Another freebie: Rovio’s Amazing Alex is now available for $0 with some ads

Finnish developer Rovio made headlines earlier today announcing that the popular Angry Birds Rio and Angry Birds Rio HD have been made Apple’s Free App of the Week, meaning both titles are now free downloads for a limited time. As the iPhone version normally costs 99 cents and the high-definition iPad version is an additional $3, that’s a $4 saving for you right off the bat. But if you’ve grown tired of Angry Birds and think the series has long run its course, Rovio has another deal for you.

Today, the company released a free, ad-supported version of Amazing Alex for the iPhone and iPod touch and Amazing Alex HD for iPads. The game, one of the finest physics-based puzzlers available for iOS devices, is based on Casey’s Contraptions which Rovio licensed and challenges you with building contraptions by combining various objects to solve a bunch of levels…

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting such a move on Rovio’s part – not on Apple’s platform, anyway.

It’s an interesting twist in Rovio’s strategy which on Apple’s platform revolves around selling paid downloads while offering demo versions that entice gamers with a few free playable levels.

By contrast, Rovio is primarily an ad-supported play on Android.

Literally all of its Android titles are given away free of charge in exchange for ads. Folks who can’t stand in-game ads can always pay to get rid of advertising, but they seldom do because I’m sure you know that only a negligible percentage of Android users buy apps.

That said, no wonder Rovio’s free Android titles rake in as much revenue from in-game advertising as paid iOS downloads.

I guess my question would be: does this overdue, albeit welcome, move indicate a major shift in strategy for Rovio and if so, does it mean their App Store revenue has been dropping off lately?

Or maybe Amazing Alex didn’t live up to Rovio’s standards so they’re now changing tactics?

Anyways, your download links are right here:

• Amazing Alex Free
• Amazing Alex HD Free

Paid Amazing Alex downloads without ads are still available:

• Amazing Alex [$0.99]
• Amazing Alex HD [$2.99]

The game also lets you make your own levels, here’s a walkthrough clip for that.

If you haven’t played Amazing Alex, now’s the time to give it a try.

Me?

I love it, but have never gotten around playing the whole game through because I’m kinda short on time and the puzzles tend to get really complex later on.