I break for games

You know how sometimes you just need a little break from reality?  (You do, right?  It's not just me?)  Lately I've found that a few minutes of Iphone and/or Ipad game playing creates such a happy little break.  Here's what I've been playing:


Draw Something

    This is sort of an online version of Pictionary, where the goal is to draw something that someone else can guess.  In Draw Something, you can link up with friends (via email or Facebook), then you take turns drawing something and guessing what they've drawn for you.  It's not real time -- you open the game and if someone has taken their turn, it'll be there waiting for you to play at your leisure. It's very fun, with drawing skill far less important than identifying the visual cues that will trigger the answer.  I've played it both on my Ipad and my Iphone, and it's way harder on the Iphone's small screen.  (My friend Kristin drew an amazingly detailed 4-person illustration of ABBA with an Iphone and her finger.  I'm still marveling over that!)  

Zed's Alchemy

My sister Laura turned me onto this very clever and addictive game, and I've not been able to stop playing it since.  (Thanks, Laura!)  It's another one for the Ipad and Iphone, but it seems to work equally well on both devices.  The idea is that you start with four basic elements: earth, air, water and fire.  By dragging one onto another, you create more things.  For example, fire + earth = lava.  Fire + water = steam.  The more you drag and drop the things you have made, the more things you create. (The game says there are 380 things you can make, starting with those 4.  I'm up to about 120 so far.)

But it's a riot.  And there's a funny sort of logic to it.  If you find the "Life" element (a little DNA strand!), you can add that to stuff to see what you get.  Life + dust = mites, as it turns out.  It gets you thinking... let's see, how can I get mammals? A tree?  From a tree, what can I get? 

The simplicity of this game is what makes it brilliant -- that and rather funny humor.  Can you create a beetle?  If you get one beetle and drag it onto another beetle, you find yourself with The Beatles.  It's very charming with lots of fun surprises.

You can thank me (in a few hours after you've gotten sucked into one or both of these... )  I just heard Miss C shout from her room that she created "omelet."