Good Game

By Mike / On / In Technology

My fiancĂ©e Judy is a consummate gamer. The other day I was horrified to see she’d started one of these “harvest and harass” games that have become a cancer on our industry. At the risk of paternalism, I suggested she choose something else to play, to which she protested that she wasn’t able to find anything better. Everything out there was either too violent, or too Zynga.

Since my Twitter stream is a veritable who’s who of the industry, I thought I’d tap the collective wisdom to get some recommendations for her. Capitulating to popular demand, I thought I would share people’s recommendations with all of you.

Note that while I didn’t specify platform, Judy is an iOS gal, so I’ve listed things with an “iOS > Mac > Other” bias. Still, many of these are available on other platforms. Use your least unfavorite search engine, or check the developers’ sites, for different versions.

For starters, a lot of people recommended games by PopCap. These guys are the kings of casual gaming for a reason, and have published games on platforms I’ve never even heard of. Here are their iOS offerings:

Someone recommended anything by Llamasoft. I would have said anything by ngmoco:), yet they were conspicuously absent from people’s recommendations. Why is that?

Other games people recommended are:

In addition, people recommended some games not available for iOS:

Thank you to everyone who gave a recommendation!