The Tower by Ketchapp. iPhone.

Another game from Ketchapp is The Tower, a skill based, block dropping affair which is great fun, simple to play and has a clear objective, build the biggest tower. Every block you place, tap when you think it is square to the previous piece, makes your construction taller and earns you points. The trick is to drop the blocks perfectly in line with the previous piece, otherwise the overhang drops off, leaving you with a diminishing area to land your next piece on, you also get additional points for perfect placement. 

Eventually, as shown above, your tower will end when you can no longer place a new piece on top. 

Throughout the game you accumulate points, these can be used for various perks including giving your tower a head start of up to fifteen levels and doubling points. They can also be saved to buy additional buildings to play.

Skill and patience seem to be the trick to this game, a bit of hand-eye coordination wouldn't go amiss either. Having said that it is fun, simple to play and quite satisfying every time you reach a new height in the sky.

Swing by Ketchapp. iPhone.

Swing is a simple yet challenging game which tests your judgement of distance in a fun and addictive manner. The basic premise of the game is to judge the distance that your character needs to swing between platforms and provide enough rope for this to happen. However unlike some similar games your thinking time is very limited as you are shown the gap and then the rope begins lengthening immediately. So while the game time is often short, it does make you use you mind to react quickly and is also great fun.

The objective of the game is to cross as many platforms as possible and in doing so you collect gems, which can then be exchanged for new characters, of which there are over forty available. 

It is a free game, with some advertising which includes pop ups after games, but really not particularly intrusive and easily closed. Overall a nice little game, simple, yet complex at the same, good fun as well.

Where it all Started

A quick scan of the Internet will soon tell you that video gaming has been around for a while, with its roots as far back as the forties in fact, but it first became mainstream in the seventies, which is where we came in.

Home computers were in their infancy at this stage, but arcade machines were certainly around and by the late seventies the craze of video gaming had well and truly started.

Space Invaders and Asteroids appeared at the end of the seventies, quickly followed in the early eighties by classics such as Pac-Man, Defender and Donkey Kong. However it was not just in arcades that games were being played, home consoles had also appeared during this period.

The Binatone model is one that many of us remember, with the Atari being a step up with cartridge games increasing the selection massively.

The gaming scene has had its ups and downs since those early days, companies have come and gone, computer power is off the scale compared to what was available back then, but many of us remember those early days and still have an affinity with the early games such as Centipede and 1942. Like they say, once a gamer, always a gamer.