Spira Defence

You know when you're watching football on TV and some goofy fan is holding up a fence and his drunk friend is holding up a D?  Yeah, well, defense isn't spelled that way.  No one told Craig Hart that, but it simply adds to the handmade charm of Spira Defence.

Although the vector graphics look like some cross between Tron and an old atari game, the mechanics are interesting.  If you are the type of person who goes "Pew! PEW! PEW!!" in your head when you see laser guns being fired, this game will keep you going for some time.

You have to defend your tower from hordes of marching squares that are coming to attack you. You have only 5 gun slots to fill with different types of weapons, but unlike a lot of tower defense games, you can upgrade different aspects. You can upgrade their power (how hard they hit), range (the radius that the weapon will fire in), or special bonus power (rate of fire, chain, etc).  You can also decide if they're going to hit the closest, the weakest, the fastest or the hardest square marching toward you.

The game is challenging and forces you to make interesting decisions about how and when to spend money.  However, once I had played through the game, I didn't feel a strong pull to play again.

Interface Issues: Tiny tiny buttons make it hard to accurately and quickly upgrade weapons.  Screen often dims because you're watching for a while and not touching it.

Cost: Free (no ads!), with a paid Pro version
Developer: Craig Hart

Bonsai Blast

Bonsai Blast has to be one of the best "I'm on a train to work and I have 10 minutes to my stop" games.  It doesn't take a lot of time for the game to load and feels like you can pick it up and put it down easily, making for addictive gameplay

Playable in either adventure or survival mode, you blast fast moving balls by matching colors and creating chain reactions.  There are 24 boards that have a fair amount of variety.  I played through adventure mode first, conquering the levels as I went. I switched to survival mode when I got good at the game and could challenge myself to the neverending stream of ball doom.

There are a few minuses to this game, however. Some bonuses require you to shake the device frantically, which frankly causes a lot of stares on a crowded bus in public.  Sometimes the game freezes for a moment and you can't do anything... while the balls keep marching toward the hole and your certain destruction.

Interface Issues: Starting up survival mode game can be really annoying. You have to carousel through 24 boards to find one you want to play.  The average game lasts about 3 minutes, and returns you to the first game in the carousel.  If you are trying to play the 22nd board, you have to press the arrow 21 times to restart a new game.

Cost: Free (with unobtrusive ads)

Developer: Glu Mobile