My attention span when it comes to gaming, and especially mobile gaming, is not very long. Most titles on my iPhone never get a second play, in fact. Hence my surprise when I spent many hours over the past few days on MotionX’s newest title, Poker Quest.

MotionX is the developer behind MotionX Poker, one of the most talked about and impressive early titles for the iPhone and iPod touch. The dice poker game features an incredibly well-rendered virtual dice simulator, with realistic physics. MotionX has since released Dice, a free version of the dice simulation without the Poker game features, and GPS Lite, a tracking and navigation app.

With Poker Quest, MotionX is sticking to familiar territory. Not that that’s a bad thing. When you’re good at something, there’s no reason not to improve, and Poker Quest does just that. On its own, a poker game is entertaining, but as with most casual games, eventually you come back less and less, since winning is always pretty much the same.

Poker Quest gives a reason to win, and to keep winning, by introducing unlockable rewards and level progression. Set in ancient Egypt, you play at “temples” along the Nile, each of which features a different, attractive table and its own unique dice set (although you can change which you use by default in the settings screen). At first, you only have access to the first temple, but once you amass enough coins, you unlock others. Each new temple you unlock features higher stakes, and the required bank to enter the next grows accordingly.

Your opponent changes each time you unlock a new temple. Computer players are represented as ancient Egyptian gods, like Anuket and Horus. Players and the dealer take turns for three rounds, after which the best hand wins.

The rewards system is a nice touch. You can unlock up to fifty additional dice sets by rolling 5 of a kind, though it took me a while to figure out that that was actually what was triggering the rewards. You can also unlock trophies, which don’t actually do anything, but do appeal to the part of me that wanted to find every single star in Super Mario 64. The graphics for the trophies are also well done, and seem to be based on genuine Egyptian artifacts.

With 12 temples in total to unlock, I don’t foresee my interest in this solid game waning any time soon. The only problem will be getting the game away from my girlfriend, who hijacked my iPod touch because she’s also hooked.

MotionX Poker Quest is available now for $2.99 in the App Store. A Lite version is also available for free, but only the first two temples are playable.

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So in keeping with the spirit of chilling, we’ve done all the hard work for you and hand-picked a few bright young additions to the App Store this week. Light some incense, breath deeply and let our wave of recommendations gently wash over you.

This week we’re looking at Yoga Stretch Lite, Sniff_Jazzbox, and Live Poker.

Yoga Stretch Lite (free) – Flexing your Chakras can be an expensive affair, with yoga sessions costing a fair few bucks. In this time of economic uncertainty, there’s a cost-effective solution to the pricey problems of relaxation: Yoga Stretch Lite is a free app that effectively squeezes a proper yoga sesh in to your iPhone. The app features audio instruction, sixty different poses and specially composed background music to help you stretch and chillax.

Unfortunately, in testing the app out, I discovered that the music is terrible and the softly-spoken female instructor had been recorded with the wail of a police car in the background. Very relaxing indeed.  Setting that aside, you can switch the music and voice-over off and it’s supremely helpful to have clear guidance for a yoga session squished on to the iPhone.

Sniff_Jazzbox (free) – Ever browsed for a Wi-Fi hotspot in the middle of a city and noticed all those locked networks? Unless you’ve got a password, they’re all but useless. Sniff_Jazzbox puts those networks to good use, converting them in to music, so as you walk round the city your iPhone spurts music like a fountain full of abstract jazz. It’s all a bit abstract, but certainly intriguing to hear those invisible networks rendered as an endless jazz odyssey.

Live Poker (free) – An incredibly polished poker app, with full multiplayer capabilities and connectivity with other players on Facebook and Myspace. Plus it costs absolutely nothing! It sounds like the ultimate poker app for iPhone and, despite a few version one bugs, it really is.

The free version comes with 1000 chips — replenished for every day you play — but there’s also a paid version ($9.99), which kicks the game off with 40,000 chips in the bank for you. I recommend that beginners and sharks alike grab the free version today and work your way up to the big money using your skills alone.

FriendBook from Tapulous

And finally, before you jump over to the App Store for a flurry of downloading, Tapulous have released their long-awaited contact management app Friendbook. Tapulous are the awesome development team behind Tap Tap Revenge, the free rhythm action game for iPhone/touch.

Available for free, Friendbook was originally released several months ago, touting an intriguing new feature called Handshake. Using the iPhone’s GPS functionality, Handshake enabled users to wirelessly share their contact details with each other. Unfortunately, it didn’t work quite as planned, and Friendbook users ended up receiving the contact deets for total strangers. Tapulous yanked the app before any serious damage was done.

Now the app is back in the store, still touting the Handshake feature (which we hope has been fixed) yet no longer free, priced at $0.99. Is it worth it for a buck? Several months ago, perhaps, but now there’s a raft of contact list management apps available (some free, some for a few bucks). Plus, there’s even a free app called Handshake which we covered right here on TAB a few weeks back.

That’s all from the App Store this week, I’ll be back next Saturday to delve in to the mixed bag of new releases and pick a few highlights just for you. In the meantime, drop by the comments and let us know which apps you’ve tried over the past week.

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