We're always thinking ahead at Pocket Gamer. You have to in this business. Mobile games move so fast that if you spend too much time standing still, or looking back, you're gonna get left behind.

So we're always on the hunt for the next thing. Maybe we'll find it in our inbox, maybe at one of our Big Indie Pitch events, or maybe at a booth in the corner of some gaming convention.

Of all those games we've discovered this year, these 50 are the ones you should watch most closely. Most are due on both iOS and Android, but you might have to wait a bit for the Google Play port.

This is part one. Come back tomorrow for another 25 games.

Subterfuge

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Submarine combat is a slow, laborious process. And as such, one match of this strategy game takes an entire week to complete. You'll check in daily to assess the seas, adjust your strategy, and forge fragile diplomacies with other captains.

Loot and Legends

Popular browser game Card Hunter is sadly not coming to mobile. But in its place, we're getting a reworked, tablet-friendly version with a new name: Loot & Legends. It's still a card-battling RPG mash-up, with a gorgeous papercraft asthetic.

Raging Justice

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This old-school brawler comes from a bunch of developers who used to work at Rare. But you'll find no shiny collectables or googly eyes here. Instead, it's a grim and violent game about pounding on punks and running them over with a lawnmower. What's wrong with punks?!

Drop Wizard

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Between Roar Rampage and Lost Yeti, developer Neutronized is building a nice catalogue of super fun games. Its latest - a single-screen arcade romp about zapping baddies - looks and sounds like some forgotten SNES classic.

Love You to Bits

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You don't need us to tell you that Love You to Bits is being developed by ex-members of Tiny Thief maker 5ants. It looks just like it, with detailed cross-section buildings and adorable characters. This one's about a tiny explorer, trying to find the broken parts of his robot girlfriend. Aw.

What on Earth!

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At first glance this might look like your typical dirt-bike game. But the important bit is that you can make your own levels, and then share them online for others to play. You'll craft stages out of sand, ice, electric, mud and other materials.

Need for Speed: No Limits

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This is the first Need for Speed game made especially for phones. Which we should probably read as it being free to play, and you'll have to pay for petrol and road tax. Even so, it should also be a gorgeous game and the sort of gritty street racer that's missing on mobile.

The Witcher Battle Arena

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You know, you've got to give developers points for trying. Because despite the tepid commercial reaction to Vainglory and Fates Forever, app makers are still trying to make money with MOBAs on mobile. The latest features characters from the Witcher series.

Her Majesty's SPIFFING

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A comedy point and click adventure, about astronautical representatives from around the planet racing to colonise a faraway world. Most of the jokes come from goofy stereotypes about the different countries. But in the funny sort of way. Not in the UKIP sort of way.

Curious Expedition

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It's been described as FTL meets Indiana Jones. So instead of exploring space, you're exploring a jungle - but you should still expect weighty decisions, emergent stories, and a swift death. Wonderfully, all the main characters are real Victorian legends.

Lumino City

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Lumino City is an adventure game set in a papercraft world. But developer State of Play didn't fake it: it really built a massive ten-foot-tall metropolis in a warehouse and then photographed every inch of it. The result is breathtaking.

Calvino Noir

This is a sneaky stealth game, with a drop-dead gorgeous film noir aesthetic. In a clever twist you can record your actions, then rewind time and switch to another character to cooperate with your past self. Sounds bonkers - and brilliant.

One Finger Death Punch

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A ridiculously fast and frenetic take on Kung fu cinema, with stick men beating the bejesus out of each other. You might think that performing a ballet of punches, kicks, stabs, and aerial somersaults would be hard on mobile, but the game only ever used two buttons on PC. Should be a doddle.

Death Road to Canada

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We had Rocketcat and Madgarden's procedurally-generated, permadeath, zombie survival sim on our list of 2014's most anticipated games - but it seems like we need to wait a little longer still. This ones about forging diplomacy between your survivors, and also chucking a fridge at walkers.

Wizards of the Prestige

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When your elevator pitch is as good as "A Kairosoft game about running Hogwarts", you shouldn't really require a 50 word description. But, needs must and all that. Not only do you run the school and research spells, but you'll also battle fantasy beasties in RPG battles.

Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon

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Tiger Style's Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor was one of the first cult classics on iOS. Six years later and we'll finally get to trap bugs in triangular webs once again - this time as we scuttle through an estate that once house a secret society.

The Room 3

No puzzle game on iOS can match The Room, with its luscious 3D visuals, tactile interface, and foreboding atmosphere. The much-anticipated part three has some surprise additions including human characters and a new lens that lets you zoom into tiny areas.

Super Meat Boy Forever

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Team Meat said it couldn't be done. Super Meat Boy on mobile? That bonkers, fast-paced, twitchy platformer, to be controlled by a slab of glass? Poppycock! But now the duo has changed their mind, and is bringing Meat to mobile - as an all-new game made for touchscreens.

Toysburg

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This is a game about making toys, by dragging bits and bobs together in your twisted toyshop. And when you give them to little kids, the children will transform into their toys. No idea why, but Muffin Knight developer Angry Mob Games should know.

Jenny LeClue

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Choose-your-own adventure stories normally look like books. With, like, words and stuff. Ugh. Not this mystery trilogy, which looks absolutely flipping gorgeous and is filled with charming characters and evocative environments. We can't wait to explore this world.

The Detail

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It's a game that professes to mix up Telltale's The Walking Dead with HBO's The Wire, which sounds like combining cookies with cream to our ears. This gritty police procedural will force you to weigh in on heavy moral issues, then branch the storyline into new paths based on your decisions.

A Golden Wake

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Wadjet Eye makes and publishes point and click adventures that look like they were found in a time capsule marked '1994'. For its latest find, we're in the roaring 20s, and trying reach the top of the real estate game - all with the Great Depression looming over the horizon.

The Deer God

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This is a weird game. A side-scrolling, permadeath puzzler with hostile animals and hidden secrets. This is the sort of game you wander through in a trippy daze, trying to figure out the cryptic clues so you can work out what does what. And then you die. And resurrect. As a different animal. Why?

Ember

Ember is a deep Diablo-like RPG from Deus Ex: The Fall maker N-Fusion. Combat is real-time, but you can pause at any time to think up your next move. And skills are tied to weapons, not classes, so switching from warrior to mage is as easy as replacing your sword with a staff.

Submerged

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Epoch developer Uppercut presents: something totally different. After two games about robots shooting robots, we get a beautiful, heartfelt story about a sister saving her brother from a post-apocalyptic world where sea levels have risen to dangerous levels. Also known as: our future. (Insert dramatic music).