Jacob Jones and the Bigfoot Mystery

Jacob Jones was supposed to be something special: a cute, memorable, compelling adventure about a clever kid who goes to camp and meets Bigfoot. It was supposed to make me smile. That's all I wanted. Honestly.

Here's what I learned from Episode 1 (not that you should be concerned, but there are minor spoilers):

• Most, if not all, adults are the direct and scrupulous embodiments of cultural and career-related stereotypes, and are harshly bound to these roles.
• They are also incapable of solving their own problems, to the extent that they must enlist the help of children in order to accomplish anything.
• Dialogue is an opportunity to showcase arbitrary adult references and employ tacky humor with as much frequency and foul-timing as possible. 
• Children are surprisingly good at telling ghost stories. Though it's amazing it takes them longer to get bored of them than it takes me.
• Voice acting is more realistic when performed by amateurs.
• Inane and unimaginative puzzles are required to balance the necessary levels of anti-fun in an adventure game.
• Puzzles do not require coherent instructions, nor do they require any originality whatsoever.
• Bigfoots are bound to become lifelong companions with children. They're pretty okay.
• Oh, and so is the Unreal Engine.

I'm sorry harsh sarcasm is what I came up with to review this game. Small children would enjoy Jacob Jones if the puzzles weren't mind-shatteringly frustrating. And so would adults. The dialogue is maybe forgivable and might even appear quirky to some, but I wouldn't risk it. I really am sorry to the developers. They're obviously nice people who were trying to make a nice thing. But I'm also obligated to inform anyone who might purchase this game that it's probably not worth it. The quality of the game might improve across future episodes, but there's no way I can trust that now. Good luck to all, I suppose.

Doodle God

Doubtless, you've at least heard of Alchemy before: that classic game in which you combine elements to make more elements to recreate the universe. You begin with water, fire, earth, and air, and end with God or an atomic bomb or whatever. It's been copied and expanded time and time again, hinting to a powerful quality it seems to possess: perpetual intrigue.

No matter how many times you try to combine the same elements and fail, the mysteries of the game always beckon you to return. It's a defeating process and, honestly, it's unjust to call anything resembling this formula a game. After the first half hour of mixing elements and mixing elements and coming to standstills and mixing more elements and finally creating that one insignificant object you need in order to feel you accomplished anything at all, your fingers are completely exhausted and your mind more than realizes this is a mathematical tech demo, not a game. But you take a break and picks it up an hour later, or the next day. There's something stupidly exciting about realizing you can combine stone and fire to make metal, and so on. And it never seems to dissipate, even when you've played version after version of the same inane exercise in elementary, combinatorial math.

Doodle God is no different in it's premise: combine, create. But it is memorable for its presentation and its variety. None of the elements are eyesores, and in fact, many of them look pretty darn good. In addition, the interface is stylish, artistic, and convenient.

But what really excites me about this game--and I will consider this one a game--is it's inclusion of a number of different modes, modes that range from the basic create-the-universe formula, to fun, interesting, scenario-based puzzles. It isn't a flawless experience by any means (and actually, the in-game shop glitched and gave me about two million credits for free, for which I'm still somewhat guilty, however accidental the event may have been), but it hesitates only slightly to advance a tried, though inherently unfun, formula in a direction that I think is very near to resembling an attractive, new puzzle game. Just as soon as the elemental combinations start making a little more sense. Sand + Life = Seeds? What even is that?

Robot Unicorn Attack 2

Robot unicorns are at least as magnificent as you'd expect. The organic sleekness of an earthly horse with the perfected shimmer of an electronic beast. I only wish this game were more about their backstory and general splendor than about dashing across canyons, shattering stars, and collecting fairies and tears. As cool as that sounds right now, it gets old really fast.

I hate to be a hater, especially when it sends me away from beautiful creatures like robot unicorns, but the repetition and limited depth of Robot Unicorn Attack cracks through within the first half hour. It's a side-scrolling, endless runner. Nothing more. While there is a good sense of progress, with missions to complete, wings to grow, and levels to up, these features fail to mask the familiarity of the environment and the redundancy of jumping and dashing.

There's an unfortunate paradox to this game: it feels like an epic, but it plays within a tiny sandbox. As much as I yearned to reach the Ice World, I was too bored to earn the level 15 requirement. Robot unicorns deserve a world more exciting than this.

Take It Easy

Take It Easy runs at about the same level of fun as Sudoku. That is, it's enjoyable to get the hang of and fuss around with for a few minutes at a time, but once you've played it for a while, it's a little uninspired and lonely.

There are three different game modes, but the fundamental concept of the game revolves around either placing or swapping tiles to connect same-color bars in order to score points or complete goals. So the gameplay is incredibly simple. But this isn't a bad thing: with moderate levels of strategy, the game more than warrants play after play. But this is true only for the "classic" game mode.

The fault of the game is in its "puzzle" mode, which, unlike "classic," provides a sense of level-based progress. This is a shame, however, since at least the first 50 puzzles are uncomfortably easy. And even beyond those first 50, the strategy of the game breaks down too easily and too quickly with the possibility of accidental wins. It's a flaw that's rather demoralizing for anyone attempting to actually strategize and feel accomplished. I don't mean to sound uppity. It's just that the job of puzzle games is to be balanced. They function on the basis that they're mathematically sound. That they're fair.

This flaw is what separates Take It Easy from becoming a bathroom classic like Sudoku. That, and a horribly over-saturated market.

Pixel People

I started up Pixel People knowing completely that I didn't enjoy simulator games. They always seem designed to waste a person's time: you click or tap or whatever and your city grows or your crops sprout and you keep clicking and tapping until everything gets bigger and better. But there's no strategy to it; there's no sense to it. You just keep returning to this game and doing what has to be done to make your little world less little. They're linear, they're slow, and they're darn boring after the novelty of their theme wears off.

Pixel People doesn't make me love simulators and it's not so different from the clicking and tapping I'm used to. But it is different enough to give me some hope for people who do play these kinds of games.

Pixel People is set in a utopia that's basically a blank slate for rebuilding the world we know now, except it's in the sky. And functions with one key difference: splicing. Yes, you build buildings and plant trees and move everything around to look the way you want it to look. But what could be the purpose of building a city without building people too? Yep, clones. With a manner of gameplay not unlike that alchemy game you might have played--in which you begin with a few basic elements and combine them in all ways possible to eventually build something absurd like a black hole--Pixel People allows you to make clones to inhabit this peaceful world, by combining various careers to form even more careers and more careers and so on. So when you decide to combine the genes of, say, a police officer and a mechanic, you splice a firefighter and then have the ability to place an appropriate fire station in your city.

It's simple, but it adds some variety to an otherwise stagnant genre. It still didn't inspire me to make the sky my own with a brilliant utopia of shining clones and amusing flavor text, but it did make me happy to see some innovation for once. Plus, although Pixel People is built with the freemium model in mind, it can be played for quite some time (perhaps indefinitely) with no need (or even prompting!) to upgrade or purchase anything. So if you're into the whole "city building," "pet in your pocket" kind of thing, don't skip this one.

Badland

Badland is about as successful as a one-button game can get. It takes the screen with a beautifully mysterious and haunting atmosphere of both sights and sounds, and takes your wits and your touch with clever, puzzle-based, sidescrolling action.

You control a creature as mysterious as its environment: it's something like a porcupine with wings. And those wings provide the single control element of the game: tap and hold to fly; release to fall. It's extraordinary that such simple controls can guide you through an absurdly engrossing and intense narrative. I use the term "narrative" loosely, but there is nevertheless a narrative to this game, however abstract it may be.

The goal of each level is to survive, to make it to the tube at the end that sucks you through to the next level. Your creature will collect necessary powerups along the way--some that make it larger, some that make it faster, and some that make it spin. Your creature will die many times (along with hundreds of its clones you'll collect along the way), and it will be sad every time. (Especially when you've just collected, like 20 clones and every single one of them except for the one in front gets slashed to pieces by an enormous buzz saw.) But hopefully it will be worth it to experience this cruel and stunning new world.

What this game lacks in length (only 40 short levels so far), it more than makes up for in replayability. There are achievement-style goals to accomplish after completing levels--things like collecting every powerup, and making it through a level without dying and returning to a checkpoint--and even more than that, the fast-paced nature of the game lends itself (with incredible ease) to multiple playthroughs. While I would strain to call this game difficult, its difficulty feels right, and it keeps you watching out for your curious protagonist. Badland is part game and part narrative, so it feels right to get stuck only once or twice before escaping to another obstacle that threatens death.

Frontline Commando: D-Day

What this game lacks in fun, it more than doesn't make up for in any way at all. (The graphics are occasionally nice.) You have encountered a game that has almost no redeeming value, but simultaneously is missing any flaws that make it unplayable. (A commonality on iOS, it seems.) In other words, if you have no soul, this game could be a lot of fun for you.

The game begins with a historical, black and white film intro, and during loading screens supplies a number of strange facts about World War II. So a reasonable assumption, given the game's name and general persona, is that it will take you through a sweeping narrative of the war. Nope. The campaigns in Frontline Commando are a series of boring, methodical, repetitive encounters that resemble a wartime-themed target practice with no story or character besides an awkward lead-in clip of some soldier yelling, "Move out!"or something equally vapid.

Environments are recycled. Weapon selection is limited unless you pay. Missions have the capacity to be varied--there was one mission I shot down planes instead of hiding behind cover as a foot soldier--but they aren't. Commando is a generic, money-suck--a thinned-out-to-the-bald replicate of console shooters, furthering my suspicions that this is a genre that will never work on touch screens. Tapping and sliding are no way to control a gun.

Nimble Quest

The sole influence for this game is appropriately cited in its tutorial. And the innovations it makes to such an enduring formula are actually pretty brilliant.

Nimble Quest is a fantasy-themed, level-based update to the classic, Snake. You begin the "quest" with a single leader (hero) of your choice, but as you kill more knights and spiders and skeletons, additional characters tag along (almost like a snake or something). Each has a unique attack, from a sword slash to a fireball. Assuming your leader doesn't die (by contacting anything, including the wall), you advance to the next level by slaying a particular number of enemies (the progress of which is indicated by a handy green bar at the top of the screen). Your heroes continue through level upon level, hopefully stringing along more and more heroes as they go and making use of convenient powerups like potions and bombs. But once your leader dies, you must start the quest from the beginning.

Intelligently, the challenging, retro formula remains roughly the same (and in such a natural way), but comes updated with helpful features, like coins, which function more or less like quarters in an arcade machine, allowing for a continue when a leader dies. They can also be used at the beginning of a quest for bonuses and automatic level advancement. Of course, these coins are pretty sparse unless you buy a pack of them in-game with actual money, but that's very suited to the nature of the game. It's not supposed to be easy. And that's great. Nimble Quest is exactly what it should be: simple, old, and new.

Order & Chaos: Duels

A fun, richly-illustrated Magic-style card game that taints itself completely with the freemium model.

Or at least that's my proposed tagline for the game.

Freemium works for both parties sometimes (see: League of Legends). But it doesn't usually work on iPhone. I don't know why exactly, but it probably has something to do with greed and hasty development standards.

Gameplay-wise, Order & Chaos: Duels is more or less what you'd expect from a trading card game. You battle, collect new cards, adjust your deck, and battle some more. Nothing about the game is too groundbreaking, but I had a lot of fun with it: the controls aren't clunky; the gameplay is strategic, but not taxing; the cards are nicely illustrated and even have some neat animations (waving particles, moving water, etc.). The quality of this game genuinely impressed me for the most part. Yes, the story is almost nonexistent, the dialogue is pretty awful at times, and nothing about the game is especially innovative (unless you consider that it's maybe the first good card game of its type to hit the App Store). But I expected those shortcomings. And I'm okay with them. If I have fun.

That's where I get frustrated. Order & Chaos is an enjoyable game--until you've made it ten or so battles into the campaign and realize it's near impossible to advance without making some ridiculous in-app purchase to bulk up on cards. I use the word "ridiculous" not because they're particularly expensive in-app purchases, but because I have no idea how many times I'll have to repeat the process. It is true that restarting the campaign with a different character, or grinding for who knows how long might eventually allow me to defeat this Elven Archpriest who continually pounds my Rouge back down into her own deck. But can I really be expected to?

I'm not saying don't try this game. Just know that you'll be dealing from the deck of evil. Winston Churchill said something like that.

Ridiculous Fishing

This neo-retro trend is really beginning to impress me. What used to be the necessity is now a diversely refined art form that generates both nostalgia and sharp, original visuals that prove to be a lot more memorable than many of their graphics-heavy contemporaries.

What's even more memorable than Ridiculous Fishing's look is its buzzing, 8-bit sounds--those kind of melodies that are beautifully simple and always tickle you, and could never belong more perfectly anywhere else. Ridiculous Fishing reminds me of a time when I held a Game Boy Color instead of an iPhone.

The premise of the game is appropriately simple: you're a hillbilly with a boat. You spend your time dropping lines and avoiding fish (by tilting the device) to make it as far down into the waters as you can; when you've either maxed out your line or run into a fish, the line pulls up and you're tasked with exactly the opposite: catch all the fish! When the line makes it all the way up to the surface with (hopefully) a heaving mass of scales and fins, the fish fly into the air and your final job is to shoot (tap) them all out of the sky to earn your daily buck. Then, with a satisfied, toothless grin, you can take your earnings to the store and pick out some nifty upgrades, like longer lines, better (more ridiculous) guns, and even some fancy accessories for your misunderstood, hillbilly soul. [As a pretty dedicated vegan, I'm not sure how I managed to get past all the brutalization. But just don't actually do this to fish. They're people, too.]

The more fish you discover, the farther you can go, sweeping the seas from your home waters. The game can be tricky, but because you're always earning at least a little something every time you fish, you're given a continuous sense of progress (and a distinct lack of "stuck feeling"), always something more to unlock that's only a few dropped lines away. Ridiculous Fishing updates the old, rather than reviving it in all its punishing glory. Which in this case, is a very good thing.

I will confess that the gameplay isn't the most exciting or progressive I've ever experienced. Though it is fun. But what's sure is that Ridiculous Fishing is worth playing purely on account of its shameless sense of humor: you're not only a fishing hillbilly, you're a fishing hillbilly with a smartphone that records captured fish, provides a trusty map of the sea, and, of course, gives you all the latest tweets from your ridiculous, seafaring friends.

Neuroshima Hex!

While I haven't played the board game equivalent, I'd be very excited to try it out. Neuroshima Hex! is just that: a board game port. And the exclamation point is warranted.

When AI is carefully programmed and online connectivity is smooth, board games are an excellent match for the mobile touchscreen. They're games that are best played in person, but they're also games that are meant to be touched. And as a plus, they're generally very well balanced and thoughtfully designed, since they cost a lot more to produce than, say, an app. It is a shame when board games are relatively incompatible with the platform (Catan). But the ones that do work, work like they were meant to exist on a touchscreen.

Neuroshima Hex! is, of course, one of those fine examples. (And it's especially impressive since it's not a well-known game to begin with.) It's a strategy game themed in a post-apocalyptic world with four main armies (and several more with a costly but quality expansion). Each army has it's own unique hexes that are played on a cramped and competitive battlefield. Players begin by placing their HQs, which hold special bonuses for adjacent units but also serve as lifelines and scoreboards for their respective armies. A turn consists of receiving (drawing) three hexes, choosing one to discard, and playing the other two. When either an army plays a battle hex or the entire battlefield is full of units, a battle occurs, and HQs take appropriate damage (they start at 20 hit points and each time they're hit, they lose a point and their army falls one mark further from victory). Any units in the line of fire also take damage and typically disappear from the board after one hit. When all the hexes have been played, the army with the most hit points wins.

What makes this game especially interesting and challenging is that each attacking unit has an initiative number, which determines when it will attack. So many times, units are eliminated from the battlefield before they ever have an opportunity to strike.

Neuroshima Hex is full of deep strategy, as well as constant surprises from the unpredictability of which hexes will arrive next. It all comes together to form a tense, exciting, and enormously replayable game. There is an admitted learning curve, however, as when you first start out, you'll have little to no idea what any of the hexes do. But thankfully, the game includes an information button that gives fair explanations for any hex you tap. So as long as you're patient enough in the beginning and willing to work through the unknown, you'll learn to love an overlooked marvel. If you need more convincing: I never muted the in-game music.

Real Racing 3

I'm impressed that EA decided to lay down a free racer. I'm even more impressed that they aren't (in my opinion) at all audible about asking you to pay for in-game upgrades, etc. However, that doesn't mean that they went all-out for a top-notch racing game.

Real Racing 3 is pretty simple: you race, you buy new cars, you upgrade them, you race more. It contains no storyline of any kind (thank you!). What it does contain is races upon races upon races and quite a number of good-looking, licensed cars. Races range from the classic three-laps-around-the-track to drag races to top speed challenges. The cars range from the Ford Focus to the McLaren F1. And everything looks pretty spectacular considering the limitations of the iPhone.

Real Racing 3 also incorporates some of its namesake into the game. In addition to paying for cars and upgrades, you have to pay for any damage your car takes during a race--from windshields to mirrors--and each has an individual cost, plus a hit to your car's performance if you choose not to fix it. This realistic system includes maintenance issues, as well, like changing the oil and swapping out the tires. With maintenance, though, you're forced to wait through the process across several minutes of real time before you can use your car again. This wait also occurs when you order a new car. But however annoying it might be sometimes, it's honestly not a very big issue and it supports the idea (along with the game's relatively quick races) that this is a racing game for iOS--meaning you're supposed to be on the go and multitasking. So a little wait isn't going to matter because you've got plenty else to do.

My main issue with the game is that it has way too much to do and none of it is particularly difficult. This may be a good thing for other people, or simply untrue, based upon skill level. But the game was unsatisfying for me, as I never felt a true sense of accomplishment after winning a race. Monetary progress was quick, so I could always buy a new car before the old one got stale, and there was always another set of races that popped up when I won enough of them. But, overall, the difficulty wasn't quite substantial enough and the pacing suffered.

This, I imagine, is far from a universal experience, though. And that's why I'd still recommend this game to just about anyone. It's a thoroughly extensive time-killer if nothing else.

Gun Bros 2

Gun Bros 2. No, not as awful as it sounds. The gameplay is actually pretty enjoyable. It's a fairly standard two-stick shooter with big muscly guys (bros), big blasty guns, and lots and lots of bad dudes. Your bro is thrust into a moderately-sized arena (a number of new ones unlock as you go) and you have to defeat waves and waves of creepy things, eventually bosses. (But you do have a bro-partner, so it's not so scary.) When you make it through your mission you get some loot, and then you have the option to buy new weapons, upgrade them, mod them, etc., plus you can do the same with different types of military-style armor.

That's the game, more or less: you progress through missions and arenas, get bigger guns, fight bigger baddies, and there's an endless mode, as well. While it's not breathtaking or particularly innovative for either the genre or the platform, it is a good romp.

But here is where I must disagree with Apple's editors and their choosing of this game. With all the thousands and thousands of games in the App Store, why would anyone waste their time with a flawed one, especially when it offers nothing irreplaceable? I know I wouldn't.

And my example, naturally, is Gun Bros 2. Yes, it is fun. And even free. But it lacks polish. That might sound insignificant, but consider, for example, the obnoxiously long loading screens. No, it's not because of the graphics: I've played much prettier, graphics-heavy games on my iPhone with loading times at least half these (see: Infinity Blade). This, of course, is not to mention the fact that the game deleted my data for no apparent reason and is now prompting me to create a new character. I will not.

Even if this is a one-in-one-hundred-thousand kind of scenario, it's too many. This is a massively relevant lesson to developers and iPhone gamers alike: there are way too many games out there to waste your time on something that doesn't work.

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP

I am, unfortunately, unable to properly communicate the worth of this game to you. Basically, it's perfect. If you trust me, don't even read the rest of this. Just buy it. And live it.

That sounds corny as crap and I really shouldn't be writing more than those five sentences, but hopefully my inadequacy points even stronger to the brilliance of this game.

Naturally, however, beneath everything beautiful, there is something sinister. (Okay, maybe that's a little overdramatic and pessimistic.) But Sword & Sworcery EP is not a game, exactly: It's amazingly fun, it's exciting, it's interactive, it's full of very apparent inspiration from The Legend of Zelda. But it functions more as a narrative than anything else. A magical, unspeakable narrative. And so the tragedy I'm alluding to here is marketing. iPhone is one of the worst imaginable platforms for well-crafted, artistic, sensitively-paced adventures. Which makes this game a very risky choice for Capybara Games to publish. It brings me deep sadness to know that most iPhone users will have neither the interest nor the patience to enjoy what I would consider to be the best game to ever grace the App Store (subjective, I know).

But I won't taint the experience by covering details about the quest or the characters or the spectacles. Just know that everything about Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is about as good as it gets. The enchanting neo-retro visuals. The charming self-aware dialogue. The haunting electronic beats. If there is anything that will convince Roger Ebert that video games can be art, it's this.

Let zombies eat your vegetables!

Recently, the App Store began promoting select titles by knocking their prices off and naming them "App of the Week". Go to the Featured tab of the App Store to find this week's game: Plants vs. Zombies. So get it while it's hot. It's a must-play if you like zombies, or plants, or anything, really. There's even a snail. And don't forget to prepare yourself for next week's app, because nothing's cheaper than free!

Four Things You Should Be On iPhone

1. Smart

Surprisingly (for a question/answer network), Quora is full of coherence. Ask questions, answer questions, and modify your feed to match the topics you enjoy.

2. Electronic

Figure is the only paid app on this list, and that's because as soon as you start using it you'll forget about everything evil in the world. (Also, it's only 99 cents.) So many delicious instruments. Make some sick electronic loops and tweak them like you're a techno dance faerie.

3. Fictional

Interactive fiction is the retro fusion of textual narrative and adventure game, and it's pretty much just as awesome as it sounds. Frotz has hundreds of stories to choose from and it's all as portable as can be. But if you're feeling a little intimidated by this grand new way of life, check out a more beginner-centric IF app called The Dreamhold.

4. A, B, C, and all the rest of the letters of the alphabet

I know. If you're reading this you're probably old enough to read. But you're never too old to have something painfully adorable in your life. So get Endless Alphabet and spell things out anyway so you can watch the charming cuteness of each example animation.

OLO Game

Simplicity is one thing iPhone does best. No buttons, pure screen. I think perhaps all the most impressive and memorable iPhone experiences reflect that.

OLO is a familiar game. It's somewhere between shuffleboard and billiards, or maybe not. In any case, its concept isn't strange: You're given five OLOs (of varying sizes) at the start of the game. You and your opponent take turns flicking these across a two-sided board. You earn one point for each OLO that stops its path on your opponent's side, but only if it stays there. (Cue ricochets.) The game ends when all the OLOs have been played. Aside from stealing and replaying--which result, respectively, from overshooting and rebounding--that's the game.

Naturally though, OLO evolves into a strategic battle of angle and timing, rather than a challenge of who's the better flicker. It's a superb coffee table game, something you can just take out to pass a few minutes while you're sitting with a friend.

I did have some difficulties connecting to random opponents online, but when I did finally connect, the game was seamless, competitive, and enjoyable. Other developers should study games like these: Simple, graphically minimalistic, ad-free experiences are Apple. And they're a finger massage for iPhone users like me.

Temple Run 2

I'll mention first that I'm not entirely enthusiastic about endless runners. However, I had a recent surge of interest and decided to lay down my biases for a while.

So, Temple Run. It's maybe the most well-known name in the genre, at least for iPhone users. And the newest installment is solid, very solid. The graphics are greatly updated from the first adventure, along with the setting itself, which is entirely revamped, even giving way to new minecart gameplay. And although the color palette is much lighter now, there's a notably more vertical design than before, with ziplines and tons and tons of cliffs to fall off of. Plus the game has several additional characters to unlock.

However, the objectives that appear after you've finished a run (i.e. died) are far more integrated and bossy (if that's possible) than in the original Temple Run. In this case, more integration is a bad thing: When I play an endless game, I want to think about getting to the end. Not stopping somewhere in between to get a glass of lemonade and a pat on the back. And even though I'll never get to the end, I want to know that's what I was trying to do before I died.

So with that updated objectives system, some new complications of gameplay (like powerups), and the distracting upgrade system--which is satisfying for the first hour or so, but otherwise pretty uninspiring--Temple Run now becomes a game of constant leveling, slowly rising progress bars, and tedium. The joy of an endless pursuit of failure is gone. Rather than keeping friends at odds, always forcing them to sweat for the longest stride, Temple Run 2 diminishes that satisfaction and replaces it with a dull and (nearly) superfluous system of levels and accomplishments.

If you're looking for a game that keeps it simple, even beautiful, and (in my opinion) stays much truer to the genre--a game that never fails to discourage players with the unrelenting pain of re-death--try out Canabalt.

Duolingo

                                                     

Foreign languages are kind of a requirement for school. And real life too, I guess. But unless you have a ton of really sociable friends who already speak the language you're trying to learn, learning foreign languages is pretty awful. In my case, the tedium of trying to incorporate a long list of same-subject words into my vocabulary is exhausting, boring, and just not much fun at all. Anyway, if you're interested in a faithful mobile companion (that comes in the shape of a slightly adorable and slightly disturbing green owl) Duolingo might be your thing.

Not only is it free, but it supports impressively comprehensive learning for Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, and Italian (plus English, if that's what you need). Don't expect anything too crazy, though. It's not a game, exactly. More of a clean, interactive workbook. But don't let that disappoint you, either.

Duolingo contains chapters, more or less, and within each of those chapters is a series of lessons with a variety of exercises that gradually introduce new nouns, verbs, and grammar. Lessons function as a test of sorts, with words to choose from or a phrase that needs to be translated. But it's never intimidating. In many of the exercises there's an option to tap on a word to see its translation; not to mention lessons take only about five minutes to complete. After you complete enough lessons in a chapter, you "learn" it. But after that you can continue to review the chapter with more lessons and take on addition challenges until you "master" it. And while the chapters are arranged in a fixed flowchart, you always have the option to "test out" and move on to something more challenging. Plus, there's an overarching leveling system for a very obvious way to track your progress.

Duolingo doesn't try to be your professor, it just gives you a studious gymnasium where you can work out your language all day long. That being said, I'd personally recommend it as a supplement for language learning, rather than a primary resource. But it's up to you.

Letterpress

If you’re a digital logophile, you’re probably in the middle of at least one game of Words with Friends right now. It’s free, all your friends are there, and you know the game. But you’ve got an iPhone, too, and that App Store’s a big place. There are so many iterations of the same word games that it’s hardly worth trying out new ones anymore.

Then there’s Letterpress. You might have heard of it, as it was Runner-Up for the App Store’s Game of the Year for 2012. And with more than enough to back that ranking: it’s sleek, it’s free, and there isn’t an ad in sight. Plus, you’ve never played it before.

It starts as a 5x5 grid of white letter tiles, randomized each game, for two players. When it’s your turn, you pick the letters you need to make your word, and you tap “Submit”. But every time you do, the tiles you use turn from white to whatever color you are. Let’s say you’re blue. If you use a tile (turning it blue) and also use nearby tiles (turning them blue as well), the surrounded tile turns a darker shade. In other words, it’s secured. Now your opponent--let’s say red--can’t change the color of that tile unless he or she uses at least one of the (blue) surrounding tiles and turns it red. Players take turns making words and battling between tiles to secure their color. When all twenty-five of the white tiles have been played (and thereby turned either red or blue) the game ends and the player with the most tiles of their color wins.

You can guess, without much trouble, that a game of Letterpress can be quite a bit shorter than a game of Words with Friends. But the tiles don’t run through as quickly as you’d think. When there are multiple X’s to secure and a deep framework of conquest-style strategy, it becomes much less a game of discovering obscure words and crossing fingers for a hand that isn’t seven vowels, and more a game of holding onto the letters you secure and working as efficiently as you can to sweep the grid with your color.

Gameplay aside, Letterpress is unbelievable clean, slick, and easy to play. It really is beautiful. Even if you somehow lose interest in the game (you won’t), you’ll never stop wanting to watch the crisp, ad-free letters glide across the screen or hear the soft clicks of the tiles as you form your next word.

And even though it costs absolutely nothing to download the game and play it in full, there’s an in-app upgrade for a buck that gives you access to a number of equally minimalist themes (colors besides red and blue) and the ability to play more than two games at a time. Letterpress is yet another brilliant game from a very generous and dedicated indie dev.