Game Type: Puzzle, Casual

Price: Free; $0.99 for ad-free version

Get It: If you enjoy word games and casual puzzle games like Bejeweled

I have to admit that when I think about Android games, I tend to focus on the ones that keep my kids entertained. But lately I’ve been hogging the phone for myself so I can play Dropwords.

This game is sort of a cross between Bejeweled, Scrabble, and a word search. You start with a grid of letter blocks and find as many words as you can before the clock runs out. The letters can be touching in any direction—up or down, sideways, or diagonal—and you can keep switching directions. For example, you could go down, to the left, then up. Longer words earn higher scores and a time bonus. After you find a word, those letters disappear, the other blocks slide down, and new ones appear at the top.

If you get stuck, you can shuffle the tiles or discard them for a whole new set. There doesn’t seem to be any penalty for doing this, which seems a little odd to me.

Modes of play and customizing your game: In addition to choosing the size of your letter grid (four, five, or six letters down and across), you can choose from three themes and six modes of play, and you can decide whether to use the Scrabble dictionary, Webster’s, or both.

Choose letters by swiping or tapping; I find that swiping is faster but more likely to result in errors. If you make a mistake, go back and tap the previous, correct letter.

Modes of play include normal, hard, lightning (which gives you just a little time), blocker (which blocks off random locations across the board), relax (an easier mode), and untimed. High scores are tracked separately for each mode.

Ambiance: This game’s look and feel are OK; they aren’t quite as sleek as something like Angry Birds or Plants vs. Zombies, especially in the free, ad-supported version. But unlike those fancy-graphics games, it won’t take up a huge amount of space on your phone. And if the ads bother you, 99 cents for the “pro” version really isn’t bad.

Social networking: Like quite a few games and apps, Dropwords has recently added the option to connect with a community of game-playing friends. Signing up for this network gives you access to chats, circles, a leader board, and extra challenges.

My recommendation: Give Dropwords a try. And if your kids ask why you’re hogging the phone, claim that you’re reading an important e-mail from their school principal.

Note from Renee – I am pleased to introduce Tiara, who has agreed to do some app reviews for us! Her first review is for the game “Sleepy Jack“, which is getting excellent ratings in the Android Market. Let’s see what she thinks of it. Take it away, Tiara!

Game Type: Arcade, Casual

Price: $1.99

Get It: If you’re a casual or serious gamer who enjoys visually pleasing, arcade style games with whimsical themes

The game’s objective is simple. Every night as Jack sleeps his toys come to life in his dream world. You have to navigate Jack through his dreams and help him collect Z’s in order for him to get a good night’s rest. The game features three worlds: The Deep Space Dreambox, the Wild West Dreambox, and the Deep Sea Dreambox. Each world has a set of enemies and obstacles that are unique to it as well as unique weaponry that Jack can wield to destroy troublesome toys that wish to impede his sleep.

There are three ways to maneuver Jack in this game. Classic allows you to move Jack with an on screen directional pad. With slider, you move Jack by sliding your finger across the screen. Finally, you have the option of using the accelerometer to tilt the screen to move Jack. Each technique allows you to tap the screen to fire Jack’s weapons. Personally, I prefer either classic or slider, but all are easy to grasp without frustrating the player.

The first stage of the first level serves as an interactive tutorial with Jack’s favorite toy, Cordy (who also has a game on the market that you should check out), serving as the guide. In no time, even the most casual of players will be an expert at the controls. They’re smooth, intuitive, and easy to master leaving players more time to enjoy the game and less time wrestling with controlling it.

There are also three modes of play. There’s normal play, which has Jack collecting Z’s and defeating the attacking toys. There’s a musical style play where Jack travels on a “boombox jetpack” and has to pick up musical notes in order to keep moving while collecting Z’s. The last mode is an enemy free stage where Jack just speeds through picking up as many Z’s as he can as quickly as he can.

Jack’s dream worlds are beautifully rendered and wildly creative. Vivid coloring and crisp graphics make this visually appealing as you zoom through each level. The levels are so stunning that sometimes you do have to take a time out just to appreciate what you’re looking at. It’s almost impossible not to have fun playing this game. SilverTree Media has managed to capture a child’s fantastic worldview in digital format. It made me a bit nostalgic, reminding me of childhood days when I could see something wonderful and imaginative in mundane things

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This game will appeal to casual gamers and serious gamers. On easy, the game offers a very stress-free approach that won’t overwhelm the casual gamer. Easy is also a great mode to play when you just want to explore and appreciate Jack’s world a little more without the worry of losing. Normal and hard mode offer more of a challenge without making the game a cumbersome experience. Game results are submitted to OpenFeint, so there are a variety of achievements to obtain for those gamers (like me) who enjoy being “rewarded” for in-game accomplishments.

I purchased this app during the 10-day app sale on the market when certain apps were only $0.10 for the day. Initially, I bought this because, aside from the cheap price, I figured this would be something that I could use to keep my son entertained during car rides or while we were in places like the dentist’s waiting room even if I didn’t enjoy it. However, this game is absolutely worth the asking price. Combine the great game play and visuals with a high replay value and we have a winner!

In the last post in this series, we met Mélanie of Second Gear Games.

Now, we will meet the ladies with “the first female owned and run video game studio in Canada” – Silicon Sisters Interactive! They have developed a game for young teens called School26, which you can learn more about in this interview.

What is School26 and how did you come up with the idea for it?

Brenda Gershkovitch, CEO, Silicon Sisters: May 6 2010. I was at the Vancouver Video Game conference listening to Bill Mooney, VP of Zynga talk about video games. Zynga brought the world “Farmville” among other Facebook games, and was rumored to be valued higher than EA. The newcomer had overtaken the old guard, and I was listening closely.

Mooney said “games are about us playing out our fantasies,” and I found myself thinking of the games I’d made. Three Major league baseball games. Racing hot cars on the streets of Hong Kong. A physics game. None of these things were my fantasies. They were the fantasies of the predominant people in the games industry, they were male fantasies. What about female fantasy?

Silicon Sisters Interactive (www.siliconsisters.ca) was formed to do just that – to create high quality games targeted to the female audience. Games that are about more than shopping and fashion, but are truly aspirational, the female equivalent to sports games and racing games and shooters.

Our first game, School 26, is built for tween girls. There are so few high quality games built for that audience that we really wanted to create a quality offering there. The game focuses on the soft skills that are so important to how women and girls operate: negotiation, problem solving, and enhancing relationships. We wanted to build a game where you used those types of skills to win, and School26 delivered. There is a free to play version and a paid version available on Android Market for devices running 2.0 and up.

How did you learn what you needed to know to develop the game? (question edited)

Felicity Herst, Programmer, Silicon Sisters: I studied Computer Science at university where I learned the theoretical principles of software engineering, but not specifically how to program games. Even if I had studied game programming, Android didn’t exist 4 years ago when I was at school so I essentially had to teach myself on the job! The internet and other programmers have been a great resource for learning how to develop on Android.

Did you publish your app for Android first, or for another platform? Why did you choose to market it to Android users?

Felicity Herst: We released our first Android version at the same time as an iPhone and iPad version, having developed for both platforms simultaneously. School 26 is a casual mobile game so it made sense to have it on as many smartphones as possible. More recently we’ve noticed that Android is becoming pretty popular with School 26’s target audience of young teen girls, especially in Asia. And interestingly, our second biggest market is Saudi Arabia.

How have you reached out to your target audience to tell them about the game? Have you gotten a good response?

Brenda Gershokovitch: Silicon Sisters has a great press agent, and we’ve done exceptionally well in receiving press coverage. We’ve done interviews for new sites, blogs, and magazines all over the world including well known media sites such as the Guardian online, NPR, Elle magazine, and many of the gaming blogs like Kotaku and IGN. We were extremely fortunate to have been featured by Google on the Android market, which provided great exposure for the game.

As a female app creator, what is your overall impression of the app “world” as a whole – do you feel like a minority?

Felicity Herst: Having worked on big console videogames before this I’m used to being a minority, the only female in the room etc. I find the app world is somewhat similar but it’s easier to teach yourself and get into than the traditional game industry. Most of the Android programmers I know are men but I’ve been meeting more and more women who want to start making their own hobby apps or who have already released something, which is really cool.

The app scene is also a very diverse place where you can make anything you want and put it up on the Android Market, so I think that’s a great opportunity for minorities to express themselves by making something unique and personal. I try to make games that I would like to play myself, and since I’m female, that definitely impacts the type of thing I design and develop. That’s actually the goal of our game studio – women designing games specifically for girls and women.

Lauren Wood, Senior Game Designer, Silicon Sisters: Do I feel like a minority? Not at all. On the contrary, coming from the console world in which I struggled to find games that I truly connected with (as opposed to my male counterparts for whom the fourth quarter of the year was a time to take days off work to cope with the flood of male-oriented titles coming on the market), I find that there are a great number of mobile gaming apps that pique my interest. It’s an excitement that I recall from a childhood of gaming when game design was not too bloated with cinematic presentation, sprawling 3D worlds, endless dialogue and the requirement for 50+ hours of gameplay.

It’s not to say that women don’t engage with those experiences (I’m the world’s biggest Zelda fan!) but more often we’re wanting something that fits in with our lives – that is, typically something short and sweet with an intellectual edge or built-in social experience that fits into our commute or into our kids’ nap times. The mobile format has allowed us to escape the embellishments of the console era and brought well-crafted gameplay back into focus. I find that is advantageous to female users, who will find a great number of mobile titles accessible and interesting to them. As a developer, of course, this opens up our market too.

Does that impact what & how you design/develop your ideas?

Lauren Wood: Definitely. It’s almost a case of “anything goes”! If you can imagine a nugget of something that is compelling (for male or female users), you can develop a neat little feature out of it. The bite-sized nature of apps for the mobile platform allows developers to do a lot of R&D right now. It’s a great way of testing out groundwork for something larger further down the line at a fraction of the cost. It ultimately makes for better titles in the long run. You can’t really do that in the console market – one bad title and your franchise is toast!

How do other people react when they find out you have an app in the Android Market?

Lauren Wood: They think it’s cool. Other developers are usually interested in the technicalities of publishing, whereas non-developers tend to ask “What’s Android?” or ask about the app’s content or what specifically my job is. Generally speaking, the fact that it’s out there is met with a thumbs-up.

It’s exciting to be part of a community still sussing this thing out and paving the way for others to join in. And it’s always a kick to represent your industry to those who are being introduced to it for the first time and spread the word.

Do you have any advice for other women that have Android app ideas and are considering designing and/or developing an app?

Lauren Wood: You just never know what is going to stick in this market, so keep an open mind. Look at the app charts and marvel at the weird and wonderful array of brilliance and nonsense that people are buying. Try things out, don’t be afraid to follow a crazy idea. This is a great time to get creative and see some rewards for your efforts. Social media is key to promotion, which is something women are great at and can be used to great effect, so use it!

Felicity Herst: Jump right in! Don’t be intimidated or think you need somebody else to help you build your app idea. There are some great tools and examples out there to get you started regardless of whether you already know how to code, and the online Android community is an amazing resource to ask questions and learn from. Try out Google App Inventor, or PhoneGap if you already know how to build a website. Google some free tutorials and start making something! It’s the best way to learn. Before you know it you’ll be publishing to the Market

Kirsten Forbes (COO and co-founder), Lauren Wood (Senior Game Designer), Brenda Gershkovitch (CEO and co-founder), and Felicity Herst (Programmer)

So, we know about your team and your app, but we can’t help wondering, what’s behind the name “Silicon Sisters”?

Silicon Sisters is a bit of a play on words. Silicon is the chemical element that allows computers to run so quickly. Without it, we’d still be working on giant mainframes taking weeks to process simple requests. Silicon also makes us think of Silicon Valley, the hotbed of computer talent that birthed the modern era of computing, home to Hewlett Packard, Xerox/ PARC, Adobe, Apple, Yahoo, Palm, Google, etc. However, when we put the word “sister” close to the word Silicon, people automatically transform it into the word Silicone, the product used for breast implants. Why is that? Are we completely unable to think of women and computers in the same sentence? I just found it a fun way to poke fun at the technology gap. And no, none of us are enhanced in any way!

Where can we find more information about you & your app? Any last “plugs” you want to share?

Brenda Gershkovitch: School26 is available broadly now. Both the free to play and the paid version are on Android market, and available on Amazon.com for download on Android devices, including an HD version for Kindle Fire. The game is being released as we speak for PC and MAC through Oberon Media, and is available on iTunes for iTouch, iPad and iPhone as well.

If you enjoyed School 26, you can join our community on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter. Or, check out Silicon Sisters Interactive on Twitter, Facebook, or our website SiliconSisters.ca.

To those of you reading this interview, please support Silicon Sisters and check out the School 26 game in the Android Market, then come back and tell us and her what you think! If you are interested in becoming a developer and have any other questions for Kirsten, Lauren, Brenda, and Felicity, please comment below!

In our last post in this series, we met Jennifer Wong of Alt-12 games. Today, we meet another game developer, Mélanie Dompierre of Second Gear Games, makers of “Bubble Defense Free”, “Tropical Fish Shop”, and “Shopper’s Paradise”, to name a few.

Hi Mélanie! I see you have many successful apps in the Android Market, but for this interview, let’s focus on one you just updated in the market in November of this year, “Shopper’s Paradise HD”. How did you come up with the idea for Shopper’s Paradise, a game you describe as “Tower Defense meets Tycoon”?

Tower defense games are a popular genre, so it was not easy to find a fresh approach with so many of them on the market. And then I thought: “What if instead of killing poor dumb creeps the game could focus on something constructive like building a town or a shopping mall?” This is how towers became shops, and the ghouls were replaced by peaceful happy shoppers. And the only damage that is done in the game is to their wallets Also, I worked many years in retail industry as a store manager, so it was easy for me to introduce retail theme to the game.

Mélanie Dompierre of Second Gear Games

What was your involvement in the creation of this game? How did you learn how to do these things, did you go to school for it?

I was involved in this game on every stage of its creation, from early conceptual work to final balancing and testing. It is rare that a game like this is made by one person – it requires quite a diversity of skills and talents. In our case, we were lucky to have people with these skills among our family and friends. Not to forget James, the talented artist who worked on the second version of Shopper’s Paradise to help us improve the visual appeal of the game.

Making games is more of an art than science. I learned a lot from the process itself, trying to apply the lessons learned to each new game we make.

Screenshot from Shopper's Paradise HD

What is your target audience for Shopper’s Paradise, and how has it been received so far? Do you find you have a lot of female players? Do you think having a female on the development team makes the end-result more appealing to women?

This game was never intended specifically for female audience. However, women do download it more often than men (probably because of the title ) It was actually quite interesting to read the early comments, for example (I quote): “I’m a guy and I don’t think it should be called Shoppers Paradise. This game is a sweet strategy like the original ‘Lemonade Stand’ game. So fun!”

Overall, the game was received positively, as everybody can see by its rating. Its popularity actually exceeded my expectations. I do hope that the game’s appeal to women was the main reason for its success.

Did you publish your app for Android first, or for another platform? Why did you choose to market it to Android users?

The game came out on Android and BlackBerry almost at the same time. Both platforms are Java-based, both have a large installed base, so publishing on both was an easy decision. We have a long history of making apps for Android: we submitted our first Android app before the Market became available to general public. These days, Android is experiencing such an explosive growth that being present on this platform is a must for any developer.

How has your app publishing process changed over time? What was your first app, and what have you learned since that influences the design of future apps?

Our first game was actually created in Flash, long before smartphones became so ubiquitous. It was an easy transition for me: our games were always casual, and on-the-go style of mobile gameplay is a perfect match for this kind of game. What I learned is that you have to make your game easy to learn (ideally with no tutorial required) and with enough variety in the gameplay to keep players interested. Not an easy combination to achieve.

Do you have any advice for other women that have Android app ideas and are considering designing and/or developing an app?

Go for it! It is easy when you put your mind to it. I like challenges, and I was looking for a new career that I could do from home because we have two young kids at home with us, which some days is quite a challenge:) If you have enough passion and persistence, you can always find tutorials and tools no matter what your skill level is. If you don’t know anything about programming, look for visual design tools. If you need help with graphical design, visit online communities frequented by artists, and you might find somebody willing to participate in your project. As with anything else, if there is a will – there is a way.

Where can we find more information about you & your app? Any last “plugs” you want to share?

You may visit the Second Gear Games website, our Google+ page, or our Android portfolio. For our future project, I will keep you posted. We are working on something different this time.

Thanks for the interview, Mélanie!

To those of you reading this interview, please support Mélanie Dompierre and check out Second Gear Games in the Android Market, then come back and tell us and her what you think! If you are interested in becoming a developer and have any other questions for Mélanie, please comment below!

We’re starting a new series here on Women With Droids called “Female Faves”, where we pick a category of apps and feature the ones that are highest-rated and most-downloaded by women according to AppBrain’s “Popular Among: Women” filter. Since it would be difficult to fully test all of the apps every week, we won’t review all of them, but if you have or try any of them, please chime in in the comments!

So for our first Female Faves series post, we’ll take a look at Brain & Puzzle apps. Here we go!

Again, these are some of the highest-rated apps that are most popular among women according to AppBran – we don’t pick them! If these aren’t your favorites, tell us what yours are below!

Just wanted to collect some of the top-rated Christmas, holiday, and winter wallpapers, ringtones, and themed apps for you all. Click on the AppBrain widget links to read full descriptions and see screenshots, or click on “QR Code” and scan with your phone to download. Enjoy!

Wallpapers

Live Wallpapers

Apps

Ringtones

In these days of Iron Chef, Hell’s Kitchen, and other shows of the ilk it is no surprise that there is a plethora of cooking games on every device a person could play on. However, only a few stand up to more than a couple of tries without getting boring. Bistro Cook, therefore, surprised the heck out of me with it’s seductive combination of simple yet challenging gameplay. Is it the best game ever? No, but it will entertain you well when you just want to play something quick and distracting.

When you enter the game for the first time you should start with “Casual Gameplay” and go through the tutorial, which is fairly quick and explains everything adequately to begin. The rules are very simple, just look at the list of ingredients under the plate and fill the order. Most items need to be fried on one of the four frying pans on your stovetop while a few just need to be placed on the plate. You move ingredients around by tapping on the item you want (in the pantry area or frying pan) and then the plate, frying pan, or (if you burn something) the garbage can. While ingredients are frying there is a bar showing how cooked they are as well as cute animation of it growing from raw to cooked. For example, the egg whites on the egg start out translucent and grow white. The look of the whole game is very cute and casual but with nice touches like that. Another favorite is that the fish looks like a fish in the pantry then turns to a breaded filet when you put it in the pan. The rest I will leave for you to find out, if you are a fan of clever details you should enjoy discovering them.

In this mode, the aim is simply to fill the orders as quickly and accurately-fried as possible. Each plate is graded as a percentage of perfect and your final score is the number of orders you fill multiplied by the average quality percentage, multiplied by 10. The game ends when you have five orders in the cue and another one is placed (you can see how much time you have left until the next order by a yellow bar in the upper left corner).

“Easy” starts out with one-ingredient orders and eventually grows to two-ingredients then on to three after a long time and many dishes. “Medium” also starts with one-ingredient orders but the items increase more rapidly as does the speed the orders come in. “Hard” takes it to a whole new level with two-ingredient plates to start, three-ingredient plates soon after, and higher speeds still.

When you feel like you have mastered “Casual Gameplay” you may want to move onto “Adventure Mode”. Again, check out the tutorial for an overview of the differences in this mode. You are still trying to fill orders as quickly as you can but this time there are dollar values assigned to each order according to the ingredients’ values. Now, the percentage points you are awarded earn you that percentage of the money for the dish. Your score is the money you earn before the round ends in the same way as in “Casual Gameplay”.

The numbers on each pan represent it's frying speed.

What can you do with that money? One of the first things you may notice in this mode is you start with only one frying pan. At the bottom of the stove is a button that takes you into the store, where you can buy up to three more frying pans and upgrade each pan’s frying speed up to 4x. The high speeds obviously allow you to fill orders faster but they also make items burn at the same higher rate once they are past perfectly cooked. Even at double speed you may be surprised at how much more quickly they burn! If you are getting swamped you can also pay to have an order (or a few) removed from your queue.

This is why Bistro Cook is well worth a download. Picking  it up enough to enjoy it takes only minutes or even seconds but mastering “Adventure Mode” is a serious finger-tapping challenge.

This is not to say that there aren’t imperfections. One is a big pet-peeve of mine, it defaults to having the sounds on every single time you load it, even if you had sounds off the last time around. All this means is you need to click the “SFX Off” button but that makes a clicking sound, so it’s not an app to open when absolute silence is necessary. If you can leave them on, though, they are actually rather cute and the bell that rings when a new order comes in is handy.

Another problem is the back button on your phone does absolutely nothing in this game, so you can’t go back up a menu or exit a round using it. While in a round you can use the pause menu to go back to the main menu but if you want to get back to the main menu from the mode menu you have to enter the game and use the pause menu method. It’s annoying.

The biggest problem with it, though, is the game doesn’t allow for multitasking. Every time you leave the game, whether using another app or receiving a phone call, it will reload as if you just opened it for the first time. This means that if you are in the middle of a round and get a call you can’t continue where you left off, which can be frustrating if you are doing well. This happened once when I was on-track to get my highest score at the time.

Overall, this may not be one of the best games ever made but it’s a reliable time-waster for the moments you need one and rises well above most of the free games in the Android Market. It also fills a very popular but oddly-ignored-on-Android niche of casual gaming, time-management, which I am very grateful for. As Bistro Cook appears to be the debut game from Quasar Studios I look forward to seeing what they come up with next.

Tips

1. Veggies cook faster than other items.
2. Take advantage of items that don’t require frying by adding to all plates that need them while your stove is full.
3. The prices in “Adventure Mode” are based on the following ingredient prices:

• $3 – cabbage, tomatoes, bread
• $5 – fries, mushrooms, egg
• $7 – cheese
• $9 – chicken leg, sausages, fish, shrimp
• $10 – chicken breast, pork, meatballs
• $12 – beef

When I was a kid games were pretty simple. You could learn the rules in about 5 seconds and jump right in on mastering the straightforward skills required. Oh, they would take a lot of effort to master and some people are still pushing the envelope on high scores in those classics, but anyone could play and enjoy them without any preparation or even a tutorial. While I’ve grown up with the gaming industry and love a good involved RPG on my PS3 or complex simulation on my PC (to name some favorite examples), sometimes you just want to get back to the basics, especially on a phone.

Traffic Rush is basic. So basic there is one rule: Don’t let the cars crash. Two instructions: “Slide on the vehicle to accelerate it.” and, “Tap on the vehicle to stop it.”

Don’t you dare let that simplicity make you think that means the game is simple, however.

The screen is a 4-way intersection with no stop signs or traffic lights. Trucks, cars, and motorcycles cruise along with no regard for whether anyone is about to hit them. It’s all up to you to keep them from crashing. You earn a point for each vehicle that makes it across safely and the game ends the moment there is one crash. No extra lives or mulligans here.

The first few times I played I think my high score was 6. It was deplorable. I simply had to get a better score! I eventually did and instantly was determined to score higher still. Finally, I got a round to last a whole minute for the first time. I play a lot of games very well but, boy, this one was getting the best of me in a delightful way. It never really gets easier, either, a 54-point round will often be followed by a 9-point round or even lower. You get better but it’s still easy to mess up at a crucial moment.

One of the best perks of this game, though, is the shortness makes it perfect for anytime you need something really quick to fill a minute or three of already-wasted moments like standing in line. Even better, it loads so quickly and has such simple menus you can jump right in instead of wasting your precious time-wasting time on load screens.

When the game ends it takes you to a score summary that includes your score, the duration of the round in seconds, your best score that day, and your best score overall. It encourages you to hit that “Replay” button without any fanfare or effort!

Of course, none of this would matter if the game didn’t have good mechanics. I’m not the biggest fan of touchscreen gaming (on any platform) but this one takes advantage of it quite well. It’s responsive and makes intuitive sense.

To sum it all up, Traffic Rush is pretty much the most solid and utterly useful game on my Droid. I can’t recommend it enough. Even if doesn’t become your favorite it will probably come in very handy as you go about your daily life. It’s certainly earned a featured place in my games folder!

You probably didn’t buy your Android for playing games, but you’ve probably downloaded a couple since you’ve gotten your device. Who doesn’t like a fun game when you’re waiting at the doctor’s office or while lying in bed?

Here is a round-up of some of our favorite Android games, along with the AppBrain.com links, for easy download.

Wordfeud FREE is a new game for Android that is similar to Words With Friends on the iOS platform. Unfortunately, you can’t play the game with your iPhone friends, but you can play with other Android users in anonymous games, or with friends who also have Android devices. There’s a rematch feature and you can play up to 20 games at a time. This game is ad supported; I’ve emailed the developer and they are working on a way to remove the ads.

Hotel Mogul Lite is a fun game that has multiple levels. The game is based around Lynette, whose husband has stolen her business! She has to go through the challenges of getting her business back. This game’s graphics aren’t as fancy as you might want, but I still found them to be a good quality. I have gotten stuck on level 8 a couple of times, so I just restarted from the beginning and tried different tactics to get through that level. This game has a free version (with 10 levels) as well as a paid version with 35 levels.

Bubble is a classic bubble shooter game. Clear all of the bubbles before they reach the bottom of the screen. Simple, yet challenging!

OpenSudoku is a challenging Sudoku game that updates regularly with new games. You have to manually download new games via the app. Game times appear within the game. You can play multiple games at a time and input numbers via tapping on the screen or using the numberpad at the bottom of the screen.

Replica Island is a fun 40 level game with 3 alternative endings. You play the role of a small green robot with rockets for feet, on a mission to locate a mysterious artifact on a bizarre island. The gameplay reminds me of Super Mario Brothers. This game is challenging and time flies by when you are playing.

All of the Droid Women here at WWD love Jewels, a free Bejeweled-like game. The premise is simple – match up 3 or more jewels in a row and get points before the time runs down! This addictive and entertaining game is easy for anyone to learn.

Toss It is a classic game – throw a piece of paper into a trashcan. However, you might have a fan blowing, the wind blowing or even a moving trash can. It’s even more fun when you try to toss a cell phone. Simple. And fun.

Abduction! is also a single player adventure game. You are a cow whose friends have been abducted by aliens. Your task is to climb up into the skies to rescue them. It takes a little hand-eye coordination to make this game work, but once you get the hang of it, you won’t be able to stop playing! See screenshots and more info about Abduction! in Renee’s earlier review. If you want more levels and challenges, download Abduction! World Attack!

Do you have a favorite game we didn’t mention here? Tell us all about it in the comments!

I am often asked in real life and on twitter what Android apps everyone should have. So, we did a little experiment here at Women With Droids to see which apps were found most often on our contributors’ phones, and we wanted to share the results with you! Participating contributors were: Ellie, CraftLass, Liz, Deb, Taylor, and myself. You can read more about us on our About page (I will update it with our recently-added contributors soon!) and see recommendations from each of us below.

So, this post contains a list of all non-built-in apps that at least 3 of us have on our phones (plus a couple only 2 contributors had that I promoted to the list). I’ll call them our “must-have apps”! “Must-have” is a bit of a misnomer because we don’t actually recommend you download every app here (read the advice here), just the ones that would make YOUR life better! Some of them have already been reviewed on this blog, and we will continue to come back here periodically and link the app names to new reviews as we write them.

Without further ado, here are our top picks and the rest of the Women With Droids must-have apps!

• Ellie’s Pick: Ringdroid
  Ringdroid is a necessity for anyone who loves changing their ringtone to their new favorite song or an old classic! This free app allows you to select songs from your SD card and clip them to bite sized segments to use as ringtones or notification sounds. There is a slight learning curve to this app, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll wonder how you made it without it! Ringdroid saves the ringtones to your SD card and automatically adds them to your list, so you can quickly select the tone you want to use.
  Market Link
• Deb’s Pick: My Verizon Mobile
• My Verizon Mobile’s not only a must-have, it’s a no-brainer. In the past, a two-second question regarding my account would take me half hour to answer. I’d have to go online, spend time digging up my username and password, then reacquaint myself with my carrier’s website all over again. Exhausting! Well sweat no more, as this app typifies everything we efficiency hounds seek. One press and instantly your minutes, text and data usage are displayed. Another flick and up comes your latest bill including current balance, total charges, and payment due date. Sure you’ll need your My Verizon password for some functions, but lots of helpful info is accessible within seconds without it.
  I’m continually amazed how certain apps take the “chore” out of past habits, and My Verizon Mobile is one of them.
  Not in the market for everyone (carrier-specific). Verizon users can find it in the market under the Verizon apps tab.
• Renee’s Pick: IMDb
  The IMDb.com website is a treasure for both serious movie buffs and casual info-seekers. It has lots of data about every actor, movie, and anything affiliated with movies – and it’s organized in a way that makes it fun and easy to use. Similarly, the IMDb app for Android is a well-implemented interface to the Internet Movie Database. You can still get all of the standard actor info and movie ratings from the menu-button search, plus the app homescreen gives you quick access to movie showtimes, box office results, top 250 movies, new on DVD, and more! Whether you’re trying to figure out the name of that guy in that one movie, solving a dinner dispute about whether a movie won best picture, trying to decide which DVD to rent, or planning when to meet your friends at the movies, the IMDb app will come in handy more often than you expect!
  Market Link
• Taylor’s Pick: Google Listen
  As an NPR junkie and a budding podcast afficianado, Google Listen is perfect for filling in the dull little gaps throughout my day. Search for your favorite podcasts, queue them up and subscribe to them in a clean interface separate from your other RSS subscriptions, which keeps things sweet and simple. The streaming’s always proven very smooth for me over 3G, and moving through a podcast or audio stream is effortless and intuitive. While Listen can’t cache podcasts for offline listening yet (that would be amazing), it’s a solid little app that does one thing very, very well.
  Market Link
• Liz’s Pick: Skype
  Skype Mobile should be a requirement for anyone that loves to stay connected! As free tie-in to the popular Skype, this little application gem keeps you fully available for last-minute conference calls from the train, playing catch-up with family across the country, or just unwinding to a friend – all for free (with another Skype member) or extremely low rates (when calling phone numbers). This is *especially* handy for those who have a solid footprint in the digital arena and want to be reachable through VOIP technology without needing any special setups – calling you could be as simple as clicking a button you’ve added to your website! Currently, the Android version is limited to calling features (Skype to Skype, Skype to Land) and Instant Messaging other Skype users. I see this going a long way, and I want to be along for the ride!
  Website Link

Advanced Task Killer Free	Forces selected running applications to close.
	Market Link
AK Notepad	Simple text/notepad app. Set reminders, share notes, password protect notes, etc.
	Market Link
Amazon	Find items on Amazon using a barcode or photograph, read reviews, shop.
	Market Link
App Monster	View and manage the apps on your phone.
	Market Link
Barcode Scanner	Look up items online by scanning their UPC, ISBN, or QR barcodes.
	Market Link
Battery Widget	See your battery level percentage on a 1×1 widget.
	Market Link
BBC News	World news articles in multiple feeds, plus a small headline widget.
	Market Link
Beautiful Widgets	Skinnable clock and weather widgets, network toggle widgets, etc.
	Market Link
Congress	Find your representatives and contact them right from the app, view voting history & bills.
	Market Link
Dolphin Browser HD	Tabbed web browser with advanced features.
	Market Link
Dropbox	Auto-sync files between computers and your phone.
	Market Link
Google Sky Map	Find or identify constellations and planets by holding your phone up to the sky.
	Market Link
Google Voice	Read voicemails as text or listen from within app. Call & text from your Google number.
	Market Link
Jewels	Puzzle game – slide jewels into consecutive rows to make them disappear and get points.
	Market Link
Last.fm	Build radio playlists by artist or genre, learn about artists & concerts.
	Market Link
LinkPush	Use a browser extension or bookmarklet to send links from your computer browser to your phone.
	Market Link
Listables!	Generate a list of apps on your phone and share it by email. (We used it to help create this list!)
	Market Link
Movies	View movie trailers, read reviews, find local showtimes.
	Market Link
My Days	Track menstrual periods, ovulation, and birth control on a calendar.
	Market Link
Pandora	Create streaming radio stations based on an artist or genre, and Pandora tunes the station to your preferences based on your feedback.
	Market Link
PayPal	Make or receive payments on the go. New features such as split-the-bill and “bump” integration.
	Market Link
Quick Settings	Quickly access your phone’s Brightness, Volume, Ringer, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, and Data Sync settings, Battery meter and more.
	Market Link
Seesmic	View, search, share photos & videos, and get notifications for Twitter & Google Buzz.
	Market Link
Shazam	Find artist & song names by holding your phone up to the music! Encore (paid) edition allows unlimited usage. P.S. This is the only app that all 6 of us had on our phones
	Market Link
Starbucks Card	Check your Starbucks Card balance with one click.
	Market Link
Startup Auditor	Task killer/manager which allows you to disable apps from starting on boot up.
	Market Link
Swype	Only occasionally available for download, Swype is a replacement keyboard which allows you to drag your finger through the letters to type, making text entry much faster and easier!
	Website Link
The Weather Channel	Local weather, radar, and forecasts from The Weather Channel. Includes widget.
	Market Link
Tip Calc	Quickly calculate tips when you receive your restaurant bill.
	Market Link
Toss It	Just toss crumpled paper into a trash can! Various modes and challenges.
	Market Link
Twitter	Twitter Android client from the makers of Twitter.
	Market Link
Urbanspoon	Shake your phone for local restaurant suggestions.
	Market Link
WordPress	Create new posts, edit posts, and approve & respond to comments on your WordPress blog.
	Market Link
Zillow	View real estate for sale in map or list view by search or GPS location. Photos, prices descriptions, and more. Contact an agent directly from the app.
	Market Link