Peggle by Popcap for Mobile, BlackBerry, iPhone
Peggle is more a phenomena than an everyday casual game. Playing it is a strange experience that relies predominantly on chance, but it's entirely engaging thanks to the wonderful sound and lights show that's going on as you play.
All you have to do is aim and fire a little ball into an arrangement of pegs. Some of the pegs are blue, some orange. You're trying to hit all of the orange ones.
Once you've launched your ball into the sea of pegs, where it'll end up is determined by Peggle's impressively realistic physics engine - it bounces all over the place, in other words. It might not sound like much from mere description, but Peggle is one of the most popular games of the past ten years, casual or otherwise.
Zen Bound by Chillingo for iPhone
Although you'll find it on the games section of the App Store, some don't even like to think of Zen Bound as a game - more a meditative experience. Yes, it sounds terribly pretentious, but they do have something of a point. Zen Bound sees you wrapping rope around an object by subtly tilting your iPhone.
Slim pickings for source material as this may seem, Zen Bound is one of the most highly acclaimed pieces of software on the App Store. The beautiful-but-understated 3D visuals and music work together with the game's excellent - wait for it - rope physics to make sure that it'll draw in even gaming nay-sayers.
There is an aim to it, to try and cover as much of the object's surface as you can using the least rope possible. If you need an excuse, think of it as brain training.
Dr Kawshima's Brain Exercise by Namco for iPhone, Mobile, Blackberry
The genre that's drawn in more non-gamers into gaming than any other over the past few years is brain training. The man who really got the ball rolling? Dr. Kawashima. He was the scientist behind the games on the Nintendo DS that really thrust the genre into the mainstream, and to the top of the charts.
It's made up of a handful of different brain-prodding mini-games and, to make it the perfect partner to a shorter commute, it limits you to how much you can play each day in the main modes. You can only take one brain training test each day, comprised of three different mini-games, while your progress is tracked on terribly scientific-looking graphs.
Progress is sure to give you as much of an early morning buzz as a double espresso. It's not quite so uplifting when you see your scores plummet, mind.
How to get these games
Each mobile phone carrier has their own gaming portal - or shop if you will. You can get to this from the home page of their WAP site.
Of course, this is of most use for those with standard mobile phones rather than BlackBerrys or iPhones. Although some carriers cater for some BlackBerry handsets, the games coverage won't generally be as comprehensive as it is for, say, a popular Nokia or Sony Ericsson handset.
BlackBerry users can head over to the new BlackBerry App World, which is filling up with games all the time. You can also check out separate software channels such as Handango and Jamster.
iPhone users have it the easiest though. Just browse to the games section of the App Store on your computer or iPhone and you'll find the above games easily after a quick search.
