The smartphone as we know it has changed. So long are the days where our cell phones had just the basics such as calling and texting or having minimalist games like “Snake” to spend hours playing.

The cell phones of yesterday have evolved into the state-of-the-art smartphones that most of us have today which act like mini pocket laptops. These new upgrades make gaming available to an even wider audience that might not be as invested in any new system or looming consul wars such as the average gamer. However, how we look at the average gamer is changing with more and more people turning to their smartphones for their latest gaming fix or to be a part of the next gaming trend (“Flappy Bird,” anyone?). Here’s a list of some gaming apps that will keep your smartphone in your hands and won’t break the bank.

1. “Love Live! School Idol Festival”

Based on the extraordinarily popular anime “Love Live! School Idol Project,” this rhythm game basically follows almost the exact same plot as the anime. You play as an unseen student helping out school idol group μ’s — pronounced “Muse” — as they try to recruit new members and keep their alma mater Otonokizaka High School from closing its doors.

To say that this game is
addicting is an under-
statement. Tapping your
 fingers on the animated faces of the some well-known, and not so well known, characters to the rhythms of insanely catchy and well-crafted Japanese pop music might not sound like it could keep someone’s attention for long but the longer you play, the more perks you get, the more you want to accomplish in the game.

The in-game extras aren’t bad, either. Every day that a player starts it up they get a bonus that usually consists of three of the games currencies that players can use to buy more members, increase their member count or replenish their Live Points. There’s also a lot of different events in which players can compete against each other and gain even more extras such as more currency or another member.

2. “Sonic Dash”

The name “Sonic the Hedgehog” is usually met with either harsh boos or rousing cheers. The long-standing series has produced archives of hits and misses over the past 28 years.

“Sonic Dash” drops most of the characters that people know and love into a “Temple Run” environment complete with three distinct zones, badinks from previous games and cliche boss battles with Dr. Eggman and Zazz from “Sonic Lost World.”

The game is pretty fun for a while but does have the tendency to get really repetitive rather quickly. It’s just the same three zones with the same bad guys trying to make you mess up.

One thing to keep you hooked is the copious amounts of bonuses that the player receive that can include anything like power-up such as shields or headstarts and unlocking fan-favorite characters such as Knuckles the Echidna or Miles “Tails” Prower.

3. “Icomania”

“Icomaina” dives head first into all things pop culture. It’s almost as if games such as “Pictionary,” “Trivial Pursuit” and “Scrabble” fused together into one game, except the picture is already drawn for you and all you have to do unscramble the letters to spell out whatever corresponds to the picture.

This brain scratching game really tests the players by mixing together logos and art from various aspects of pop culture ranging from the super easy “Pac-Man” symbol with the eyes omitted or having composite picture such as one of an airplane and aviator sunglasses that represent “Ray-Ban.”

As the levels increase, so does the difficulty. Instead of super simple pictures, the game has pictures that are zoomed in to a specific spot on a logo or has even more obscure composite pictures for the player to figure out.

The pros of this game are that the levels go on and on with different categories that are sure to make any pop culture fan happy. The cons are that sometimes the levels can get extremely frustrating for players, so much so that there are various websites dedicated to the answers for this game.

4. “Where’s My Water?”

With a plot that sounds like it could be straight out of a Disney animated short film, “Where’s My Water?” transports players deep under the city streets to a colony of alligators that inhabit the sewers embracing the filth, while one adorable alligator named Swampy just wants to take a shower with his rubber ducky.

Developer Creature Feep and publisher Disney Mobile manage to take that storyline and make it a puzzle game where players guide a stream of water to the Swampy’s broken water pipe.

The game itself is pretty fun and players don’t have to really worry about getting bored with it since there are seemingly hundreds of levels to play, unlock and tryout. The levels themselves range from so simple that a toddler could figure it out to something that might take a critically thinking Harvard-league professor to solve.