Just because you have to stock the pond, doesn’t mean you have to be bored. That’s what’s so great about the iPhone and the iPod touch, they may be low on quality games, but they are brimming with great time wasters that only take a few minutes to get some kicks from. Now, there are a lot of games made for Apple’s touch screen lovelies that are utter crap. Within those there are great deals of titles that try to make use of the device’s accelerometer to give you some sense of motion gaming. Racing games are top dog in the “sucks to play while looking like a moron” category. But, I have two games that I picked up for free this week that gave me some hope for playing motion controlled games.

Scoops by Nimblebit – This game was actually one that I downloaded for my daughter so she wouldn’t be so bored on the way to pick up her brother from the babysitters. It had ice cream and seemed simple, so score! I decided to check it out first before letting her play in case she needed help later. Little did I know that I’d become hooked to it myself.

So what is Scoops? Think Kaboom, from the Atari. You move your “catcher” back and forth across the bottom of the screen, and catch items falling – pretty simple right? The difference is that in Scoops, the catcher is an ice cream cone, and when you catch the falling scoops of ice cream, they don’t disappear, they continue to stack higher and higher. As the stack gets higher, it sways a bit, forcing you to compensate. You never drop the stack, instead, you lose by doing one of two things; first, by not catching enough ice cream in time and letting your timer run out, or two (and most likely) by accidently catching things that are not ice cream, like tomatoes or onions.

I like Scoops quite a bit. It’s easy to pick up and play and makes great use of the accelerometer. More things like this please!

Fly Kiwi Fly by Hungry Game – Fly Kiwi Fly is the story of a young flightless bird who, much like penguins, dreams of nothing but becoming airborne. While watching a space shuttle launch on television, the young kiwi decides to make that dream into a reality, and with the help of his grandfather, he uses whatever tools he can afford to take him across the globe to the site of the shuttle launch.

So what do you do in the game? Well, you start off on a low cliff, and you jump. That doesn’t work out so well, so then you get a kite. With the help of the accelerometer, you tilt the iPhone or iPod touch to dive and pull up, using lift to take you as far as possible. But, the kite isn’t going to get you there by itself. The real addiction to Fly Kiwi Fly is the progression of items. Each flight you take will yield you some cash. The amount of cash is calculated by the distance you travel, plus the total amount gained from bags of money you happen to snag in mid air, and also by the extra dough you get from performing stunts. You then take the money to a shop where you can buy better gliders, better launching mechanisms, and even skills that help extend your time in the sky. Skills like increased fuel efficiency. Yes, fuel efficiency…

The game is loads of fun, although I imagine that once I’ve reached my final destination, I’ll have no more desire to play. But I like that. It isn’t a carrot on a stick; it’s a carrot at the top of a steep hill.