AIR for Android – Six of the Best

It’s early days for Adobe AIR for Android but I thought I’d do some digging around on the Android Market and see what apps are already available.

Overall I was fairly impressed and some very polished content has certainly been released. The following six however really caught my eye for one reason or another.

6. Bridge Invaders.

A really cool low-res drawing and animation tool where you get to draw little 5-by-5 animations before playing them back to a tempo you tapped onto the screen. Clear as mud? Well the video below does a much better job of explaining things.

A great idea and a very stylish and polished app.

Offical Site
Price: Free

5. SpeedTracer

Maybe it’s because I’ve got slight obsessive-compulsive disorder, but I found it really hard to pull myself away from this one. Speedtracer is as simple as games get. Race against the clock as you trace your finger through a randomly generated maze. Succeed and you’re rewarded with a new maze. It’s that simple but extremely addictive.

Price: $0.99
Lite Version: Yes

4. Ink Ball

A gorgeous physics based game where you need to fill a pot by directing droplets of ink into it. To guide the droplets you position and rotate platforms that the ink can trickle along or bounce off. Sounds easy doesn’t it? Trust me it will soon have you tearing your hair out. One of the most polished AIR for Android apps that I’ve seen.

Price: $1.99
Lite Version: No

3. FLik

We’ve seen puzzlers like this a million times before but FLiK is no less addictive. It’s a cute little grid-based game where you flik the columns and rows in an attempt to vaporise monsters. The visuals reminded me of the excellent Zoo Keeper on Nintendo DS and it isn’t far off gameplay wise either. A fun little game that’s easy to pick-up but hard to put down.

Offical Site
Price: $1.99
Lite Version: No

2. Qrossfire

Qrossfire from Bowler Hat Games is almost identical to FLiK but replaces the cartoon visuals with simple coloured blocks that, to be honest, will probably appeal to a wider audience. It’s just a little more refined than FLiK, offering additional difficulty levels and a superior method for selecting and moving the blocks. Qrossfire has that ‘one more go’ quality to it and is perfect for when you’ve got a few minutes to kill here and there.

Official Site
Price: $1.99
Lite Version: No

1. Gravity Lander

AIR for Android’s first big hitter with over 10,000 downloads. A product of the Swiss Arts Council, Gravity Lander’s fantastic retro graphics and physics based gameplay have made it a sure fire hit with Android owners.

It sounds simple enough. Land the rocket on the Mars base by vaporising debris that’s in your way. You can even use boosts and tilt gravity to get round tricky situations. Unfortunately this little gem will have your rocket’s 3 Cosmonaut’s biting the Martian dust more often than landing softly on it.

A challenging and expertly constructed game.

Official Site
Price: Free

Be Inspired!

A huge congratulations, not only to those who made my top six, but to all you Flash developers that have released content onto the Android Market.

I think you guys may just have inspired me to finish off my X-wing Targeting Computer app. Now I just need to fix some outstanding bugs and strike a deal with those nice chaps at Lucas Licensing. They don’t seem to be returning my calls though. Hmm, it’s almost as if they’re trying to avoid me 😉