The Notification Centre of the iPhone is usually a barren wasteland of disappointment: "Tomorrow - You have no events scheduled". "You have 976 unread emails". "Mostly clear, some drizzle". But now, thanks to the new widget feature of iOS 8, a new deluge of notification games could soon be popping up in the App Store.
The trail blazer in question is Overglide - an Flappy Bird-alike that's thin on graphical splendour but rich with pull-down-and-play potential. It's construction threatens to transform a quick skim of your notifications into a high score marathon: rather than opening the app, you can access it from a locked screen by swiping down. A small paper plane awaits you, floating as soon as you press the screen. The aim is to dodge a series of obstacles that scroll from the right of the screen, which become increasingly hard to avoid as you progress.
To have a play (and become obsessed) with Overglide, download it for 69p from iTunes, and hit "Edit" in your Notification Centre. You can then "Enable" Overglide and tap along until you've forgotten that important diary note you'd originally thought to check.
As Overglide only went live a couple of days ago, we wouldn't be surprised if Apple stepped in to prevent future games taking advantage of the iOS 8 widgets. While they won't harm your phone, we can't imagine Apple being keen to allow apps to function in this manner while the phone is technically locked - but Overglide could be the first in a wave of creative new games that take advantage of this feature. Get it now before it makes like Flappy Bird and flies the nest.
