Enjoying Tidal Rider? Here are 4 iOS surfing game alternatives

Tidal Ride from PlayMotive is riding the crest of a wave right now, having swept up the US App Store game charts.

It's not too hard to see why - it's easy to pick up, and its subtle variation on the endless runner format makes it feel just that little bit different to the usual 'tap to jump' fest.

Here you hold the screen to surf along, and release to slip back and up onto the wave you're perpetually ahead of. This allows you to avoid gulls and collect coins, but slip too far back and you'll fall of the end of the wave.

But do you know what? There other, often better surfing-themed iOS games out there. Here are a few of the more notable alternatives.

Time Surfer plays a lot like Tiny Wings, if you remember that golden oldie. Your little futuristic surfer hunkers down into waves when you press the screen and springs up on the crests when you release. But there's also a brilliant time-rewind function that lets you undo mistakes and maximise your runs.

Add in a trippy, almost prog-rock aesthetic and you have yourself a pretty unique package. It's the best game on this list, without doubt.

In Robo Surf, you're not actually controlling the titular metallic surfer as such. Rather, you control the size of the wave he's surfing on - hold the screen to increase the wave's height, release to lower it. Build up your power and you can enter a brief turbo mode, which lets you plough through everything in your path.

Robo Surf also looks gorgeous, with a brilliantly expressive cartoon art style that hasn't aged a bit.

Who knew there were so many different approaches to the surfing autorunner - a sub-sub-(sub?)genre we've clearly only just made up? In Surfingers, you're swiping up and down to flatten our the varying levels of the sea. Physics, you say? Pah.

It's helped along by a particularly crisp art style and an ace surf rock (of course) soundtrack.

Okay, so Party Wave is more on the 'notable' end of the scale than the 'good'. But it's interesting because it's the first mobile game from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. Don't go expecting anything epic, though.

Rather, Party Wave combines two simplistic surfing mini-games - one where you draw a line to guide your surfer to a break point, and another where you tap your surfer to fire them into the air. It's certainly different from the other games on this list. Yes, different. We'll go with that.