While life provides a constant stream of things to do, some of those pressures can be momentarily escaped by simple free games for your phone. Here are a few welcome distractions:
1. Wordle
One of the most recent viral free games is Wordle. The objective is to guess a five-letter word, which changes every day. This word puzzle itself is a five-by-six grid. Each guessed word must be five letters to fit the five spaces in each row, while the six columns allow for six guesses.
After entering a word, the game colors the letters according to how close your guess is: gray if the letter is not anywhere in the word, yellow if the letter is in the word but not in the right space, and green if the letter is in the word and in the correct place. While this may seem like a tricky game, after playing once, it will be a lot easier to grasp. Plus, the instructions are always a tap away in the upper right corner of the screen.
You can only play once per day and since the word is the same for everyone, you can talk about it with other Wordle enthusiasts. The app keeps track of statistics — how many guesses it took to solve the word, a streak for playing and how many times you have played — giving this free game a competitive twist.
Tip: Sometimes it’s best to try a word you know is incorrect to get a wider variety of letters.
2. Tiny Tower
Unlike free games like Wordle that can only be played once a day, Tiny Tower is a continuous game, one in which you try to continually build your tower taller, filling it up with apartments and businesses. In this cute, pixelated cartoon, you start with a lobby and enough coins to buy two stories. The game only lets you build a residential floor before allowing you to construct a business floor. Once you build a business, you can hire residents — computer characters called bitizens — from your apartments and then stock the store.
Coins are the main currency. Bitizens pay daily rent in coins found by tapping the green square in the lower-left corner. Earn coins by stocking floors and keeping them stocked, too. Another way to earn coins is to transport characters between floors on the elevator. The elevator starts in the lobby and by pressing the elevator when a character is in it, you can take them up and down with the arrows that appear on your screen. By doing that, you can buy more floors and increase the height of your tower. There are six types of floors: food, service, recreation, retail, creative and residential; you can choose which type of floor you want by tapping on the empty story that appears after you make your purchase. Each one undergoes construction, after which the floor will be revealed.
In addition to coins, you can earn bux by tapping on the daily fireworks show, which pops up in the lower-left corner, or by completing special tasks. Bux can be used to buy upgrades to make the elevator faster and change the look of the elevator, lobby and rooftop, in addition to changing bux to coins.
To look at the details of each bitizen, simply tap on their residential floor and then tap their image. From there, you can customize the bitizen, change their job or evict them. Each bitizen also has a dream job, like “frozen yogurt.” If you have that floor or acquire it, you can assign the character to their dream job and also receive up to five bux.
The menu in the lower right-hand corner offers fun additions to the game, like “Bitbook,” where bitizens make funny posts. There, you can also find upgrades and a list of all the bitizen residents, as well as the settings.
Tip: Notifications for your tower always pop up in the lower-left corner of the screen, including when a floor is stocked, which appears as a lightly colored square notification. By pressing on the square, the screen will zoom to the stocked floor, putting you exactly where you want to be.
In the game, you get the thrill of seeing your tower grow every day.
3. Hill Climb Racing
The goal of the app is to drive as far as you can in the stage or course. The default is a jeep driving in the countryside. At the beginning of a round, you are dropped off at the start and simply need to hit the gas to start moving. You continue until you either run out of gas or your driver tumbles into a “neck flip,” breaking the man’s neck. Over the hills and across bridges, the brake and gas pedals on the left and right side of the screen respectively make the vehicle stop and go. While in the air, they can be used to balance out the vehicle and initiate flips. Along the path, you can find gas cans scattered about to ensure you don’t run out of fuel.
Coins are the main way to purchase things in this game too and are strung along the course. You also earn coins by doing tricks: flips and airtime (when both wheels are off the ground). The longer you are in the air, the more coins you rack up. You can use coins to upgrade your vehicle, buy a new one, or buy a new stage. Aside from the jeep, the free game offers vehicles such as a motocross bike, monster truck and rally car, in addition to more unusual modes of transport, like a tank, hovercraft and sleigh. The countryside provides hills as obstacles, while other stages are equipped with various hindrances, like low gravity on the moon or a lack of traction on the slippery slopes in the desert. Hill Climb Racing has more exotic, unusual locations too, like a roller coaster, rooftops and a nuclear plant.
Tip: Due to its low gravity, the moon is a great place to quickly accumulate points by launching in the air and doing flips, earning coins for both.
This game has no foreseeable end as you try to get farther and farther. With the variety of stages and vehicles, the combinations are endless.
4. Lux Touch
Lux Touch is a simpler version of the board game Risk and involves strategy. Like a few other free games, the app restarts each time you play: No two rounds are the same. The objective of is to take over the world.
The “board” is a map of the world split up into territories. To begin, the computer randomly assigns the territories to a color, where each color is a different “player.” You will always be blue. The number in a circle in the territory represents how many armies are at that location. At the beginning of each turn, you receive three armies to place in any of your territories. From there, touch any location you want to attack from and you can hit any adjacent territory, indicated by the red arrows that appear.
The column on the right side of the screen displays some of your preferences. If you have “All Attack” (the white outline of a bomb) enabled, you will automatically attack a territory with all of your armies. The alternative option is “1-Attack” (a sword), hitting the territory one army at a time. Below that is an option that determines how to transport your armies after you take over a territory: “Manual” (one by one so you can split the armies between the territories) or “Auto” (where all of them go to the newly conquered land). If you take over an entire continent, you receive extra troops and a certain bonus depending on the continent. “Fortify” is the option to move armies between your contiguous territories. However, after you fortify, you cannot attack anymore, so make sure to move armies at the end of your turn. The last button on the column ends your turn.
Tips: Try to conquer an entire continent early and keep it, because on your next turn, you will receive the bonus armies. By taking over a territory, once per turn, you receive a card. After earning three, you have the opportunity to cash them in, which will give you more armies. The more cards you have, the more they are worth. The most you can have is five, so if you are not desperate for armies, try to save them up. Also, by conquering a color’s last territory, you receive all of their cards, which is extremely beneficial.
5. Jetpack Joyride
In this app, Barry Steakfries breaks into a lab and steals an experimental jetpack. He has to weave around zappers and dodge missiles that threaten his joyride. By simply pressing on the screen to start, you launch your adventure as Barry and make it as far as you can. The farther you get, the faster everything moves, and the more difficult it becomes to avoid the hazards.
While there is an in-game store, Jetpack Joyride is a free game, whose in-app purchases are merely visual and do not improve your playing. Like other free games, earning coins is a big part of the gameplay. Available with the coins earned in the game are upgrades, gadgets (like a coin magnet) and a variety of jetpacks. Complete missions to earn coins, too. Missions range in difficulty and some require effort, but others can be finished with ease, like playing a certain number of games.
Vehicles like the teleporter also provide an extra twist of fun. You can also collect three puzzle-like pieces once a day to activate “S.A.M.” or “Strong Arm Machine,” placing Barry in a powerful suit of armor.
While the background remains the same, the placement of the lasers and frequency of missiles change, creating a new game each time. Although it depends on how quickly you wipe out, the game usually lasts five minutes.
This game indulges in fun events to match holidays and other themes. Jetpack Joyride even had a “Star Trek” theme and a pirate theme where everything was adapted to fit the occasion. The events and the excitement almost never stop.
Tip: By playing more during events, you can often collect the themed mementos without having to pay one cent.
While games, especially free games, can be a distraction, sometimes they are needed to give your mind a break, providing a splash of entertainment.
