With some iPhone applications, users find that they lose interest after playing with it for a few days. Pocket God by Bolt Creative hopes to change all of that with their clever, weekly additions to the app. For me, this is one of the best casual games I have on my iPhone.

The premise of Pocket God is simple: you get to play god to a group of pygmy villagers. You can decide to leave them in peace, happily strolling the island, or you can unleash catastrophes on them. When the pygmy dies, it can be replaced by the tap of a finger. I love taking a quick break from a stressful meeting to create havoc on the island; it’s a great stress reliever in my day. After all, nothing can be as bad as having red hot lava fall on my head!

The graphics of this app are terrific. The pygmies have a cute, retro look, and the bright colors are cheerful even amid the disasters. It’s one of those apps that make you smile from the moment you open it. There’s a cartoon quality to the violence in the game, and while the pygmies haven’t done anything to deserve their fate, there’s a kind of delicious joy in flinging them into a volcano or feeding them to the sharks.

Pocket God has one feature that has set it apart from other applications, and that’s the commitment from its developers to update it regularly. These updates, or episodes, give you new features to challenge your little people with. At first, you only had the ability to poke and prod your pygmies, drop them in the water, and drop them from the sky. Since then, episodes have gotten more complicated and more enjoyable.

Episodes add new abilities, and currently, users are able to throw pygmies into a volcano, drop coconuts on their heads, strike them with lightning, the latest release creates vampire pygmies who turn into dust when the sun comes up. My favorite ability is the ability to change the time of day, because at the sunset, the pygmies get a very sweet, dumb look that is really adorable.

Another thing that I particularly appreciate about this application and its developers is the way they listen to people and their suggestions for Pocket God. There are numerous reviews in iTunes that talk about how their suggestions were implemented after writing to Bolt Creative, such as being able to turn off certain god powers when you don’t wish to use them. These app developers really listen!

There are so many applications out there that it can be tough to decide which ones will actually be worth spending the money. Taking care to read the reviews about every app you’re considering buying can make sure it will be money well spent, and in this case, the reviews are overwhelming. When it comes to Pocket God, the constantly changing story combined with the great graphics make this well worth every penny.