I actually spent a good hour playing a silly new game called Nom Chops on the iPhone. The premise was really simple, players are in control of Nomster, a cute, blue, little, glutton-y monster, and just by holding down on the screen (with one finger), Nomster gets to eat plenty of food dropped by his pal Chops from the top of the screen.

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The only issue for Nomster in his indulgent eat-fest is that Chops occasionally drops pepper bombs, and these will need to be avoided. Players can build a chain once Nomster binges on more than 10 items in one stretch, but this chain breaks if Nomster accidentally consumes one of those pepper bombs. Eat three of these pepper bombs and it’s basically game over.

What makes Nom Chops so addictive is that the simple premise (touch the screen to automatically eat, release to avoid eating the pepper bombs) makes one curious on just how many points can one accumulate. The game developers, PagodaWest Games, have Game Centre leaderboards and achievements hooked up to Nom Chops, so that players can see how well they fare against each other, enhancing the appeal of the game.

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The colour pencil drawings-on-notepaper-like graphics featured on Nom Chops is a refreshing change to all the retro 2D pixel graphics that have become prevalent in App Store games these days. The combination of simple but addictive gameplay and nice graphics backed up with an original soundtrack from Tee Lopes nets Nom Chops a 4.5 out of 5.

The game is available for free on the iTunes App Store for iOS devices, check it out over here: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id981325873.