Blast from the past

Brickies is a take on the classic brick-breaker game and provides familiar fun without getting boring. Phone (or even calculator) gamers should recognize the basics: You have a ball. There are some bricks. You bounce the ball off the bricks. Simple.
In a bit of a twist, however, Brickies pits you against the clock rather than gravity — missing the platform doesn’t kill you outright, it only disables the ball’s powers until you get a successful bounce again. You also have a second platform on the top of the screen, which makes the game pretty forgiving. That’s always a good trait in a smartphone diversion.
Players can also collect power-ups that let them do things such as fracture the ball into several bouncy pieces or destroy tougher blocks more easily. Brickies doesn’t exactly redefine its genre, but it’s still a fun update on a classic. Free, for iOS devices.