iPhone Apps From Your Favorite Game Shows

Most of the fun involved with watching a game show comes from playing the game from your couch yourself—and yelling at the contestants for making the wrong move or giving the wrong answer. And thankfully for us couch potatoes, there are plenty of iPhone apps available to play your favorite game shows on the go.

And although you don’t quite get the same experience of yelling at dumb contestants, these apps do come close to getting you your game show fix whenever you’d like.

Check out 10 Game Show iPhone Apps After the Jump

Wheel of Fortune Platinum
Price: $4.99

Wheel of Fortune has always been a favorite for wordsmiths, and it’s the perfect game show to be translated into an interactive app. The game is complete with music and sound effects heard on the show, special and up-to-date puzzles created for the app, toss-up and speed-up modes, multiplay where you can pass the game around to your friends, and leaderboards to track your scores and compare to other users. There are some in-app purchases available to get new puzzles or avatars, but at $5 for the game, it’s probably best to just skip these. The coolest feature? You can use the touchscreen on your iPhone to spin the big wheel. I’ve always dreamt about getting to spin the wheel, and I have a feeling this is about as close as I’m going to get.

Warning: The graphics in this app are cheesy, and on the verge of miserable. But even with that, and the lack of Bob Barker’s presence, you can’t deny how fun the actual mini-games on The Price is Right are. Use single-player mode to play the traditional games like Plinko, bid on contestants’ row, and go for the big prizes at the contestant showdown. You can also use party mode to play against other contestants, and then fill up your “trophy room” with prizes you’ve collected throughout your gameplay. (There is also a 2010 version of the Price is Right game app, but you don’t want that, right? You want the classic game, right?)

This family favorite game show also sadly has an app with some avatars and graphics that were clearly made on an Acer computer in 1997. But, again, graphics aside: It’s fun! When giving your answers to predict what the survey says, the app will autopredict your text and also use spellcheck to help you submit guesses as fast as possible. The better you do, the more bonuses you get, and you can also change the features on your avatar, like hairstyle, clothing, etc.

Million Dollar Password 2009 is yet another game show updated and brought back in the ’00s to be super cool and tech-savvy, but ended up just kind of bombing. But the good thing about this show is that although the new show may not have been a hit, Password is a simple, classic game that anyone can enjoy during any decade. In the app, you work together with a celebrity to share hints and reveal a secret password. Play with the single-player or multiplayer mode and choose from 10 celebrities to play with.

Finally, a free game show game! Who Wants to be a Millionaire? has a lite version of its iPhone app for free, and it’s really all you need to play the game. Drill through the many stages and questions to become a millionaire, and use your lifelines when you become stumped. The app isn’t much different from the TV show, but if you upgrade to the paid version you can play your own music in the app. Not quite worth the $1.99, right?

Chuck Woolery hosted this game show, Lingo, that seemed to fly under the radar for quite a while, until it made it to the Game Show Network and became a favorite among college kids everywhere. Though this app isn’t an official Lingo app from the show, it’s basically the same thing. Fill in the boxes with letters to make up the right word. Then the app will give you encouragement as you good (just like Chuck!).

Of course Jeopardy! has its own iPhone app, and, of course, it’s a really well-made one. A lot of reviewers are miffed about the game only having three categories during gameplay (not exactly Jeopardy!), but the game, overall, is fun and fresh with hundreds of different categories to play through. The graphics are, yet again, abysmal, and the sound effects sound like something that came out of my Sega 15 years ago. But who doesn’t love a random game of Jeopardy! during a commute?

To clarify, there are five, count ‘em, five official Deal or No Deal iPhone apps. This one (and its paid version) are the only ones that really let you play the game from the show. Haggle with the “Banker” as you open cases eliminating possibilities for what is in your own case. No real bells or whistles come with this app, but at least the host is included on this one (though he looks nothing like Howie Mandel). If you do go for this app, do download the free version, as there isn’t much to keep one occupied with it, worth shelling out $1.99, anyway.

If you remember this short-lived show from a few years ago, Wayne Brady hosted, and contestants struggled to work their way through karaoke-ing famous and well-known songs. You don’t actually have to sing to play this game; instead, you play it like Tap Tap Revenge, tapping through lyrics as they crawl across your screen. You can also play another mode where you actually fill in the missing lyrics of the song (instead of singing them). Track your scores and share them on Facebook or Twitter with your friends (drinking game, perhaps?).

Saved the best for last: Regardless of how you feel about Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, the show, the game is fun, quirky, and an excellent time-waster. Answer a series of 11 questions that most 5th graders would know and work your way up to the $1 million prize. You can pick your student, which are thankfully cartoons and not avatars, and even play your own music from your iPod library during the game.