Now that the school has had a chance to become better acquainted with their new iPads and everything they are capable of, it has already become an integral part of most student’s daily routine, replacing everything from notebook to calculator. But as most students know by now, there is a plethora of innovative and fun games to pass the time for when your work is finished. Two games have distinguished themselves as front runners for what students have found most popular so far.

Clash of the Clans (free): In this top-down RTS (real-time strategy) game, players control their “clan,” starting out with a small settlement of nomadic barbarians that, with the player’s guidance, can eventually evolve into a multi-continent empire that conquers the land. While fun in and of itself, what pushed it over the edge for most students  is the ability to play with your friends, interacting with them in everything from opening trade routes to perhaps even waging war against them. The former option could also become something bigger, forming a “clan” to join the two kingdoms to fight against others with different units, from a lowly warrior to a hero unit, which can turn the tide in most battles single-handedly. “There’s a lot more strategy to it than some of the other mindless pay-to-pay games out there,” senior John Finn said. Clash of the Clans can be picked up from the app store for precisely 0 scratch, so students are free to join the school (or worldwide) battle at any time.

Flow (free): This simple puzzle game, reminiscent of older pipe games you might have played when you were younger (or even recently in such AAA titles as Bioshock) is incredibly easy to learn but dangerously addictive. The game finds players starting out in a small chess-like board with pairs of colored dots scattered around it, tasking them to be connected without intersecting any other “flows” on their path. Simple to pick up but deviously hard to put down, the difficulty ramps up as players progress, providing them with bigger boards and more challenging puzzles that will flex your brain in ways you didn’t know it could bend (especially when you take on the daunting task of attaining perfect scores, which see players attempting to solve the puzzle in the fewest amount of “flows” (the game’s word for moves) possible). “It’s fantastic,” junior Sanjay Koduvalli said. “It’s a really challenging game for the mind.” While it can be frustrating at times, there’s always that forehead-slapping “Why didn’t I see that!?” moment when you finally solve it.