The Trawler Report: The best free iPhone games on the App Store (9 Feb 2009)

Earlier on last week, it seemed like all the trawler would bring home this time was a few herring and some rusty cans. With this in mind, we picked up some hot chicks at a nearby port with the idea that it'd distract you from the lack of decent freebie fun.

Thankfully, things really picked up towards the end of the week. Not having the heart to simply nudge them overboard, we've got the ladies swabbing the decks and making cocktails with sexually suggestive names for the crew. They'll be gone by next week though, I promise.

Probably.

The best free iPhone games: 9th February 2009

Just Fillin' Lite
By Playtoniq
What is it? It's a bubble-blowing game with physics
Type Demo

From a screenshot, it might not look like much, but the Silver award it won recently shows that there's more than meets the eye to Just Fillin'.

Your aim is to make water flow over the top of the screen by filling the play area with bubbles. You just touch the screen to create a bubble, but need to watch out for the pesky shuriken floating around as they'll most certainly burst your bubble.

The Lite version has a limited number of levels and doesn't have all the modes of the full one, but it's good for a few sessions of play at least. With its subtle use of physics and the real confidence it has in its own simplicity, Just Fillin' isn't just anything.

Textropolis Lite
By Ian Marsh
What is it? It's a classy word finder
Type Demo

Textropolis is blessed with a real soothing quality. Gameplay consists of trying to make words out of a selection of letters, but it's a game where the window-dressing and structure up its appeal by a few notches.

The levels are different cities of the world, and the letters you have to use in each level are those from the city's name. Ingenious. Words have to be four letters or above, but there's a ridiculous amount to find in each level - 133 in the first, 'Amsterdam'.

There are just three cities to visit in this version, Amsterdam, Cambridge and Bangalore. They are unlocked by finding a certain number of words in the previous locale. Visually, it's simple but refined, and the way it gives you a dictionary-like description of each word after you've found it is rather lovely.

Monospace Lite
By Nonverbal
What is it? It's a cranium-crushing puzzler
Type Demo

One of our favourite recent iPhone puzzlers, Monospace grabbed a silver award at review. You have to swivel around a 3D box so that you can draw a line between blocks within it once the perspective has been collapsed into 2D. It's got style and grace, but don't expect it to go easy on you. It can be very tricky.

The demo offers a selection of levels from the Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced difficulties - ten in total out of the 64 from the full version. It's enough to be getting on with, certainly enough to tell whether you'll get on with Monospace's brand of visual puzzling.

Attraction Lite
By Celestial Digital Entertainment
What is it? It's a cute, good-looking matching puzzler
Type Demo

Attraction is a bit cheeky. Okay, it's a lot cheeky. It nicks the looks of its main character from those in cult favourite Katamari Damacy, but at least that guarantees a certain level of cuteness. You control this Katamari pusher-a-like, picking up and dropping symbols to match their colours. Although familiar in this sense, the slick visuals lend it a sort of joyful air that make it worth a play.

You only get to play the Classic mode in the free version, but there's some mileage in it. The full version is only 59p until the 28th of February. At that price, it's worth investigating.

Freebie Pick of the Week

Rolando Lite
By ngmoco
What is it? It's an extended peek at one of our iphone faves
Type Demo

Rolando was the first iPhone game to nab itself the near-impossible-to-get Platinum award from our review team. It's a fantastic touch and accelerometer controlled platformer that remains the one to beat in sheer quality terms. Check out our full review for more gushing on this game.

There's just one of the four Rolando-filled worlds to explore here, Honeycup Meadows, but that's still a remarkably generous bundle of levels to offer for free compared to what we've seen from some other high profile lite versions.

The Crap Apps Box of Shame Award

Push Me
By Hipster Logic
What is it? A button you shouldn't push, an app you shouldn't download
Type Full

Arguably even more useless than the first entry into the Box of Shame, Push Me consists of a button labelled 'Don't Push Me'. If you do indeed push it, you get a random little message about how you shouldn't have.

Obviously, Push Me is intended to be a flimsy bit of fluff, but it doesn't even fulfil the aims of these sort of quick little joke apps. In short, it's not funny. If you are after a bit of free comic nonsense, check out Canned Ham, a comic sound generator done right.