Infinite Serenity

I don't often have games on my smartphone and when I do, I rarely have more than two at a time and I tend to change them up from time to time.

I don't go for the combat games that involve story lines, as I find they take a long time to play and can easily distract me for hours. And, believe me, in these times, when I find myself mostly confined to the home for work and daily life, I can be easily distracted.

I like to go for games where my brain has to be engaged. Off and on over the years, I've downloaded Sudoku on my phone and set it up for the expert level. It can take me between five and 10 minutes to play and I feel a sense of accomplishment when I place the final number in the last vacant square. I'd play a couple of rounds while killing time and then take a break.

When I've found that I've become bored with Sudoku, I've uninstalled it, tried another game, and have later re-installed it. But I've recently uninstalled Sudoku for the last time because of the vast number of ads that pop up. I wasn't overly bothered when an ad would come on every once and a while between games, but ads started popping up in the middle of a game, often when I was in my zone, only to have my concentration broken.

That was enough for me. I'd get too stressed, waiting for the point when I could stop the ad from playing and return to the game.

I've tried some of those games where you pour different colours of sand into bottles in an attempt to sort all of the colours. I find those games relaxing, as there is no time that you're trying to beat and the game is often finished in a matter of minutes. After a couple of rounds, I'm ready to do something else.

But those colour-sorting games get boring for me very quickly and I find that I don't keep those games on my phone for very long. And there seemed to be an ad after every round, which could be frustrating.

I've recently downloaded a game that is challenging, is usually finished in fewer than five minutes, and where the ads seem to be at a minimum (in fact, one of the reviews highlighted the fact that there were so few ads). The accompanying music for the game is also calming, and I find that it's the most relaxing game I've played on my phone to date.

It's called Energy and is made by Infinity Games.

The game is simple: there are various sources of energy, lights, and connections that spin on an axis and are scrambled on the screen. You need to tap each component to move them and connect all of the lights and power sources to complete a pattern and light up your screen.

That's it.

It's not as simple as it sounds but it's also not overly complicated. And as I said, the background music is calming.

There are ads with this game but they don't pop up at the end of every round. In fact, sometimes, I'll play three or four rounds in one sitting without a single ad showing up. Of course, like so many free games, if you need a hint, you'll have to sit through an ad but I've found that those ads don't seem to last for more than about 20 seconds.

If you like games that require a bit of brain work without providing stress, and if you don't like to see ads pop up every few seconds, I recommend giving Energy a try. For me, it's infinite serenity.

What about you? Which games do you like to play on your phone? Do you have any recommendations for calm games? Leave a comment.