Fire up the 99-cent Finger Physics: Thumb Wars on your iPhone and you’ll wonder where the time went when you happen to look up 20 minutes later.
The simple-yet-challenging puzzle iPhone game has that effect. It’s easy to get into and learn the rules for solving the puzzles, and the game itself is very addictive. And for only 99 cents, it’s quite a value.
Finger Physics, as the name suggests, is filled with puzzles based on the rules of physics: rules like gravity, magnetism and inertia. There are two kinds of puzzles and about 40 levels for each brand. The first kind involves controlling the environment to set a ball in motion so that it falls and bounces off of stuff to reach a goal. The second requires piling various geometric shapes on top of one another without letting them fall.
Thumb Wars makes use of the Open Feint system, and so it’s chock full of unlockable achievements. It also keeps score for players based on their location, pitting states — and even countries — against each other in weekly “thumb wars.” Knowing you’re contributing to a greater battle is a very cool aspect that most games never tap.
The only drawback to Thumb Wars is that it occasionally suffers from technical issues, especially on older iPhones. The Open Feint system usually seems to be the culprit, but the game will lag from time to time no matter what’s happening. That problem usually can be solved by shutting the app down and restarting it, and developer PressOK Entertainment has stated its work to fix the problem.
