10 Fun Apps + Games to Stimulate Your Creativity

As
a child of the 80's, predating the wide use of the internet, my options
for staying creative were limited and very rarely involved technology. A
sheet of paper and a pencil or perhaps a tambourine would suffice for
that underlying urge to create. Nowadays, while paper, pencils, and
tambourines aren't fully extinct, there are endless alternatives to
quenching that artistic thirst that lies deep within many of us. With
countless apps and games right in the palm of our hands, it's far more
convenient to spark artistic inspiration all while having fun. Today, we
bring you ten of the most entertaining apps and games on the market to
creatively stimulate you and fill that artistic void in your daily life.
1. Draw Something
If you haven't already played it, you've most likely heard of the popular game app called
Draw Something.
Following the basic rules of Pictionary, this game allows players to
connect with their friends through Facebook or strangers by random
selection to play a fun illustration guessing game. It's especially
amusing when players get creative with their drawings, adding elaborate
settings for simple words. Taking turns, each player draws their
selected word for the other player to guess. If guessed correctly, there
is a reward of 1 to 3 coins, depending on the difficulty of the word
selected. Coins can be traded in for prizes including new colors to draw
with. If you don't feel like shelling out the $1.99 right away, there
is a
free version of the game, but it includes ads and fewer words to work with.
Price: FREE - $1.99
2. Scribblenauts Remix
Scribblenauts Remix
is a puzzle game that enables and encourages the most creative minds to
be as inventive as possible. Set up like a normal 2D platform game,
each stage presents a set of obstacles for your character to overcome
with a nifty pencil that can be used to summon anything you write. The
game prompts players to use their imagination and type out anything from
a "rock" to a "giant hungry rainbow beaver" to help them solve the
level's problem. The game boasts an extensive vocabulary that leaves
players in awe, trying to find a word it won't be able to reproduce. The
game was originally designed for the Nintendo DS, a handheld video
gaming console, but is now also available as a downloadable app with
additional levels exclusively designed for iOS devices.
Price: $0.99
3. Beatwave
Beatwave
is an addictive music beat creator and visualizer. The app doubles as a
sort of game. The objective? Create the greatest tune there ever was!
There's absolutely no prior knowledge of playing or reading music
necessary to use this app to its full potential. As the app's
description suggests: "[E]ven the most tone deaf would-be DJ [has] the
ability to visually create perfectly in sync hit tunes." Anyone has
musical potential at their fingertips with Beatwave's assortment of
instrumentals sprawled across a kaleidoscopic grid of beats. While the
app itself is free, there are plenty of desirable purchases within the
game, including additional instruments like drums, synths, and upright
bass and the ability to export a music file (.WAV, .MP4, and even
ringtones) beyond the confines of the app.
Price: FREE
4. Granimator
Granimator
is an iPad app that allows users to construct their very own graphic
wallpaper for the iPhone or iPad. Illustrators and designers from around
the world have lent their artistic hand to create over 40 artist packs
for users to play around with. Every pack is downloadable within the app
for free. There are endless color schemes and compositions to create
that's sure to keep you active and perhaps even lose track of time. Once
you've completed your personalized wallpapers, compositions can be
saved and shared through email, Granimator's own site, and social media
outlets including Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr. There are currently
over 4,000 user-generated wallpapers uploaded to
Granimator.com and available for downloading and sharing.
Price: FREE
5. PaperDesk
PaperDesk
is an app exclusively for the iPad that turns note-taking into a fun
and creative experience. Your notes can be as organized and manageable
as a PowerPoint presentation that can be accessed on the go. You can
type out notes in 58 different fonts, add bullet points and numbered
lists, sketch a drawing with thousands of colors to choose from, and
even record audio that can be synced with your written words. There is
also the option of inserting photos from a photo library or camera and
importing PDFs from other apps. Once you've completed your note-taking,
you can export your finished notebooks directly to Dropbox, Google Docs,
email, Twitter, or AirPrint. PaperDesk offers a creative approach to
taking notes all while inciting a surge of productivity.
Price: FREE - $3.99
6. Brushes
Brushes
is a fantastic drawing and painting app with advanced features
including a selection of realistic brushes, multiple layers, extreme
zooming, opacity adjustment, and nearly infinite undos and redos. It's
an excellent app for artists on the go and commuters with a penchant for
extreme doodling. More than simple monochromatic sketching or finger
painting, Brushes allows the user to create original professionally
detailed artwork with the convenience of mobility. Artist
Jorge Colombo has gone so far as to paint covers for
The New Yorker
on the app. Brushes is available for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
Though the iPad version of the app is three dollars more, it seems like
the way to go for serious illustrators and painters looking to create
multilayered masterpieces.
Price: $4.99 - $7.99
7. Instagram
Instagram
is an increasingly popular photo sharing app, but more than that, it's
another way to connect with people through a visual art form. Most
people own cellphones with built-in cameras and with this additional
tool they have the ability to enhance the quality of their images with a
varied selection of filters. The image settings can be tweaked and
played around with to create just the right type of feel you're going
for with your shot. While there are plenty of apps out there that
provide similar filtering services, Instagram boasts an immense audience
of 15 million users. By linking your Instagram account to Twitter or
Facebook, you can share your daily captures with the rest of the digital
world.
Price: FREE
8. forger
Whether you're a professional sculptor or not, sometimes it's just fun
to mash and mold some clay and you can do that without getting your
hands dirty with
forger.
This digital sculpting application presents users with a
three-dimensional model that is fully capable of being rotated, panned
across, and zoomed into for precise sculpting. It features nine
sculpting tools--standard, clay, flatten, move, smooth, pinch, inflate,
layer and mask--which each also include the ability to be adjusted
according to size and strength. Once finished, the digital creation can
be saved as an OBJ file and exported. The app is great for artists
looking to sketch out a prospective project or idea in a 3D format while
traveling without access to software on a bulky desktop.
Price: $2.99
9. Soundrop
Developed by young software engineer and digital artist
Max Weisel,
Soundrop
is a musical geometry game available on the iPhone, iPod touch, and
iPad. Like Beatwave, it offers an audiovisual experience at the hand of
the user. Rather than a series of highlighted boxes, this game utilizes
the player's ability to create lines anywhere across the screen. Sound
is produced when automated balls drop and come in contact with the
lines, bouncing off of them and emitting high and low pitches, depending
on the speed with which they ricochet off the line. The app itself is
free but there is an upgraded "pro" version available as a DLC for $1.99
that increases the library of accessible sounds with the introduction
of different colored lines, inviting more possibilities for a complex
soundscape.
Price: FREE
10. Ordinarium
Ordinarium
is an action game exclusively for the iPad. While the gameplay is
simple and somewhat traditional as far as action games go, the art
direction and music is where a player can be swept away into a bizarrely
inventive experience. The cast of characters, including a creature that
resembles a one-eyed octopus, and surreal settings draw a likeness to a
Tim Burton-inspired aesthetic. It appears to be in a similar line of
artistically designed games as the popular 2D platform
Braid and action RPG
Bastion.
While it may not encompass the same level of graphics and integration,
there's something to be said about Ordinarium's surrealistic efforts.
The distinct artistic style and direction is so compelling that it
sparks a surge of creativity in the player.
Price: $0.99