Try Piano Tiles, the New Game That Will Have You Cursing at Your Phone

Flappy Bird, Candy Crush, Temple Run; if you’ve ever played them, chances are you’ve cursed their names.

No matter, however: These strangely addicting, simple games keep you playing on.

The newest game that’s driving smartphone gamers nuts? It’s called Piano Tiles. It’s near the top of the iTunes charts, and it brings a fresh element to the genre: music.

Available on iPhone, iPad and Android smartphones (still listed under the name Don’t Tap The White Tile in the Play store), Piano Tiles reminds us of a stripped-down version of Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero. In the Arcade mode, a waterfall of black keys scattered from left to right comes flying at you from above. Each key represents the next note in a song. The object is to tap the black keys, and only the black keys, in order, as fast as you can. Accidentally tapping a white key will result in a game over. Falling too far behind in the sequence will also get you ousted.

Tapping through the board at the correct pace will compose a song. Beethoven’s Für Elise and Pachelbel’s Canon were a couple of songs within the game that we were able to identify.

Aside from Arcade mode, Piano Tiles also offers Classic, which presents a set number of tiles that you race against the clock to get through, and Zen, in which you’re given a number of seconds to tap as many tiles as you can. Relay is a variation on Zen mode that refreshes the clock after every 50 tiles cleared, and Rush is a variation on Arcade mode that measures black tiles cleared per second.

Each gaming mode also has difficulty modifiers, in case you want to make things harder on yourself.

What’s that? Just reading the explanation of Piano Tiles already has you aggravated before playing a minute of the game? Well, you’re welcome to join the fray.

Similar to what we saw at the height of this winter’s Flappy Bird craze, Twitter timelines everywhere are filling with the gripes of gamers who are swearing up and down at Piano Tiles (including some in language that we can’t post here).

But, all kidding aside, we still think Piano Tiles is a darn fun game, and well worth giving a try. So if you think you have the required manual dexterity, and the patience, grab the game from iTunes or the Play store now. Just don’t tweet anything filthy at us if you get a little too hooked.

Have questions, comments, or just want to tell me something funny? Email me at danbean@yahoo-inc.com.