Created by: MX Web.

If you are looking for a simple but addictive game involving little more than a flick of your finger, then Polar Bowling for the Palm Pre® is for you.

The game is simple. The goal is to fling the polar bear into the hole at the top of the screen. What makes it difficult is that there is a wind blowing, and it changes direction for almost every polar bear. The wind can slide your polar bear right off the screen, away from the hole, so you have to consider its direction and adjust your flick angle. The wind direction is indicated by a red arrow at the upper left hand corner of the screen.

Scoring is also simple. If you get the polar bear into the hole, your score will increase by one. It will keep going up until you miss, when your score will zero out. Once you miss, you will be prompted to enter your top score in the field provided. At the top of the screen, your top score and the #1 top score is displayed, so you always know what your aim needs to be.

The graphics of the Polar Bowling are simple. The polar bears do cheer you on, with pithy little statements, and they slide across the screen smoothly and without a hitch. There is also music for the game, which can be a little annoying and you might want to turn it off.

However, for a simple premise, Polar Bowling for the Palm Pre is surprisingly hard and addictive. You can definitely waste time at the airport or in a doctor’s office playing this game and even your kids will like it. You’ll like the free price tag too.

Created by: Jason Teplitz.

The Lemonade app for the Palm Pre® is a simple but fun game. The goal of the game is to profitably sell lemonade at a lemonade stand. Just like you would for any ‘real’ business, you do need to take into account the costs involved, the weather (and therefore the amount of time you can sell for the day), total sale days and how many cups you plan on selling in any given day.

You can either launch right into playing the game or you can watch/read the tutorial, which walks you through the game, the available preferences and it also gives you tips for how to be successful at the game. The available preferences are a choice of how difficult you want the game (easy, medium, hard) and how many days you want it to last.

The game is played by choosing how many cups you want to sell, how many lemon slices you are going to use, how many sugar pieces you plan on using, how much you want to charge, and how you plan to advertise your lemonade (with costs). All of this is decided on the screen for the day you are at (ie, you start at Day 1). After filling in all of the necessary information, you then tap ‘Continue’ and you get your daily report for how much you sold, what your profit was, how perfect your sugar choice was, etc. Gathering this information will allow you to tweak your totals for the next sale day, which will hopefully maximize your profit. Tap ‘Continue’ again and you move to Day 2 of your total days of selling, fill in the information, etc.

The interface for the game is simple, easy to understand and the daily report helps you keep track of all of your choices from the previous day. While it seems like a simple game, it is actually pretty tough and addictive as well, since who wants to admit you failed at selling lemonade (something 10 year olds can do in the ‘real’ world and be profitable)?

Lemonade for the Palm Pre is a very smart, but simple, game. And the best part—it’s free.

Created by Keen Studios. (US only)

Checkers for the Palm Pre® is the mobile version of the board game I enjoyed as a kid. The object of the game remains the same – clear your opponent’s pieces off of the board by jumping over them. You can only move diagonally and to an open space.

When Checkers launches, you are given the option of beginning play by choosing the number of players, seeing the top scores “Achievements”, determining the settings of the game or getting support for any issues you may be having. You either can play against the computer, with a choice of playing styles (Normal, Careful or Aggressive), or you can play against a friend, by switching the phone back and forth (Pass and Play). When you are on the Settings menu, you can change the board theme from Original to Classic or to Faces. You can choose to leave on or off the Haptic Feedback (not sure what this does – all it did was vibrate when I picked a piece and also drained my battery) and Sounds. You have additional choices as a one player game – you can turn on ‘Cheat Mode’ and also choose the playing style.

The “Sounds” for the game is merely a clacking sound that occurs when you move a piece. In the Classic game mode, you don’t get the option of being “Kinged”, which occurs when you reach the last row of your opponent and allows you to go back the other way to continue to remove your opponent’s pieces. In the Original game mode, you can be “Kinged”. In the Faces game mode, the pieces have eyes and a straight line for a mouth, and they smile when you tap them to move them, and you also have the option of being “Kinged”. Whatever game mode you choose, the gameplay is fun, challenging and just like the board game version.

The board is clean, the pieces are easy to move and you do need to be on your toes against the computer. For someone looking to play Checkers on the go on their Palm Pre, this game is perfect – and free!

Created by bytesequencing.com. (US only)

Bubbles for the Palm Pre® is a game consisting of popping connected bubbles of the same color, with the goal of clearing the board and racking up the most points. The more bubbles that are popped in one go, the more points you get.

The app starts off with the Last Game Score, which includes how many games played, average score, and high score. You can also choose the type of game you want to play – Normal, Continuous, Shifter, Super Shifter – as well as the bubble size. There are no real instructions to the game and it took me a while to realize that by tapping the bubbles twice, they popped off of the screen and the pieces shifted down. So, if you choose some bubbles and realized you didn’t want to pop them, tapping them once gives you the total points and grays them out, but tapping them twice pops them. The best way to play is to figure out what your best move is to shift the right color of bubbles down so that you can pop them all. It can be an addicting and frustrating game.

Selecting Normal play means that once you’ve made all the moves you can on the board, whether or not it is clear, the game is over and you are reverted back to the scoreboard. Continuous play means there are pieces in the bottom of the screen in a special window that are added to the gameboard when a row clears up, which means even more strategy to play the game. Shifter play means that the pieces shift over to the left or right, depending on where you popped the last bubbles, instead of staying in their own columns, as in the Normal game play. Super Shifter play means that there is more extreme shifting within the bubbles than in the Shifter game style.

It is unfortunate that the game does not come with instructions, but once you figure it out, it seems pretty simple. The free version does contain ads, but they appear at the bottom of the screen and are pretty unobtrusive. If you upgrade to the paid version of the game, version .9.9, you are given the option of undoing the last move you made, but it’s not a necessary option to play and enjoy the game.

Created by Uberu. (US only)

Blackout for the Palm Pre® is an easy yet addicting game to play on your phone. The goal of the game is to turn off all of the lights on the board. Clicking on a light switches it and its non-diagonal neighbors on or off.

The game is very simple, as is the interface on which you play. Once you launch the app, a game board appears with some lights on and some lights off. It is definitely a strategy game since you can turn on some of the lights that are already turned off if you tap the right or wrong button. It can be addicting and frustrating, especially if you get the board mostly clear and then tap the wrong light and have to start over again. The game keeps track of how many steps it takes you to turn off all of the lights and you can start a new game simply by pressing ‘New Game’ at the bottom of the screen.

There are no preferences or other options to the game. It is user friendly and would definitely be older kid friendly as well. For all of its simplicity, it actually is a challenging and fun game…and it’s free.

Created by: Brandon VanBelle.

The Dot Game app for the Palm Pre® is the computerized version of a game I used to play in high school with a pad and paper. The game is simple, but challenging, and it can be very frustrating, especially if you really want to win.

The goal of the game is to be the person to create the most boxes. To create boxes, you simply connect the a grid of dots with lines – one line at a time allowed during each turn. The game sounds simple, but it is a strategy game that you can quickly lose if you don’t pay attention and carefully plan out each move.

The Dot Game is a one or two player game, with the option to play against the computer (one player) or a friend (two player). If you are playing a friend, then you simply hand the phone back and forth for each turn. If you are playing the computer, you can choose the level of difficulty you want. Don’t be fooled, Medium difficulty is still a challenging level to play.

The game interface is basic. To decide on who you are playing, you choose either Human for a friend or Easy, Medium, or Hard for the computer player. You can increase the board size from Normal to Large or Huge, and also you can change the theme to Crayon or Clockwork from the Default theme. Once the game board appears, you draw your line by tapping the spot between the dots where you want it to appear. If your line is the last and creates a box, the color you picked for the Human player (default is blue) is then filled in the box so that you know what boxes are yours and what boxes are not. There is also a tally of the total number of boxes at the top of the screen.

The Dot Game for the Palm Pre, while simple, is addictive and is a great way to kill some time while waiting at the doctor’s office. And the best part – it’s free.

Created by: Moblyng.

m:Mafia is the free version game app for the Palm Pre®, where you get to be a Mafia Don. You can case, fix and/or enforce your way to the top of the Mafia food chain. The cool thing about this app is that it is on Facebook as well, which means you can play on the go or on your computer. And, with Facebook Connect, you can invite your friends to your ‘Family’ and create a m:Mafia community, right on your phone.

When you launch the app, the first thing the game does is to ask you if you want to link your game account to your Facebook page. If you already have a character that you play on Facebook, the game will sync it up for you, or you can create a new character, starting by creating a character name and typing it in the appropriate box. One thing that is a bit weird is that the character name field isn’t character friendly, i.e., you have to tap the blank name field and a enter text box appears, where you type in your name choice. After typing in your game name and making sure no one else has it and that is under 18 characters long, you then get to pick your character’s class.

The classes are:

• Loan shark – Faster money regen
• Heavy – Faster stamina regen
• Operator – Faster strength regen
• Fixer – Faster health regen

I picked Fixer, since I like the idea of ‘fixing’ things, although you may want to be more strategic and pick stamina, since having stamina is a key part of the game. You are then prompted to pick an avatar, from a very limited group of 20 choices.

m:Mafia is played by leveling up and gaining XP, which is done through completing Jobs and Fights. As you level up, you have the ability to do more missions and fight different people. You can recruit people to your crew (which is where Facebook Connect comes in handy), which becomes necessary for more advanced Jobs and Fights (some jobs require a crew of 3, etc.). The Jobs are the best way to make money and to level up, as well as to find special loot items. The money is handy when you need to buy some equipment to, say, rob a bank or to buy some good weapons and armor. Some sample jobs are: purse snatching, mugging, holding up a store, etc. You can do many of the Jobs over and over again, to either find special loot, rack up some XP or bank some money. Your character has a set number of health, stamina, and strength points, although stamina is key to being able to do the jobs because each Job has specific minimum stamina points needed to do it. But don’t worry, if you really want to steal someone’s lunch money, your stamina points do regenerate fairly quickly. And, depending on the job, you can also lose health points (10 in total) or strength points (3 in total), both of which affect your ability to work and/or fight.

The interface for the game is pretty basic, but is easy to use. You pick from the menu button at the bottom left of the screen to get to the main menu, which then allows you to go do Jobs, Fights, Stash (buy stuff), or go to the Bank. You may want to stash your cash in the bank, even though the bank takes 10%, because all of your money can get stolen in a fight.

m:Mafia will keep you busy on your Palm Pre for a while. The interaction between the screens is a little clunky and the graphics are basic, but for a free game, it’s not bad. There are ads throughout, but they are relatively unobtrusive in the top of the screen.

The free version gives you 25 Free Favor points, which you can use to pay the Don for upgrades, health, refills and recharging your stamina or strength. You can also sell Favor points or buy them for $1000. The paid version, m:Mafia 40 Favor, gives you 40 Favor points. It costs $4.99, but for a casual gamer, the free version is enough, especially if you can play a lot on Facebook.

Created by: Cakefight.

Sudoku! is the mobile app version of Sudoku puzzles for the Palm Pre®, with over 1,000 puzzles for you to solve. Sudoku is a challenging game of logic and intellect, where you have 9 blocks with 9 squares each. Enter digits from 1 to 9 into the blank spaces, making sure that each row, each column, and each block only has one of each digit. It can be a very frustrating game, but the Sudoku! app makes solving the puzzles fun and easy.

Playing the game itself is quite user friendly. Simply tap in the box you wish to enter a number, select the number you want to put in your selected box by tapping on the number in the boxes below the game piece. If you want to make some number notes within your selected box, tap on the pencil icon and once highlighted, you then can tap on the numbers below the game piece to create ‘notes’ for potential answers to that empty block. The pencil mode is a great asset to this app, especially if you find you have more than one choice available (and you will, frequently).

The Sudoku! app has a handy automatic game save, which allows you to quit and come back to your unsolved puzzle whenever you wish. And, you can also have the computer solve it for you, if you get stuck.

One of the great features of this app, besides the pencil mode, is that you can add new puzzles that you either create yourself or find in a newspaper or online somewhere. It’s as simple as tapping the Sudoku! menu tab at the top of the screen and choosing ‘Create a Custom Game’. In this way, you’ll have access to more than the 1,000 available puzzles in the game.

All in all, this is a great app for those looking for a free version of Sudoku!, especially with the pencil mode and the ability to add custom games.