Four fun games you can play on a plane
I just got back yesterday after taking the red-eye from San Francisco to Nashville (from Oregon, but that wasn’t a red-eye) and being unwilling to pay for United Airlines’s $10 internet with no video streaming, and with my headphones sitting in a bag several aisles away, I was offline, in the dark, in a hot metal tube for five hours.
I did not know these games were offline capable, but now I do.
One word of caution – games and apps get changed all the freaking time, so before you go without data switch into airplane mode to make sure they don’t suddenly require internet for something. Also these were only tested on the Android platform as my iDevices were similarly several rows away in a hot metal tube.
Hole.io
This has become a fun offline obsession. I seriously thought it was a real time online game considering the other player names exist and there feels like a short matchmaking session happening, but no. The names and game plays the same with or without internet.
Be a hole, become a bigger hole. It’s Katamari Damacy done in a two minute format.
Hole.io is free, there’s some advertising when you’re connected to the internet but pretty much none when you’re on a plane.
Download: Google Play | App Store
Rise Up
Rise Up turns you into a Balloon’s bodyguard. Basically you control a ball on the screen and the object is to protect a balloon from various falling objects of increasing intensity.
One of the maddening things about this game is it can be hard right out of the gate, or you can slug along for a few easy levels before being popped like a balloon impaled by a throwing star.
It’s a little more fun that you’d think, especially if you’re trapped on a dark plane and have not watched the movie “IT” recently.
Rise up contains some advertising, but nothing major when you’re in airplane mode.
A note of caution, it appears this game is extremely popular now and there are plenty of fakes, and I’m assuming legitimate apps also called “Rise Up” that are not this one.
Download: Google Play | App Store
Weave the Line
Weave the LineWeave the Line is an Android app with some fairly complex rules of dragging and not crossing over. If you’ve ever played Cat’s Cradle that’s all I can liken this to.
It’s pretty mesmerizing for about 50 levels and then gets into some brain hurting puzzles. Well, brain hurting at 4am on a plane at least. I’ve enjoyed most of the levels.
I will note that WtL had one of the longest advertisements I’ve ever seen in an app once, while this was not an issue in airplane mode I don’t know what advertising network pushes out minute plus ads but dang.
That was only one ad though, but dang…
Download: Google Play
And finally – Love Balls
Love Balls is a badly named, but incredibly cute and entertaining little game in which you attempt to reunite the balls using physics, heavy ink, and gravity.
Some areas require you to draw a bridge, some you drop curved lines to push the balls, and sometimes you just create a meeting place where the balls can bump into each other.
I am trying so very much to not put a bunch of ball jokes in here, you have no idea.
Each level is scored by how much ink you use to reunite the balls. It starts very easy and slowly works its way into requiring you to create airborne structures for the balls to meet in.
Download: Google Play | App Store
