What kind of god would you be? Playing an island ruler in the episodic microgame Pocket God gives you the chance to find out. A benevolent god can bring new life but a vengeful god can take it away just as quickly. Exercising your powers over the primitive inhabitants of a remote island allows you to lift them in the air, alter gravity or hit them with lightning. The game’s designers even ask for suggestions on the sort of godly powers players would like to see added.Matt Chapman
What kind of god would you be? Playing an island ruler in the episodic microgame Pocket God gives you the chance to find out. A benevolent god can bring new life but a vengeful god can take it away just as quickly. Exercising your powers over the primitive inhabitants of a remote island allows you to lift them in the air, alter gravity or hit them with lightning. The game’s designers even ask for suggestions on the sort of godly powers players would like to see added.Matt ChapmanAngry Birds Rio disproves the theory that all film tie-in games are rubbish. The game was released as a link up with the 20th Century Fox animated film Rio and certain levels allow players to use Blu and Jewel, the two lead characters from that film. While offering the same basic gameplay as the original game, Angry Birds Rio added a number of new elements. Most notably it included the first use of boss levels as players use the birds to defeat Nigel, the movie’s main bad guy, and his marmoset lackeys.Matt ChapmanEven if you had never heard of Instagram before Facebook took an interest in the social networking photo app, the $1bn price tag Mark Zuckerberg placed on the company when he bought it will have piqued your interest. Users can pick from several filtered effects to breathe new life into their mobile photos and transform everyday moments into works of art.Matt ChapmanAlways dreamed of flying but only got tiny wings? Luckily the world is full of beautiful hills and these can be used as jumps. Slide down them and you can flap your wings and fly for a moment before gravity brings you back down to earth. Nosh on the tiny glowing suns to gain points and beware the encroaching night, which ends your game.Matt ChapmanHow addictive is Words With Friends? If you’re Alec Baldwin, very – the 30 Rock actor was kicked off an American Airlines flight in December 2011 for refusing to stop playing it. Being able to pit yourself against Twitter or Facebook buddies means that Scrabble has never been so much fun.Matt ChapmanAngry Birds Seasons takes the captivating gameplay of the original game and gives it a seasonal twist. From Halloween to Chinese New Year, the birds celebrate different festive seasons around the world and users can enjoy more than 290 levels and regular free updates. We’re off to spend the summer in Piglantis!Matt ChapmanCut The Rope was the first game to win a BAFTA award for Best Handheld Game, when it beat God of War, Lego Harry Potter, Professor Layton and the Lost Future, Sonic Colours and Super Scribblenauts in 2011. High praise indeed. The game sees players slashing pieces of rope to feed the candy attached to them to a hungry little critter.Matt ChapmanThe fiendishly simple premise in Doodle Jump sees you bouncing your character – a four-legged creature called The Doodler – up the screen. Jumps can be made from platforms but there are also plenty of other objects to give you a little boost, including propeller hats, jetpacks, rockets, springs and trampolines. If only those nasty aliens would stay out of the way?Matt ChapmanDavid Cameron is a big fan of Fruit Ninja and IB Times UK recently found out that his backing caused a bit of a sales boost for HalfBrick Games’ biggest selling title. However, we think it may take a compulsory download order from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to all his subjects to move Fruit Ninja to the top spot in this chart. That is despite the June 2012 announcement that Fruit Ninja has racked up more than 300m downloads overall so far on all platforms.Matt ChapmanWith three entries in the top 10 list, you may expect Angry Birds to have sold a few apps in its time. No surprise then that the franchise recently racked up a billion downloads overall, with that number including free and paid-for copies of all its different versions. The original still holds top spot when it comes to the most downloaded app, though. Anyone who has played Angry Birds can probably hear in their head that “Wey, hey, hey, hey” clucking noise the birds make that means one thing: success.Matt Chapman
Lovely piece of technology that the iPhone is, it would simply be another shiny, touchscreen smartphone without the millions of apps that make it such an incredibly useful device.
Since the iPhone launched five years ago, there have been a massive 30bn downloads from the App Store and developers have been paid $5bn (£3.2bn) during that time.
So who is getting rich off those timewasting games you love so much? And is David Cameron's favourite fruit-slicing gameplay on the list? (Chillax Dave, this is one economic decision you don't have to worry about).
Well, the top 10 does include nine handheld games to get your iPhone's gyroscope rocking.
With photography being so popular it is no surprise that the only app in the list is connected to that field.
And while we don't want to spoil the surprise of which apps have been bothering the most iPhones, there is one franchise that is guaranteed to be in the list.
When you have shifted more than a billion apps in total across all platforms, it is only right that you thank the fans who supported you - see the video below.
