Always running into new social game genres, Zynga is launching its Running With Friends mobile game on the iPhone today.

The title is Zynga’s first “endless runner,” or a game where a user controls a runner in a 3D environment and swipes the screen to move in one direction or another. The category was made popular by the indie titles Tiny Wings and Temple Run, and it is now one of the most popular genres on touchscreen devices.

The Zynga title looks innovative. The cartoon-style game is set in the classic Running of the Bulls festival in Pamplona, Spain, where the player has to outrun angry bulls or at least outrun the slowest human runners. It’s a fast-paced action title where you have to switch paths, jump, duck, and sometimes hitch a ride on the back of a bull. Zynga is launching the title in the Apple iTunes App Store in Canada today and it will release the game in the U.S. in about a month.

“We wanted to take our With Friends brand and move it into another category,” said Travis Boatman (pictured, on the right), in an interview with GamesBeat.

Zynga’s game was made with partner Eat Sleep Play, a game studio that has previously work on console games like Twisted Metal: Black and Warhawk. Zynga contributed its own know-how in mobile and social games, while Eat Sleep Play focused on making the game more fun.

Justin Cooper (pictured, on the left), director of Running With Friends at Zynga, joked that his company sometimes had a different view of what was funny compared to the developers at Eat Sleep Play, who wanted the bulls to run over the players and tear their guts out. But Zynga’s audience is “purple,” or a combination of males and females. Gory stuff isn’t appropriate for them.

“They wanted to move into mobile and partner with us,” Cooper said. “They shared our vision of mobile gaming. They were a phenomenal partner, though they naturally tended toward a darker game. We shifted them to what we though was cute and funny.”

Eat Sleep Play worked on the 3D engine and other engineering to make the game fluid. Eat Sleep Play was founded by Scott Campbell and David Jaffe (who has moved on). The team worked on it for a while to make sure the title was polished and that its levels were well crafted.

The social part of the game comes into play through the “With Friends” part, which comes from Zynga’s successful franchises such as Scramble With Friends (which Cooper worked on) and Words With Friends. In the game, you can challenge your mobile phone friends or your Facebook friends to matches, where you try to beat each other’s scores and times. It’s easy to create challenges, sends messages to friends, and check your score on the leaderboard.

Some Zynga critics might ding the company for copying someone else again. But Boatman said that his team worked hard over nine months to differentiate its title with small details, like crashing through destructible objects. The game also has a slot machine that runs at the beginning. The reels can land on different bonuses, such as bonuses for destroying the most boxes. Since the slots can change every time, the feature adds replayability that affects which strategy you use.

Zynga also tried to make the most social endless runner game.

“Most of the other experiences we saw were lonely,” Cooper said. “This is a lot more competitive than a standard With Friends game. What’s wonderful about this category is that it is so simple.”

On top of that, Boatman said that endless runners may be a vast category, much like the first-person shooter genre is on the consoles and the PC.

You can run as a ninja, a ballerina, or a zombie. You can jump up to higher levels to avoid the bulls, and threats come to you from behind or ahead of you. You can smash through signs and knock down other humans, including your friends. If you’re good enough, you can ride on top of the bulls and destroy everything in your path. You can run down an alley and take a short cut.

It requires split second timing, or you have to start over. If you want to keep running, you eventually have to pay coins to do so. And that’s one way that Zynga monetizes the game. Zynga also inserts ads into the game. You can pay to do without them, Boatman said.

There is plenty of other competition. Imangi has launched its Temple Run and Temple Run 2 games. The latter got 50 million downloads in two weeks. Disney also teamed up with Imangi to launch Temple Run: Brave and Temple Run: Oz. Those games, along with Zynga’s, will test whether the category has legs as Cooper believes, or if the market will get saturated.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Those gifted with new mobile devices this holiday season have a world of fun awaiting their fingertips — maybe too much fun. Thousands of games have been made available over the years, especially since iOS and Android have increased in popularity, making the selection process frustrating for those navigating Google Play, the App Store, or the Amazon App Store for the first time. Well, consider this list of the best mobile games your saving grace. We’ve compiled a source for mobile gaming based on user friendliness, accessibility, and more importantly, fun factor. Whether you have an iPhone, iPad, Galaxy device, or Kindle Fire, these games are waiting for your attention. Think of this list as a beginner’s guide to gaming on your mobile device.

Plants vs. Zombies

Developer: PopCap Games
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

Plants vs. Zombies still stands as one of the more addictive games I’ve played. Ever. The object of PvZ is to protect your home from a hoard of zombies that hungrily make their way across your yard. All that stands in their way are plants curiously armed for your war against the living dead.

Specifically, the plants are equipped with a variety of weapons, such as projectile peas. Other plants eat zombies while cherry bombs blow them to deader than dead bits. The more plants you create, the better your chance at survival. You must position your plants strategically, or the game will end rather quickly.

Cut the Rope

Developer: Chillingo Ltd.
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

Cut the Rope is disgustingly cute. How so? A piece of candy hangs on a rope over an adorable little monster, and the player must swipe to break the candy free and drop it into the creature’s mouth. His smile is priceless. He’s a happy, goofy-looking little beast named Om Nom.

Cut the Rope’s puzzles are mostly based on physics and timing. For instance, the candy may be hanging from two or three ropes. The order in which you cut them becomes a strategic decision, and timing a cut perfectly so that the treat lands in Om Nom’s mouth can prove tricky. Some of the tougher parts incorporate elements such as hungry spiders that also want the treat, forcing the player to act quickly while still trying to carefully plan moves. More often than not, you’ll retry a level in the hope of feeding the little guy a candy so you don’t have to see his pouty face. It’s heartbreaking, and you can’t help but feel overwhelmed with guilt every time you fail.

Infinity Blade and Infinity Blade II

Developer: Chair Entertainment
Platform: Apple App Store

Infinity Blade is the first iOS game developed using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, and it looks beautiful. It’s truly a showcase of what can be accomplished visually on a mobile device with the right resources, and it’s not far from what current consoles are capable of.

You walk through a castle fighting monsters using simple left, right, and swipe gestures to dodge, block, or attack your enemy. These controls work well with touch screens because they don’t rely on precision finger movements. Instead, the player must focus on timing and pattern recognition to win. It’s Punch-Out!! with shields, swords, ogres, and knights.

Angry Birds series

Developer: Rovio
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

I admit that every time a new Angry Birds game hits the download market, I pretend I’m too cool to be interested. How many times can Rovio reskin the same game? Then I pick it up, and I’m hooked. Angry Birds is arguably the most popular mobile game around right now, and for good reason. It’s no wonder the developers keep releasing sequels and making Angry Birds available on every thinkable platform because even when you want to hate it, you have to admit it’s fun.

The object of the birds’ anger are evil green pigs that have stolen their eggs. The player’s job is to slingshot the birds into said pigs’ fortresses, rendering them dead and bacon. You have a limited number of birds per level, and you must find clever ways to efficiently eliminate all the pigs before advancing. The puzzles are physics-based, so players have to calculate distance and trajectory to win. You’ll often find that what was supposed to be a few minutes of playtime can become an hour or more of slaughtering hogs and cursing at the touch screen.

Draw Something

Developer: Omgpop
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

Draw Something was one of the first mobile games to bring a social element to the general public thanks to its Facebook integration. In fact, the social network is very likely the reason Draw Something became so huge. It’s easy to sign up for because most of us have a Facebook account. It’s also very accessible to nongamer types since drawing is a basic skill, which eliminates the need to learn complicated control schemes or rules to enjoy the game.

One player is given a word and must do his best to represent it in a drawing by using his device’s touch screen. Then, he sends it to the other person, who must guess the word based on his (usually horrible) illustration. You can be playing against several friends at once, and it’s not unusual to have 10 or more games going at any given time. Keep in mind that it may be hours or even days before a friend gets back to you with a reply. The only downside to any of these social games is that you are forced to rely on others if you want to play. Once the initial popularity dwindles, it’s a little harder to find opponents.

Rayman Jungle Run

Developer: Ubisoft
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

Ubisoft is one of those top-tier gaming companies that wasn’t afraid even early on to invest in development and publishing for mobile platforms. Rayman Jungle Run was picked by Apple as its best game of 2012. Luckily, Rayman is multiplatform, so Android users don’t have to sit this one out.

Rayman Jungle Run is what’s called an autorun game. The character — in this case, Rayman — continuously runs through the levels. The movement is out of your control. It’s the player’s job to jump, glide,, or attack at the right moment. This genre has grown in popularity on mobile devices because it brings elements of traditional run and jump games (often called platformers) yet keeps gameplay simple enough so that users aren’t annoyed by sloppy touch-screen controls.

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Smartphone and tablet apps are a major priority for entertainment giant Disney. Bart Decrem has been leading the charge into mobile games since Disney bought his startup Tapulous two years ago. Now Decrem is heading all of Disney’s mobile gaming efforts and he has had a string of hits, from Where’s My Water? to Temple Run Brave. In fact, this week, Disney had all three of the top paid apps in the Apple iTunes App Store. That’s an exceedingly rare occurrence, since top apps come and go often.

But Decrem has even bigger ambitions. He wants mobile games to spawn new characters who could become the basis of new Disney-wide characters. It might seem like it would be easy for film makers and TV show creators to dismiss characters such as Swampy from Where’s My Water? But Swampy is reaching millions of people, particularly a new generation of kids, through more relevant devices than other top Disney characters. Some day, Decrem may find the Mickey Mouse of mobile games.

Decrem spoke with Eric Eldon, co-editor of TechCrunch, in a fireside chat at GamesBeat 2012. Here’s an edited transcript of the talk.

Eldon: Your games have become the top three paid apps in the iPhone App Store, which is obviously an extremely difficult thing to do. So you were telling me backstage that you were coming up on a big milestone, what was that?

Bart Decrem: Well, I just had my two-year anniversary at the Walt Disney Company, and then tomorrow [July 11] is a four-year anniversary on the App Store. The App Store went live on July 11, 2008. We had a little bit of activity before then, after the jailbreak, we started a company called Tapulous which ended up at Disney. But yes, tomorrow will be the four-year anniversary of hitting number one for the first time with Tap Tap Revenge.

Eldon: So before we get into the modern era of what you’re doing right now at Disney, walk us through a bit. The last session was talking about how hard it was to get off the ground and build these new characters. What did you do?

Eldon: Well, mid-2007, I think it was June 29, 2007, the iPhone came out, and I had gone through six different phones in the last twelve months before that. The iPhone came out and I said, ‘Wow, this thing is it, this is going to be different.’ Almost by October of that year, the phone got jailbroken, and you could download these little apps through something like the App Store. I started doing that, and people in China started doing that massively, because it was the only way you could get an iPhone in China. By December of 2007, you could see this little ecosystem of hundreds of apps showing up. I was there with a couple of friends and we all said this was going to be big. We don’t know what’s going to be big, but it’s going to be about building apps on this platform, it’s going to be about building a community. In January 2008 we started the company. We put out three apps when the App Store went live, a little app that let you connect on Twitter and Facebook, and we had a photo-sharing app, and then we had a game called Tap Tap Revenge that came out in those jailbreak days. That went to number one on July 11, and we woke up as an accidental game company. Tap Tap Revenge became the first brand born on the App Store.

Eldon: How did you take it from this one hit that happened to blow up, you said it was an accident. Just walk us through the last four years. Because this is really important for a lot of different developers who aren’t with Disney right now. They’re building their own games.

Decrem: A thing that we were talking about is, when do you move on to the next title, and when do you sort of double down and tough it out? In the case of Tap Tap Revenge, we were just talking backstage. The game sat at number one on July 11, but by mid-August it was dropping down the charts, sitting at number 47 or something like that. We were about to give up on the game and focus on this app called Twinkle, a social app to connect on Facebook.

And then Apple did their fall announcement. At their event, Steve Jobs started showing off the new iPod Touches, and they were using these screenshots of Tap Tap Revenge. It ended up in all the Apple stores, all the marketing materials, you’d see Macy’s ads for the iPod Touch with Tap Tap Revenge. The game came back, and we kept doing upgrades and updates and adding new content to it. It became an institution, it became an evergreen, and that’s how we figured out that the App Store is basically. The closest thing to it is YouTube, and apps are by and large consumable. The entertainment experience is, go on YouTube, check out what’s new, play a few videos, talk to your friends about a couple of them, and maybe bookmark one of those videos. Go to the App Store, see what’s new, download a couple of things, play one or two, delete most of it, talk to your friends about it. It’s the same thing. So in a world where there’s half a million apps or more, how do you build things that are not consumable, that stick around? We were able to do that with Tap Tap Revenge. And then, for me, the hardest thing was doing it again. Certainly for me it took a couple of years to figure out how to build another hit. If you look at Rovio, they’ve been at it for a couple of years, their second title’s coming out Thursday.

Eldon: They’ve had some expansions, though, they’ve had some follow-ups.

Decrem: That’s right. But that’s evolving the franchise, like we’ve done with Tap Tap. There’s a playbook for that one, right? Once you’ve got a hit and you can make it be relevant for more than a couple of weeks, then you can do the expansions. We’ve done it with Tap Tap Revenge, you’ve seen it with Angry Birds, Where’s My Water?, Where’s My Perry? Building a new IP, building a new brand, is hard, and I feel like we’re now getting the swing of it at Disney.

Eldon: What had worked for you before you had this massive repository of Disney characters to draw upon?

Decrem: Well, in my case, we had one hit and we doubled down on it the same way Rovio has with Angry Birds. We invested in Tap Tap Revenge, and it took a number of trials, creating new IP. But also, at Disney, taking existing Disney characters and building hit games. Disney was at it a couple of years before we hit it big with Where’s My Water?

What happened, actually, for me, was not unlike what Dean was talking about, about a year ago, sitting down with a guy named John Pleasants, who is my boss, and saying, I don’t feel like it’s working. I don’t feel that we’re winning. What should I do differently? He said, well, you’re trying to do too many things, you’re trying to think about strategy and all this other stuff. Why don’t you focus on building great games, and then everything else will take care of itself? There was a small team in our LA studio that had built this very simple little game. You could feel the fun in it. What we did is we just supported the team, we didn’t let people distract them, we gave them the time that they needed. They had the mechanic, but we asked them the one question, it’s the Disney question, it’s what makes us special, and I do think it’s what drives the success of our games…

Eldon: Just to back up a little bit, how do you figure out which Disney characters and franchises to build around? How do you work with people in other parts of the company who have these other ideas about the art and how it should be used? Some of these characters have obviously been around for decades and have a lot of brand value to them.

Decrem: It’s a simple question, and I was just getting to it. You start with a thing that you do with your finger, you start with what you call a core mechanic. What’s the fun thing that you’re doing? In the case of Where’s My Water?, the fun thing was, you cut through dirt with your fingers to get water to go somewhere. That’s the fun. And then we asked, the one question was, why are you doing that? What’s going on here? And so then the team thought about it, we said, well, we think there are seeds down there, if you give them water, they’ll sprout. But nothing interesting came from that.

And then one day Tim FitzRandolph, the game-maker, came and said, we think there’s an alligator down there. He wants to take a shower. There’s alligators in the sewer below the big city, we all know that story. So we said, well, that’s interesting because it’s funny and unexpected, and alligators aren’t necessarily cute when you think about them. So we went with that idea. To answer your question, it’s about finding the fun in a game, the core thing that you do, and then we ask ourselves, why are we doing that, what world is this taking place in, where does it fit?

Traditionally, when you look at entertainment companies, they do it the other way around. There’s a movie coming out, it’s called blah blah blah, you need to build a game and it needs to ship that day. That’s a recipe for shipping a poor-quality game. You’re shipping against the date and you’re building a game based on a character and a world. If you want to build a great game, you’re going to first figure out the fun, and then figure out what world it takes place in and ship it when it’s ready. By doing it in that sequence, it’s how we build successful games and that’s how we figure out what IP to use. When we started Where’s My Water?, we didn’t have a bias for or against Disney characters. We just asked, what’s going on here? And the answer was an alligator. It was a new alligator, so we went with that. Sometimes it’s a new Disney character and sometimes it’s an existing one.

Eldon: You’ve also been developing some original IP. How do you communicate that with the rest of Disney? You have all these different marketing channels, all these brand departments. How do you bring that together with the rest of the company?

Decrem: Disney is good at two things. At our best — and we’re frequently at our best, if not always — we create amazing entertainment experiences. And more often than not, there’s a character in the world and story that rolls out of it. Like any Pixar movie, Brave, that’s what we do at our best. We do that, and then the second thing that Disney does, we then blow it out on a global scale with a massive marketing machine and distribution power.

So that’s what we’re trying to do on the App Store. We’re trying to build really exceptional quality gaming experiences, and then you want to market them and use the global platform of the Walt Disney Company. The way that connects with the company is that we tell folks, hey, we’re trying to build a business, we’re trying to build awesome games, you’re trying to build awesome TV shows, you’re trying to build amazing park experiences, you’re trying to build awesome movies. That’s what we’re doing. We have a character here that fits with this game and presents an opportunity to work together, or you’ve got a character that fits our game, let’s work together. That’s the conversation, and Disney is about IP creation, so they understand that commitment to quality. That’s how we engage. What happened when Where’s My Water came out, people just loved the game. And because they loved the game, they wanted us to make a T-shirt for it, they wanted it to show up somewhere else. And you go from there.

Eldon: It’s fascinating for me, having been covering this stuff since I was back with Dean at VentureBeat. Having seen the Playdom acquisition go down, I think both Playdom and Playfish, there’s a lot of doubt, it’s all about growth numbers and monetizing right now. There was a lot of skepticism at the time, about both of those acquisitions, saying that it’s not about the character. What’s happening now in the App Store? A lot of developers are complaining that it’s harder to get users, the top rankings aren’t changing as much. Is this natural maturity, is this what Apple wants?

Decrem: I’ve been at this for almost five years, come November. I think it’s an amazing platform. I still think it’s a blank canvas, I still think we’re trying to figure out how to connect and craft amazing entertainment experiences. And I think it’s such an egalitarian platform.

Eldon: Having a hit helps…

Decrem: Yeah. But if you look at the App Store, tomorrow Tiny Wings 2 is launching. That’s a dude. Maybe it’s five people out in Germany. But that’s the thing that may push us out of one or two tomorrow. There’s no big machine behind it. He doesn’t have an Apple relationship manager. It’s a dude in Germany. And it’s because Apple and Steve Jobs built a platform that’s kind of magical. The iPhone, the iPad, people think this is a magical device. And then Apple did a really amazing job curating the App Store and showcasing the good stuff. So now people want the good stuff. I think the good stuff still wins. Because we’re Disney, because you’re Rovio, and you have that kind of distribution power, then you will go to number one, you will go high on the charts.

But you’re not going to stay there if you don’t have an exceptional experience. It depends on what’s going on in the App Store. This is a great moment, for us to have those top three spots. It’s very special, and hopefully we can make it last a little bit longer. But we’re trying to find our formula, and our formula I think is going to be about finding passionate audiences for games that are truly great. Dean was talking about this for Rovio, about building something that you’re really proud of. And then the other half is, live in the world of the data. That’s what you get from Facebook or Playdom or Playfish. The power of numbers and analytics and understanding who your users are and understanding how you can make people come back the next day. There’s real power there as well. We’re trying to combine the science as well as the art.

Eldon: You have your own launch coming tomorrow, right? Tell us how you’re thinking about that.

Decrem: Well, we’ve got a big launch of a really big game that’s coming up, tomorrow night. I’m not supposed to disclose it, but it is an anniversary…[The game was Tap Tap Revenge: Tour].

Eldon: Before we open up to questions, what advice would you have for guys who are trying to get in now, just one developer or a small team, they have that one hit and they’re not sure what to do next? What can you tell them besides, hope you get featured by Apple?

Decrem: Well, we got featured by Apple because we built a great game. It worked that way for us. I remember when we were at Tapulous, calling Apple and trying to get featured, and we didn’t have a relationship manager, nobody knew who to call, people would tell us to go away, and they get a little bit cranking if you push too hard at them. I tried that. So we learned.

But Apple will come to you, they will feature you, and Apple featuring is important. There are other distribution channels, and I’m a little less binary about them. Free App a Day, and there’s other user acquisition channels, and I don’t have anything against them. I think there’s a way to use these things in a strategic way. But again, what I said earlier, if you build a great game, it will float to the top and you don’t necessarily have to do crazy machinations. It’s not mechanistic like that.

Play Draw Something, it’s a simple game, it’s really powerful. But then you look at, say, Tiny Wings, it’s one guy, doesn’t have a fancy business model around it, but it’s beautifully done, it has a sense of power and passion behind it. I’ve got a couple of guys who left Tapulous around the time of the acquisition, they put out three games. One of them was a zombie game, one was a first-person shooter game, and the other one was a kids’ game. They all went to number one. I said, dude, what did you do, what’s your vision, what’s your strategy? He said, I don’t know, we just built these games that we love. And he did. It does work when you do that. That’s the most exciting thing, and it is the key to success.

Question: We believe there’s a huge untapped potential for transmedia games. Our experience so far has been that TV and film guys don’t really understand how character and story work in games. And games guys don’t really understand how character and story work in film. How do you bridge that gap?

Decrem: Well, I remember my first meeting at Disney Channel, it was actually a really great one. We said, look, we’ve got this game called Where’s My Water, it’s at number one on the App Store for a couple of weeks, and we think we should make a TV show around this. And one of the guys said, you know, that’s so insulting. Because they had Phineas and Ferb. That didn’t come out of nowhere, they thought about that, they thought about those characters they developed and that world for ten years. They were dying to tell that story. And that’s why the TV show is so good.

When we came in there and said, hey, build me a TV show… We just didn’t understand what it takes to build quality television and be successful. And then we said, alright, what’s on your mind? Well, they said, we’ve got this TV show called Phineas and Ferb, we think you should build a couple of iPhone games for it. And I said, that’s so insulting. [big laughs] When we build a game, it starts with a mechanic, we sweat over that thing. What we’re trying to do at Disney is bridge those worlds. When you look at Where’s My Water, there are guys from the animation studios that help figure out what that character is and how you draw it. They literally wrote the book on animation and character animation, the little stories in there… We do that cross-fertilization. But in general, the reason that most media companies have not succeeded in gaming is because of that, and a lot of game characters don’t cross over to other media because of that. So that’s a core challenge, and very few people pull it off.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

If you made plans for your weekend, you might want to kiss them goodbye.  Apple yesterday released its iTunes Rewind 2011 list, with the 40 top  iPhone and iPad apps of the year. The iTunes store now has more than 500,000 apps in it, but  this year’s top apps list shows that fun is the dominant theme. Games and social networking tools dominated, and photo sharing tool Instagram was chosen as the No. 1  app of the year.

People can’t get enough of Instagram. Since launching in October of 2010, the app has acquired over 13 million users. On the iTunes Store, the app has been rated by more than 207,000 people who give it 3.75 stars out of four.

Apple’s top apps list still has many other fun services and games to choose from. Some you know and love, others might be new. Don’t be surprised if your Saturday and Sunday disappear as you check out a few of the games you might have missed out on earlier in the year. It definitely happened to me over Thanksgiving weekend when I downloaded Tiny Wings for the iPhone. And now the list, without further ado:

Top Paid iPhone Apps

1. Angry Birds
2. Fruit Ninja
3. Angry Birds Seasons
4. Cut the Rope
5. Tiny Wings
6. Angry Birds Rio
7. Words With Friends
8. Camera+
9. Doodle Jump
10. Plants vs. Zombies

The top 10 paid iPhone apps were all games, with the exception of Camera+, a photo app with tons of cool filters. Angry Birds claimed the top spot, and it’s no surprise. 2o11 was the year Angry birds went from a niche meme to a full on cultural phenomenon. Making an unlikely appearance on the Top 10 list is Doodle Jump, a basic but “insanely addictive” platformer that first appeared on the iPhone nearly two years ago.

Top Free iPhone Apps:

1. Facebook
2. Pandora Radio
3. Words with Friends Free
4. Angry Birds Free
5. Skype
6. Netflix
7. Angry Birds Rio Free
8. Groupon
9. Fruit Ninja Lite
10. Twitter

The top free apps were dominated by games and social networking services. Facebook took the top slot, and it has has been the most popular iOS app for some time by a comfortable margin. More than 350 million people access Facebook through a mobile device, and it is the most popular  iPhone app of all time. Pandora is another heavy favorite for iPhone users, and Twitter, which was integrated into iOS 5, is an app that has become part of the mobile phone experience. No real surprises here.

Top Paid iPad Apps:

1. Angry Birds HD
2. Pages
3. Angry Birds Seasons
4. GarageBand
5. Angry Birds Rio HD
6. Penultimate
7. Fruit Ninja HD
8. Cut the Rope HD
9. SCRABBLE for iPad
10. Keynote

The top iPad apps showed a little more bias towards productivity and work, with Apple’s publishing tool Pages, and presentation designer Keynote making their way to the top 10. Overall, iPad owners still love their games. Cut The Rope HD and Fruit Ninja were still in the running, capturing people’s imagination on both the iPad and the iPhone.

Top Free iPad Apps

1. Angry Birds HD Free
2. The Weather Channel for iPad
3. Netflix
4. CNN App for iPad
5. Angry Birds Rio HD Free
6. Kindle
7. Skype for iPad
8. Calculator for iPad Free
9. Pandora Radio
10. Calculator Pro for iPad Free

The free iPad apps category shows the most diversity, with a mixture of games, such as Angry Birds Rio, a calculator app, and even the app designed for the Weather Channel. Pandora, Kindle and Netflix are all on the list, showing that people love their iOS devices for play and media, even when they can help get a lot of work done.

The answer: Yes. All of these make great games, and the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad will play them.

Apple’s iOS devices and operating system have proven to be a popular and disruptive force in gaming. Games of all stripe compete in the same marketplace; there are games for just about every type of gamer – and non-gamer – out there. From simple to complex, intuitive to intelligent, iOS games are the next big thing to happen in the gaming world. Since there are more than 100,000 titles to choose from, we thought it might be fun to take a moment here to look at our picks for the top ten iOS games from 2011.

Dead Space for iPad
Released: Jan 24, 2011
Platforms: iPad & iPhone
Seller: Electronic Arts
The idea that mobile gaming is not competition for dedicated handhelds like the DS or the Sony PSP continues to become more and more outdated, as can be seen with this early 2011 release for the iPhone and the iPad, Dead Space, from game publishing titan Electronic Arts (EA). It’s not a port of the console game, but a sequel set three years after the events in the original. This was the first game that found us just as terrified as we were in the original, with a touch-based combat system that, while initially clunky, does its job and gets out of the way. A fully immersive console-quality game like Dead Space available on your smartphone? Sign us up! The best platform to play this on, however, is the iPad – with the faster processor and bigger screen, Dead Space for iPad shines. Well, as much as a game set in the dark scary vastness of space and the dark stay claustrophobic corridors of a destroyed spaceship can shine. And that’s just the thing. This game scared the crap out of us, both in the creepy settings and jump out at you monsters as well as in the sound design alone. The little creaks, not-quite-far-enough-away scuttling sounds, and distant roars of unknown horrors really take this from third person shooter port to something approaching gaming nirvana.

Jetpack Joyride
Released: Sept 1, 2011
Platform: Universal App
Seller: Halfbrick Studios
Canabalt may have been the indie darling that popularized the endless running genre, but Jetpack Joyride, from industry veterans Halfbrick Studios, is the current ruler of the roost. With so much to do, see, and play in this well designed and just darn fun to play game, it’s easy to get spoiled and just forget there are other endless runners out there. They’re all left in the dust, though, as Jetpack Joyride continues to ride the top of the iOS charts. Halfbrick’s mascot hero Barry Steakfries gets a jetpack in this game, and he uses it to fly through a scientist-filled corridor, full of randomly generated and placed obstacles, like missiles, lasers, and electric wires. Like all endless runners, the sheer speed built up over time becomes its own hazard. Lucky for us, there are other vehicles Barry can pick up along the way, including the motorcycle from Halfbrick’s earlier Steakfries feature, Monster Dash, a cleverly named wing-folding avian, Profit Bird, and a giant mechanical dragon named Mr. Cuddles. There’s an in game marketplace where players can upgrade the jetpack and other vehicles along with purchasing clothing, heads & body styles for the perfect sartorial elegance as well as power ups, known as utilities. These are earned in slot machine mini games played after each level, which are themselves powered by chips picked up within the levels. Players are also presented with challenges, called missions, that include things like getting 500M without collecting coins, or slide a total of 50M on your face. These each earn stars, which then become player levels (“beginner,” “rookie,” etc.). Did I mention there’s a lot to do here? That, the offbeat humor and the simple one touch control system make this a game to return to again and again, if only to see what’s next down the corridor.

Tiny Wings
Released: Feb 18, 2011
Platform: iPhone
Seller: Andreas Illiger
Here’s one of the big success stories of the App Store – one guy, Andreas Illiger, the sole developer of an iOS game, hits it big on his own. Tiny Wings is the pinnacle of the one tap game. Players start the game and the day itself as a sleeping bird, waking it up with a tap. The sun comes up and the bird begins to move, relying on a single tap from the player to fold the little bird’s wings in, reducing drag and causing it to fall, timing each fall with a dip in the wavy rolling hills of each level, or island. When timed right, the bird gains a burst of speed and height, even soaring above the clouds at times. The resulting game play is a fine dance between perfect timing and rhythm, with the aim being to get the bird as far as possible within one day. There are coins and other special items to pick up along the way, as well as achievements for distance and/or perfect timing. It’s precisely this simplicity and nuanced game play that critics and consumers alike keep coming back to again and again, the former as a rallying cry for (or against) the simplicity of the iOS platform, and the latter laying their money down in ever-increasing numbers. It’s a perfect example of the disruptive power of the App Store, allowing one designer/developer to refine an idea to a high gloss, then actually profit from the hard work put into the game.

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
Released: March 23, 2011
Platform: Universal
Seller: Capybara Games
Developed by Independent Game Finalists, Superbrothers, and published by Capybara Games Studio (Critter Crunch, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes), Superbrothers: Sword & Sorcery EP is a beautiful looking and sounding adventure game with a distinct story, retro-odd art direction and fabulous soundtrack by Jim Guthrie of Pink Floyd’s The Wall fame (he co-produced and sound engineered the concept album). What makes this one of the best games on the platform? The story is captivating, subtle, non linear, and fairly incomprehensible. The artwork is blocky, pixellated, yet somehow beautiful. The music is ambient and moody, supporting every moonlit path, every momentary pause, every significant story beat. The characters – Girl, Logfella, The Archetype – are all both less and more than the sum of their dialogue and visual design. There’s something happening here, but we’re never really sure what it is, or, at least, what it means. Combat is achieved by rotating the iOS device and tapping the shield or sword icon. Three-eyed wolf beasts are typical foes, though there are others. The player analogue – The Scythian – wonders aloud at many of the scenes and the half-familiar items within it, while also hearing the voices of the other characters. This though dialogue rounds out the divine absurdity of the game, like a dream only partially remembered after waking. Yes, all of that makes this game special and unique, sure to earn a place on every gamer’s device.

World of Goo HD
Released: April 13, 2011
Platform: Universal
Seller: 2D BOY
Yes, World of Goo originally appeared on the Wii and the PC, way back in 2008. The 2D physics puzzler received tons of accolades, but it wasn’t until it appeared on iOS devices that the tactile theme was fully realized. As any fan of the game knows, solving the puzzles of each level requires picking up “goo balls” of various physical composition and arranging them to get to the end of the level, where they are sucked into a large collection container. Using the Wii remote could be more frustrating than solving any particular level, but even the precision abstraction of a computer mouse doesn’t quite get the same level of tactile joy there is in actually grabbing the goo balls with a tap and drag on the iPad, our preferred gaming device for this game. World of Goo is the same gameplay, the same 48 levels as the console and PC versions, but it feels ever so much better to play on our mobile device. The soundtrack is as full of whimsy as the art direction, and is available as a free download by developer and composer Kyle Gabler. Again, this is one of those must-have apps. We show it off all the time, and play it almost as often.

Gem Keeper
Released: October 13, 2011
Platform: Universal
Seller: NCsoft
Tower Defense games are a dime a dozen on the App Store, and there are quite a few good ones, to boot. Gem Keeper, by well-known massively multiplayer online game developer NCSoft (Lineage, Guild Wars I & II), manages to stand above the crowd of solidly good Tower Defense games this year by offering high quality production values, solid gameplay and mechanics, and just the right blend of genre staples to keep players coming back for more. Games of this type of Tower Defense typically include wave after wave of baddies, or creeps, who come in from one side of the screen and follow a fixed path to the goal (generically known as the tower) while the player must place defensive structures (towers) along that path to keep the baddies from reaching the goal. In Gem Keepers, some towers can be placed on movable platforms, which can then be slid back and forth along finite rails, adding another level of strategy to the game. The creeps aim to get to the end goal, steal gems from the tower or towers there, and head back to the entrance of the maze, a game element borrowed from some other dungeon defense titles but polished to a high sheen here, with several strategic elements taking into account this entry and exit strategy.

Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing
Released: June 22, 2011
Platform: Universal
Seller: SEGA
While we won’t see Nintendo’s flagship mascot on iOS any time soon, Sega has jumped into the world of the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad with abandon. Their main man, Sonic, is present on no fewer than three titles from the gaming giant, including a port of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, a remake of the original game (Sonic The Hedgehog 4, episode 1) and our current game of discussion, Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing. This kart racer features the speedy blue hedgehog and many other beloved Sega characters – including Tails, Dr. Robotnik, the Chu Chu Rocket mouse, Ryo Hazuki from Shenmue, and many others – racing along tracks inspired by the selfsame classic Sega games. This game makes all other kart racing type games on iOS in the dust, with solid controls, a nice drifting mechanic and vibrantly fun visuals optimized for the Retina Display on devices that support it. With online play and Game Center support, it’s easy to jump into a kart race with friends or random strangers. Kart racing is here on iOS, brought to you courtesy of the big blue guy with the huge shoes – why does he need a race car, anyway?

Star Legends
Released: August 25, 2011
Platform: Universal
Seller: Spacetime Studios
We’re adding this one to the list because it’s the first original massively multiplayer online game (MMO) that got things right. Well, that’s not quite it. Spacetime Studios used the MMO engine in an earlier game, Pocket Legends, which blew us all away with the online real-time synchronous fantasy themed role-playing game. The problem was one of depth, as they built it up from what seemed originally to be a tech demo. While Pocket Legends is now fun in its own right, Star Legends: The Blackstar Chronicles sprang forth fully formed, unleashed upon iOS and Android gamers alike, allowing both platforms to play together on the same servers, a coup by any measure. Originally created for the PC, The Blackstar Chronicles got stuck in development for many years due to lack of funding support, until the team was able to buy the rights to the intellectual property (IP) and begin work on it for iOS. While this is an MMO, it’s designed for mobile platforms, allowing gamers to hop in, complete a quest or two, and hop out; it never feels to demanding. The controls are solid, the visuals and user interface is easy to figure out, and there are tons of quests and story lines to follow, some of which truly push the boundaries of iOS MMO storytelling. We’re enamored, and think you will be, too.

Real Racing 2 HD
Released: March 11, 2011
Platform: iPad
Seller: Firemint
Firemint has truly created the simulation racer above all others for the iOS platform with Real Racing 2 HD. It looks simply stunning: full of lens flares, reflective surfaces and the sensation of speed. It’s like the Forza of iOS, truly, including 30 licensed cars like the BMW z4 M Coupe, the Chevrolet Corvette c6 Zr1 and Ford Shelby Mustang GT500, just to name a few. The game is made to run on the iPad 2, using the extra horsepower to run the CPU heavy game. The ability to wirelessly stream the game from the iPad 2 to an AppleTV connected high def television set brings the game to a new level of cool, showing many of us the future of iOS gaming. We prefer this game on the small screen, however, as we’re mobile gamers at heart. Regardless, the racing is classic – purchase a car, win races, then buy better cars and enhancements with the proceeds. Fans of less-arcade, more-realistic racing – as well as those wishing to experience the state of the art in iOS games – should definitely try this one out.

Casey’s Contraptions HD
Released: May 18, 2011
Platform: Universal
Seller: Snappy Touch
With the success of Angry Birds, physics puzzle games are all the rage. Thankfully, this indie gem doesn’t copy, rather, it innovates in an already crowded genre space on the iOS platform. Gamers must use eight year old Casey’s 30 different toys across 72 levels to solve the deceivingly simple puzzles. Similar to Scribblenauts, there are many different ways to achieve the outcome of each level, with no specific way being the “correct” one. Players will find joy in the simple pleasures of playing, experimenting, and finding ever more interesting and unique ways to get from point a to point b. much like the PC game, The Incredible Machine. Supporting this “try it and see” ethos is the ability to see shared level solutions from Game Center friends as well as Casey’s own three star solution. Get stuck? See what other gamers and friends have done. An included Level Editor feature kicks it up another notch, as well. Bright, vibrant colors and solid physics modeling keep us coming back time and again to the game, showing folks new to the platform one of the must-have titles in the iOS gaming space.

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