The Trawler Report: We go all indie with Freak Bike, MaxInjury and OvenBreak

Every week the Trawler brings you the pick of the best new free games, but there’s generally a title or two from one of the App Store’s big players - Gameloft, Digital Chocolate, EA and so on. However, this week we’ve gone all indie with a selection harvested almost entirely from little developers.

While they may not generally bring us the flash graphics and huge gameworlds of their deep-pocketed rivals, the smaller games makers are often like a breath of fresh air to us jaded pocket gamers. No remakes of games we saw three years ago on a bog-standard phone, precious few console imitations and, quite often, a little spark of genius.

This week’s picks are mostly quickie games, designed to keep you hooked for just a couple of minutes at a time as you either try to smash your own scores or try, and fail, to smash those of people from around the world. Up anchor!

The best free iPhone games on the App Store

Ballgame Lite
By Csanady Brothers
What is it? It’s a game where you save ball bearings from peril
Type Demo

Ballgame joins the leagues of physics-based games already available on the App Store. While its simple style and objectives may make it seem friendly, accessible and casual, it’s actually surprisingly uncompromising.

All you have to do is get your ball to the level’s exit, avoiding anything too spiky while collecting stars. You do this by drawing platforms underneath the ball with your right thumb.

You do have some direct control over the ball, since you can make it jump by tapping a button with your left thumb, but you’re continually at the mercy of the speed at which the ball moves. Still, if you’ve got the reactions to deal with Ballgame’s chops, it’s worth a look. The Lite version contains ten levels out of the full 50 or so.

TNA Wrestling Lite
By AMA
What is it? It’s WCW meets Monkey Island
Type Demo

When we first got a look at TNA Wrestling over a year ago, when it came out on standard mobile phones, we were simultaneously intrigued and confused. Within the context of your average button-mashing wrestler, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. TNA Wrestling is more about character than combos, although you do get to take part in fights first-hand.

A lot of TNA Wrestling takes place in the conversations and verbal battles in between the head-locking and punching. You have to choose whether you want to be the good guy (the face) or the thoroughly boo’d baddie (the heel).

Choices earn you different types of experience that you can level-up with too, making TNA Wrestling a sort of RPG-adventure-wrestling extravaganza.

OvenBreak Free
By Devsisters
What is it? A game about gingerbread fleeing
Type Demo

Your worst fears may involve drowning, or perhaps being fed to death with Krispy Kreme doughnuts by a clown, but spending your last few hours being slowly roasted to death in an oven wouldn’t be too nice either.

In OvenBreak, you’re a little gingerbread man who’s about to meet that fate. You have to escape.

What ensues is a very casual game where you just have to make old gingie’ jump and slide as he meets various obstacles that he finds barring his way. You also get to collect the letters F R E E D O M as you go.

Like most of the best ultra casual games on the iPhone, OvenBreak’s more about getting high scores than actually ever escaping from the oven. Fine for us, not so good for gingie’.

Freak Bike
By A.Kurulenko
What is it? It’s a unicycle survival challenge
Type Full

Freak Bike is this week’s full freebie. It’s not so much about a freakish bike as a simple unicycle. However, people will have their prejudices so you spending your time atop said unicycle, dodging all sorts of projectiles that are flung your way.

You use the accelerometer to keep balance, while you can also move the unicycle from left to right with a touchscreen swipe. Swiping upwards makes you jump, which is necessary when a ball or other object seeking to introduce you to the gravel comes along.

Yes, Freak Bike is silly, lightweight and fluffy but it’s free and fun for a few short bursts. It’s just a pity that it doesn’t have online score integration, which would have us playing for a whole lot longer.

Pick of the Week

Max Injury Lite
By Box Shaped Games
What is it? It’s an ‘inflict pain’ game
Type Demo

Causing someone pain in real life can be quite a harrowing experience, unless you’ve got a few too many untoward tendencies stashed away under your skin. Doing so in games is a blast though, even if you’re a bonafide normalton.

Max Injury capitalises on this predilection, since it’s essentially just a game where you hurl someone down a long flight of stairs, trying to do as much damage to them as you can. As he hurtles down, you’ve got a few extra mid-flight nudges to keep him rolling on down, too.

What makes Max Injury fly, so to speak, is the decent physics used in the game.

The Lite version’s over in a heartbeat, giving you just a single level to throw the poor guy down, but beating your high scores is truly compelling in a game like this, as you try to find out strategies in what is essentially a kind of chaos. If you actually manage to get any good at it, the online scores table is sure to suck you in, too.

Crap Apps Box of Shame

Palm Heroes Lite
By Palm Heroes Team
What is it? It’s Heroes of Might, Magic and Disappointment
Type Demo

In this week’s indie-ish selection, Palm Heroes is easily the most ambitious game on offer. It’s basically trying to re-create the PC strategy game Heroes of Might and Magic on your iPhone - even down to using visuals that are painfully - perhaps even criminally - similar. It's a game where you build up a fantasy army and trek across the land taking over castles and gold mines, and it sounds like a great idea.

Unfortunately, Palm Heroes trips over and spears itself on its own ambition thanks to its awful controls. Download it now and see if you can even vaguely get your hero to go where you want to...

...thought not. So, instead of trekking across the land, you’re left fruitlessly tapping away at the screen, very quickly getting very angry. It’s alright, though - a quick go on Max Injury will sort you out.

Then there’s the sound, which comprises a three-second loop that repeats ad infinitum. Overall, playing Palm Heroes feels a bit like being stuck in the lunatic asylum from Twelve Monkeys. One day, it may very well be great, but it’s got a lot of rehabilitation to go through before it gets there.