color circle if the revealed card is a Jack. Your goal is to get all of the cards. The one thing that would improve this game is a better visual as to who won when multiple taps occur because as it is the number of cards in my deck is the only change. But as it stands it's a cute game for the kids/family.

Blocked Stone is another of the countless Rush Hour clones available. I reviewed a fancy looking one that cost a few dollars a while back. This one is pretty plain looking, but it's free and has plenty of puzzles to solve categorized into six different skill levels. It's certainly worth checking out if you like this kind of puzzle.