The Trawler Report: de Blob, Lemonade Tycoon, and the curious case of the missing Amazon Queen

We haven't so much been plucking them out of the briny depths this week as knocking them out of the sky this week. Most of our freebies in this instalment of the Trawler Report have an airborne element to them.

Whether you're chucking robots in the air, directing air traffic, controlling a paper plane or a flying stick man, nothing's keen on staying on the ground for too long at the moment. We blame Flight Control. Flying bandwagons are even better than ones with their wheels on the floor, apparently.

There's good few hours of freebie fun to be had mid-air, though, so get downloading these games for another dose of gratis entertainment.

The best free iPhone games on the App Store

Kamikaze Robots Free
By Digital Chocolate
What is it? It's a casual robot flinging game
Type Demo

We were big fans of Kamikaze Robots when it originally came out on mobile. It was a one thumb classic that would always have you returning for another quick tumble. The term 'one thumb' doen't quite have the same resonance on iPhone, but the game's charms have translated very well.

You control a robot as it bounces down a hill, although you're only actually controlling its rotation. You have to try and make sure it doesn't land on its head while maintaining an angle that'll bounce your robot as far as possible.

You can upgrade your metal friend, too, with tokens won in the levels. You get to play through a handful of levels in the Lite version, six standard ones and a quick play one. Just enough to get hooked.

iFly Lite
By Infared5
What is it? It's an esoteric paper plane flying 3D game
Type Demo

There's quite a number of paper plane games on iPhone. Almost as many as there are standard slight sims, in fact. iFly is one of the more ambitious, 3D ones. It has a minimalist look to it, with environments full of rectangles, some of which you should pass through and others that you shouldn't.

Whether iFly would pack in enough additional features in its full version to make the game worthwhile or not, the free version is good fun for a quick blast of accelerometer-controlled flying thanks to the decent flight model.

Cartoon Hero Lite
By BLUE
What is it? It's a frustratingly addictive hand drawn high score fest
Type Demo

Games don't always have to be sleek and shiny to be engaging, and Cartoon Hero's a case in point. It's got style thanks to its hand drawn style graphics, but you can tell it's no million dollar production.

You control a stick man as he flies through the sky collecting stars, which act as a fuel of sorts. You simply have to try and get as far as you can, and your power bar diminishes if you hit obstacles or don't collect enough stars.

Cartoon Hero is propelled by its strong incorporation of an online high score table. The Lite version seems to ramp up the difficulty curve after a while, making it very difficult to get beyond 300m, but it's compulsive stuff for a while nevertheless.

de Blob
By THQ Wireless
What is it? It's a ame where you play a blob and paint the town red.. and blue and green
Type Demo

de Blob's been slobbering around the App Store for ages now, so long that we were beginning to forget its colourful charms when the Lite version popped up. The Wii version's probably not selling too many copies these days, but hopefully this Lite version will give the iPhone version another nudge.

You get to play through the tutorial level and the first level in this freebie version. The idea of the game - controlling a blob that knocks into buildings to colour them in - is a bit odd, so a demo version is actually long overdue.

Airport Mania Lite
By Reflexive Entertainment
What is it? It's Flight Control meets Diner Dash
Type Demo

We wouldn't want to suggest that Airport Mania is trading on the success of Flight Control - it may well have been in development before that particular smash hit even came out - but air traffic controlling certainly seems to be en vogue at the moment.

Taking a friendlier, less peril-ridden approach to making a game of the job, it sees you sending jolly looking cartoon planes around certain stations within an airport, letting them offload their passengers before sending them to the skies again.

It's essentially a bog standard serve 'em up game at heart, but the flight theme is refreshing if, like us, you've already played a dozen food serving games in the genre.

Pick of the Week

Lemonade Tycoon
By EA
What is it? It’s a deceptively deep strategy game
Type Full

We spied this on the horizon last week on the Trawler, but it evaded our grasp after turning up on the App Store for just a few hours.

However, it’s back for more lemon-squeezing fun. You run a lemonade stand and have to manage the advertising, recipe and stock in order to become a veritable lemonade magnate.

It’s a full free game, too, which is always a welcome sight on the App Store, especially when it harks from such a big publisher as EA. Your customers can be very picky about the recipe of your lemonade, so you’ll need to get tweaking to make it to the big time.

Honourary pick of the week

Flight of the Amazon Queen
By iPhSoft
What is it? It's a classic point 'n' click game, fully intact
Type Full

Far and away the best freebie to download this week is Flight of the Amazon Queen, although it disappeared from the App Store soon after arriving so it's only eligible for honourary status until it returns.

Originally released in 1995, it's an old skool adventure game where you click on objects within a scene to solve puzzles and play your way through a story.

Since this is a direct port, you still have to content yourself with a cursor rather than tapping directly on objects, but it's a small concession to make to get the chance to play a true adventure classic. Thanks to the 'painted' visuals, the game hasn't aged badly at all, although the MIDI music does take us back a bit.

If this doesn't shift some serious downloads, it's final proof that there's no justice in the world. Well, in the world of the App Store anyway.