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When you look through the iPhone App Store, you’ll notice that while there are many free Apps, very few of those are games.  Of those free games, very few of them are really entertaining for more than two minutes.  I have discovered one gem, though, and thought I would share it.

It is called Aurora Feint (iTunes Link)and it is a free App that somehow combines the RPG adventure game genre with Bejeweled.  It’s surprisingly addictive and has a great number of features that make it more than just another Tetris wanna-be.

The majority of the game takes place in the “mining game,” which consists of moving blocks around so that they match and dissappear.  Despite the fact that you choose a character and a class when you begin, the mainstay of the game is this “mining” process, so don’t get your hopes up for a side-scroller or anything. There are three other areas you can visit in the game.  The Store allows you to spend the “crystals” you earn in the mining game on blueprints or magicbooks.  From there you can go to The Smith and forge the blueprints into useful tools or you can go to The Tower and turn the magicbooks into different effects.  In each of these places, you play a version of the mining game that either makes you collect certain types of stones in a limited amount of time or challenges you with a limited-move puzzle.

In any of the mining games there are some very cool features available.  The first is gravity, which allows you to tilt the iPhone left or right and make the blocks rearrange themselves to suit the new gravity.  You can even invert the whole phone and make the blocks run to the other side of the screen.  Beware though, this usually adds another row of blocks to the pile.  Also, you can do a two-finger grab and drag more blocks onto the screen.

The most interesting feature of the game is the “tools” you can earn and use.  The tools must be selected in the inventory screen during the game to turn on (at least I believe so), and from there they appear as blocks that can be matched with two blocks of any one kind.  The effects of the tools range from slowing the game to increasing the bonuses earned from specific combinations.

Overall, the game is still fairly buggy, but a new update that was just pushed has helped solve at least some of the more grievous bugs.  It is also a little bit hard to understand the finer details of the inventory controls and some of the “skills” don’t really make a lot of sense.  Still, it’s an interesting and fun game that can easy take over an afternoon if you’re not careful.

Let us know what you think here in the comments!

[Image from MMOGology]