Great Games for Holiday Downtime

1. Tiny Tower (Android & iOS) Free

I might be late to the Tiny Tower craze, but this Sim City like business manager is one of the most fun games I’ve played on my iPhone to date. The game may be dressed in an eight-bit suit, but the design of the game is very thought out. The game can also be thought of as a “Freemium” game, but I find it easy to play without any use of in-app purchases. Development in the game comes from stocking shops with gear, residential employees, and your time. The game has a very clever use of push notifications to always keep you up-to-date. Warning: Tiny Tower can get extremely addicting, cute, and hilarious. 

2. Tetris (Updated) (iOS) $1

The first iteration of Tetris for the iPhone was lackluster and didn’t really leave much of an impression, but now with the enhanced graphics, more tactile feeling controls, and the new gameplay modes, theres something in the new Tetris for everyone. One-touch, a mode where you click on-screen number options to land bricks, seemed like a bust at first glance, but I find myself only playing one-touch now. It’s fast, it’s simple, and rewarding! You can buy things with your Tetris bucks you earn through hours of gameplay. As soon as I made $3000 Tetris bucks, I bought the 8-bit classic Tetris song, what a classic. 

3. Grand Theft Auto 3 (Android & iOS) $3 (Holiday Price) 

Grand Theft Auto will always have a special place in my heart, and while this game truly only plays perfectly on the A5 chip/Tegra2 chipset, it is such a marvel to have on a mobile platform, let alone a mobile phone. You know the stories, this sandbox classic is a great pick up and play kind of game, but the missions really do shine with live voice-overs. Once you play this game on an iPad 2, your expectations of what you thought was possible on a tablet will be blown away. Though nothing will beat the tactile controls of the PS2 paddle, this touch iteration is amazing. 

Sketchbook Pro meets iCloud Harmony

What happens when you take a fantastic sketching program and tie it with cloud syncing? A versatile sketchbook that is literally always with you. When Autodesk announced iCloud syncing for their Sketchbook Pro Suite, I instantly opted-in on the black friday app sale, picking up the iPhone and iPad app for a sweet $3; A very worthwhile purchase too. 

Just as Apple advertised iCloud: work on something on one device, continue where you left off on another. The syncing sometimes wasn’t instantly automatic though, sometimes I had to wait for one device to even recognize changes from iCloud. This might have something to do with iCloud’s still slightly spotty service. Nonetheless, there is nothing like this app’s iCloud functionality in the App Store making it a truly defining feature for Sketchbook Pro.

The drawing app itself is very polished. There are plenty of brushes, all customizable. The app even has an in-house store with tons of free brushes to download. The UI takes time to make habit, but is extremely functional for a touch based UI. The desktop version comes baked with Wacom tablet compatibility as well as tradition mouse input. Anyone that has been inspired by how iCloud is changing their life ought to try out Sketchbook Pro. 

Download for the iPhone ($1.99), iPad ($4.99), and Lion ($59.99).