Smartphone Apps and Games for Nerds
I utilize Seattle’s infamously unreliable public transit very often, which leads to me having a frustrating amount of down time at bus stops on a pretty regular basis. Before I had a smartphone, this meant I was forced to be either more awkward than my usual state of being or actually SOCIALIZE with humans – unacceptable. Thankfully since getting a smartphone (currently a Galaxy S2, soon to be a Galaxy S4), my terrible attempts at interacting with other humans have been replaced by games and useful nerdy apps. Here’s some of my favorite smartphone apps and games so that you, too, can avoid humanity.
If the sequel hadn’t recently come out, you’d better believe Temple Run would be on this list. This rail-runner game is super fun and very easy to play and kill a few minutes with. The sequel is even better, improving a lot from the first game and adding more challenge, better graphics and interesting mechanics.
Cost – Free to play with microtransations. Perfectly playable without paying a cent and you can pick up a lot of the ‘pay’ currency from playing the game. Best use of microtransactions I’ve seen.
Beat Hazard
This game was originally something I encountered on Steam and I was thrilled with it right away, as it combines two of my favorite genres – top-down shooters and music games. In this game, you top-down shoot mobs spawned off of your own music or streaming from some internet radio stations. While I wish it had support for Spotify and the controls were a little easier (I imagine this is awesome to play on tablets), this game is perfect for long wait times or drowning out loud teenagers.
Cost – $4.99. It might seem a little steep, but it is a game made by a one-man studio, so I had no problem shelling out a few bucks for an indie game.
We’ve talked about a few other smartphone games here on Dorkadia, so check out our reviews of Plague, Inc and Knights of Pen and Paper.
Google Sky Map
As cool as Google Earth is, I actually prefer Google Sky Map on my phone. This uses GPS to display celestial bodies according to your location so you can easily identify stars, planets and constellations. It’s simple but very enthralling, I’ve spent many nights getting drunk on the front stoop with friends just figuring out if that’s a star or a planet and talking about terraforming Mars.
Cost – Completely free.
MtG Familiar
An incredibly useful app for Magic the Gathering players. MtG Familiar has pretty much every piece of utility you could need – multiple dice rollers (which is handy even during non-Magic times – I tend to roll to disbelieve often in everyday life), life/poison/mana pool counters, a constantly updating card library and the best tool for trading ever; a comparison list that tallies up both side of a trade with card pricing to eliminate guessing and value-gouging. There’s a lot Magic apps but this is the best I’ve used, including Wizards of the Coast’s own app.
Cost – Completely free.
AndChat
I’m really glad smartphones weren’t a regular thing until I was well into being an adult, because if I’d have had AndChat to access IRC from anywhere, I think I would have driven my parents too far into insanity for them to come back. This is a great, compact app for accessing IRC easily, with a classic interface that’s easy to use. My only problem with it is that I believe it doesn’t log chats.
Cost – Completely free, though a donation version is available.
All of these games and applications are available for Android and many for iOS.
