The Trawler Report: The Quest, Ancient Frog and Gravstar offer up a pre-Easter free iPhone game feast

Easter is upon us, so we’re due for a shower of low rent bunny and chocolate-themed games in the coming days. None have made it into this week’s Trawler Report, though. It’s not that we’re down on the giving of chocolate or people celebrating various saviour-related activities, but the Trawler isn’t swayed by mere goodwill. It’s just not nimble enough, not with that rusty rudder.

But we do have a selection of great freebies, some being free versions of some of the most bold iPhone games of late. How about Ancient Frog, the game that sees you man-handling a frog as if it was the star of a Wallace and Gromit style claymation feature? Or perhaps The Quest, the massive 20-hour old school RPG, complete with beards, skeletons, scrolls and pages of stats?

The best free iPhone games in the App Store

The Quest Lite
By Chillingo
What is it? A real swords 'n' scrolls role-playing game
Type Demo

Swords and spells may not exactly be cool, even by the standards of your average self-confessed geeky gamer, but they can be fun.

If you ever played and enjoyed one of those pseudo 3D RPGs from the early- and mid-'90s, or even one of the more recent Bethesda Elder Scrolls series games, The Quest is one game you should be checking out. It’s geared towards a more hardcore audience than your average iPhone title, but for wannabe dungeon masters, it's arguably the most credible effort available.

The demo lets you explore a fairly hefty landmass, take a stroll through the starter village and its various shops and have a few scraps with some nearby nasties. The Quest won’t be for everyone but, with a claimed 20 hours of adventuring in the full version, if the idea of a real old-skool RPG appeals, put this on your download list.

Ancient Frog Lite
By James Brown
What is it? It’s a frog-fondling puzzle game
Type Demo

There are a lot of clever and slightly odd games on iPhone, our favourite of the moment being Zen Bound, but Ancient Frog comes with its own amphibian puzzle tangent to tax your fingers and brain. The premise is simple: all you have to do is manoeuvre a frog from one position to another.

The execution is less simple than the premise sounds, though. You’re restricted by the limits of the little guy’s froggie limbs, so thought is required with each move of each arm and leg. You get to play a handful of levels in the Lite version, enough to get to grips with the basics of this unique and interesting game.

Sky Force Reloaded
By Infinite Dreams Inc
What is it? It’s a good-looking vertical shooter
Type Demo

A vertical shooter where you control a ship with your finger, Sky Force Reloaded is simply far more slick that just about all of its competitors. It’s not all style over substance, though, as this demo shows the gameplay has been well tweaked for the format.

Your plane appears in front of your finger rather than underneath it, while the amount of on-screen action is pitched at a rate that’ll challenge without showing the game up as one that was originally designed for another platform. Simple stuff perhaps, but other games have been tripped up by these exact problems. Sadly, the demo is fairly brief, featuring just a single level.

Iplay Bowling Lite
By I-play
What is it? It’s a Wii Sports-style bowling game
Type Demo

Not a game to play on public transport, I-play Bowling is – you guessed it – a bowling game, but it uses the accelerometer to judge the strength of your throws. It doesn’t require masses of fidelity, thankfully, as the positioning and aim of your ball are selected before this using the touchscreen. You can also spin the ball by tilting your device once it’s rolling.

You just get to play the Practice mode in I-play Bowling Lite, but it’s enough to tell whether you can get along with the game’s non crowd-friendly but fun central mechanic.

iNinja Lite
By Geppetto Inc
What is it? It’s an odd shuriken-throwing action puzzler
Type Demo

A quite frankly bizarre title based on an idea that actually sounds quite normal to most teenage boys and young, should-know-better men: throwing shuriken at ninja. However, the ninja here float around on what look like paper kites while a constellation of obstacles whirls around them. You need to make sure that your shuriken get past the obstacles to hit the ninja.

Controlling the shuriken is simple – you just have to flick the screen. To make iNinja even odder, you can hold your thumb down in to make your shuriken grow. Larger shuriken cause more damage, see. You get to play the Survival mode in this Lite version, which is good for a good few hundred finger swipes of surreal ninja-themed antics.

Pick of the Week

Gravball
By Psycho Turnip games
What is it? It’s a minimalist gravity game
Type Full

With its ultra basic interface and visuals, Gravball isn’t a game to charm your fingers away with slick effects, but we’re never one to kick a decent fully free game in the teeth. Gravball comes complete with 50 levels of accelerometer-controlled ball bouncing, from simple ones that only take a few seconds to breeze through, to the painfully difficult ones that demand brow wipe-inducing numbers of retries.

But it’s addictive, and after a while the basic visuals bed down and actually seem more stylised than simple. The 50 levels leave easily enough time for this to happen, too. Gravball wasn’t always free though, so grab it while it is.

Crap Apps Box of Shame Award

A Falling Nerd
By Smallrock Software
What is it? It’s anti-geek propaganda
Type Demo

If you work in a frequently geeky environment like the games, IT or '80s appreciation industries, it’s hard not to let some of it rub off on you. You’ll start to discover a previously unknown appreciation for Star Trek, graphic novels or Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan fiction. The slope is short and sharp, and it’s not long before you’ll find you’re a fully fledged geek, pointed at by strangers in the streets. If this is you, then we show our solidarity by dumping A Falling Nerd in the box of shame. Let’s put an end to ant-Geek-ism, Geekophobia, Geekbashing or whatever you care to call it.

Okay, so A Falling Nerd is actually quite a well-made rag-doll app where you use the accelerometer to control said falling nerd as he bashes into variously-sized planets. It’s amusing for a few minutes, too, so why not check it out if your friends are bored of you showing off your iPint app in the pub. Come now, you know you do.