The free iPhone game Trawler Report: The cast of Family Guy, a Fantasy Warrior and Nick Chase help us finish off all that Halloween ‘candy’

Just as we predicted last week, this weekend was flooded with Halloween-related freebies and price drops. Sadly, since all the trick or treaters have gone home and the egg yolk is now dried firmly onto our double glazing, most of the promotions have stopped already.

So, if you haven’t had your fill of horror and gory action games you might have to wait until next year before getting something for nothing on that front. However, that doesn’t mean there haven’t been any other decent freebies released, just perhaps not quite as many as usual.

We’ve got a pair of full freebies for your fingers this week, and a great spread of genres on show. Tower defence, role-playing, hidden object and, erm, flicking are all here, so fill ‘yer boots. As long as you’ve already emptied them of those sweets stolen from good, hard-working folk like us, that is.

The best free iPhone games on the App Store

Sock Slider
By Keepnix Studios
What is it? It's bowls, but with more socks
Type Full

Occasionally, we come across games on the Trawler watch that we probably wouldn't recommend buying if they starting costing more than a quick finger prod, but think they're still worthwhile as a freebie. Sock Slider's one of those games.

It sees you flicking a kid across a room, sliding him along a polished wood floor on his socks. You're either trying to make him stop on a certain point on the floor or get him flying away as far as possible. It's a high scores fest, so that's pretty much it, but there are four different difficulties to unlock for each game.

Other than this, the bit that makes Sock Slider worth checking out is its online scoreboards. If there's anything that'll cause us to get hooked to a simple game like this, it's competition against other real players.

Fantasy Warrior: Good & Evil Free
By Digital Chocolate
What is it? It's one of mobile's great RPGs
Type Demo

Back before the days of the iPhone, portable games that weren't tied to Sony's or Nintendo's consoles may not have had that high a profile, but that doesn't mean they weren't ambitious.

Fantasy Warrior was originally released as two separate games: Good and Evil. Thankfully, Digital Chocolate has packed the two together for this iPhone renaissance.

It's a fairly lightweight role-playing title compared with rivals like Zenonia, but then again we're not always in the mood for a 20-hour romp - especially when the battery on our iDevices only last for a couple of hours.

This Lite version lets you check out the first five quests from the full version of Fantasy Warrior, which is also available now.

Nick Chase: A Detective Story
By Big Fish games
What is it? It's a Raymond Chandler take on casual gaming
Type Demo

Life's hard when you're a detective on the lowest rung of life, when the broads are just about as deadly as the shady men waiting around the corner with their pistols and coshes and general desire to do you harm.

Nick Chase is a character taken straight out of a Raymond Chandler novel, complete with a disheveled office and a constant struggle to keep the debtors from the door. The game merges a gumshoe yarn with traditional casual gameplay, based around the hidden object blueprint.

However, if this Lite version is anything to go by, it's a bit more sophisticated than your average hidden object blast, with more than a single tip of the fedora to mid-'90s graphic adventures.

Pick of the week

TowerMadness Zero
By Limbic Software
What is it? It's a 3D tower defence game
Type Full

No one likes being pelted with adverts, but sometimes it's worth it. TowerMadness is still one of our tower defence favourites, having picked up a Silver Award when it was originally released. Although the paid-for and Lite versions of the game are still available, Limbic Software has added a third option with the Zero edition.

TowerMadness Zero gives you all the content from the full version, and all you have to do is watch an advert every now and then. You're defending your sheep from being abducted by invading aliens, intent on doing all sorts of experiments on your livestock.

With 13 maps and nine fully-upgradeable weapons, you're onto a winner with TowerMadness. It even features both open and pre-determined path levels, giving you both sides of the tower defence experience.

Crap Apps Box of Shame

Shake for Happiness
By iphonetutorials.com
What is it? It’s a google image search you can’t even control
Type Full

Don’t you just love it when people tell you to cheer up? Isn’t it generally just, exactly, precisely, what you were looking for at that present point?

Well, Shake for Happiness distils that sense of smug self-satisfaction these ‘it might never happen’ merchants seem to thrive off and makes an app of it. In fact, they’re probably the same people that tell you ‘there’s an app for that’, too.

When you get down to it, though, Shake for Happiness doesn’t even make up its own material. All it does is pilfer an image containing the tag ‘happiness’ from the net every time you shake your iPhone. A few hours of it would be enough to make you want to blow your brains out.