Hands up who doesn’t like having fun? We all deserve to enjoy ourselves now and again – or even more frequently – and now that the majority of us carry around portable gaming devices at all times in the shape of our smartphones, fun is never very far away from our fingertips.

Enjoyment is at least doubled when shared. Playing by oneself can banish the boredom of a long train journey or a prolonged period of waiting, but for genuine thrills the more people who are involved, the better. Apple’s iOS software makes multi-player gaming easy, thanks to the company’s Game Center which allows developers to code multi-player apps without having to write specialist bespoke code.

Multi-Player Games for iOS

Here is a quick list of five of the best iOS multi-player games available on iTunes:

[1] Traceword

Traceword is a cool little app for people who enjoy word games and word-searches in particular. You can join a game with either a single opponent, or up to ten people at one time. You’re presented with a typical word-search grid, with the words you have to find listed below. Once you find a word, you swipe it with your finger and you score points depending upon how many letters it contains. The words grey out as others find them, and once all are found, the player with the most points is declared the winner.

[2] Rush Poker

Rush Poker is Full Tilt Poker’s app on the iPhone for card fanatics for whom the thrill of normal poker is just not enough. You can download the Rush Poker App for iPhone and iPad from Full Tilt poker’s site. Rush Poker is a standard version of Texas Hold’em with the one crucial difference – once you fold your cards at one table, you’re swiftly spirited away to a free spot on another. This means no finger-twiddling as you wait for the showdown and the next deal to commence. Rush Poker tournaments, where you can pit your poker skills against plenty of other players online, are becoming extremely popular.

[3] Disc Drivin’

Driving games have been enthusiastically received on PCs and gaming consoles since CPUs became speedy enough to accurately recreate the stunning velocities of high speed racing. Disc Drivin’ is a little different in that you control a disk rather than a car. The physics look and feel authentic as you fly around a tight track picking up power ups and trying to keep up with your fellow drivers. You can play with up to three other players online.

[4] Doodle Jump

Sometimes complexity is over-rated. Doodle Jump is a game where the graphics seem to have drawn by a ten year old, but that shouldn’t detract from your appreciation of this game. You just need to get your four-legged doodle creature to the finish line using spring loaded platforms whilst avoiding nasty beasties. You can play multi-player as well – the first to the line or the last to get eaten or jump off the bottom of the screen is the winner. Uncomplicated yet outlandishly addictive.

[5] Star Legends

If simple two-player games like Doodle jump stand at one end of the multi-player gaming spectrum, then at the other you’ll find Star Legends, a traditional MMORPG. You can join thousands of fellow gamers online in a modern fantasy world full of fantastic weapons and dangerous missions. This is a cross-OS app, meaning if you have an Apple mobile but an Android tablet, you play Star Legends on both using the same character.