The Games

80 Days An interactive fiction adaptation of "Around the World in Eighty Days", but that's selling it short. One of the most thoughtful and delightful story-based games for iOS.

868-HACK An unbelievably elegant minimalist roguelike. Every single move you take is the difference between winning and losing; the stakes are always sky-high. It's unapproachable, unwelcoming, and brilliant.

The Arcana The Arcana's an otome game; essentially, a romance visual novel. It's written by a small indie studio, and stands out compared to more standard F2P otome: it's decently written, beautifully arted, and surprisingly thoughtful given how pulp-y it is.

Archero The most playable Diablo-style hack-and-slash loot game I've seen on mobile. Plays in great bite-sized chunks, and has great one-hand portrait-mode controls. F2P but not overly obnoxious.

Arena of Valor It's League of Legends, but on your phone. If you can tolerate virtual joysticks, it's exactly what it says on the box.

Artemis Basically a computer-aided Star Trek LARP. Your team of 4-5 players, each with their own device and distinct role, need to work together as a crew. Super nerdy, and super fun.

Banner Saga One part tactical RPG and one part choice-based interactive fiction, wrapped in a fresh Norse-inspired setting with beautiful hand-drawn art.

Beglitched A minesweeper-y match 3-y puzzle game. Its killer glitch-meets-witch "cyberpink" aesthetic belies a delightfully brutal difficulty curve.

Blackbar Set in a vague dystopian future, Blackbar tells the story of a resistance movement fighting censorship, by means of solving censorship puzzles. It's short, sweet, and strikes the right balance of story and puzzle.

Blackbox A fiendishly clever puzzle game that takes advantage of just about every weird sensor you didn't know your phone had hiding inside of it.

Bloop A game of complete madness requiring everyone to madly tap on your iPad screen at the same time.

Bounden A beautiful collaborative dancing game. Two players, holding the same phone, contort themselves in ways that create a wonderful abstract modern dance.

Brogue A classic Roguelike known for its relatively gentle difficulty curve and beautiful ASCII graphics. The only "traditional" ASCII roguelike I've seen really work on iOS without an external keyboard.

Burly Men at Sea An interactive children's book, more or less. You get to go on fun little seafaring adventures!

Bury Me, My Love You text, in real time, with a loved one trying to escape Syria as a refugee. Its writing is effortless, nailing the feeling of a SMS conversation between close friends unlike any other Lifeline-style interactive fiction I've played.

Campfire Cooking A charming puzzle game about roasting marshmallows on a campfire. It seems superficially similar to Stephen's Sausage Roll, but it's pretty different in practice.

Cinco Paus Fair warning: this game is in Portuguese. Even given that, it's the most accessible (and most amenable to a quick pick-up game) of Michael Brough's roguelikes (e.g. Imbroglio or 868-HACK). If you want a casual but infinitely deep roguelike, this is one of the best in the world.

Clash Royale Real-time strategy meets MOBA meets collectible card game in this fast-pased game from the Clash of Clans folks. Aggressive F2P trappings, but there's a solid game at the core.

Corrypt A Sokoban-style block puzzle whose rules quickly start to collapse in on themselves. I've never played a puzzle game that so successfully managed to convey meaning through pure mechanics. Sheer brilliance.

Cosmic Express A really good puzzle game about drawing railway lines for cute little aliens.

Dandara A very good Dark Souls-tinged 2D Metroidvania. The most impressive thing about it: it's a brutally difficult twitchy action game that arguably controls better on iOS than on PC or Switch.

Data Wing A great Asteroids-esque racing game with a great Tron-like aesthetic and a delightful story.

Dawn of Isles The most accessible-to-Western-audiences mobile MMO that I've found. It's veeeery F2P, but it's a charming time-waster.

Desert Golfing A punk-y minimalist distillation of Angry Birds-style controls into a golf game. No achievements or leaderboards or fancy graphics, just a focused, distilled, addictive game.

Device 6 An adventure game that's equal parts Alice in Wonderland and The Prisoner. Even though it's largely text-based, it takes advantage of the iOS form factor better than most games.

Dota Underlords "Auto-battler" games are halfway between a MOBA and a card game, crossed with a slot machine. Dota Underlords is by far the most polished one currently available on mobile. You can also play bots offline, which is a nice addition.

Downwell Downwell is a minimalist roguelike platformer about descending a well, armed only with a pair of trusty gunboots. The designer aimed to make a game like Spelunky that worked on a phone; they succeeded.

Dream Quest Dream Quest is a roguelike deck-building game. The graphics are amateurish at best; the design is quirky and seemingly unbalanced. But it's way more interesting and surprising than anything else like it. Be sure to check out the strategy guide written by the creator.

Drop7 An iOS classic, Drop 7 is an addictive numbers-based puzzle game that feels like it's existed forever.

DUNKYPUNG A great pick-up-and-play one-button action game.

Faster Than Light Pilot a ship through the depths of space, micromanaging each of your crew members as you combat enemy ship after enemy ship in this charming roguelike.

Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition It's Square's latest Final Fantasy title... squashed down for mobile. It removes open-world exploration in favor of a streamlined shorter experience, but I see that as a good thing.

Fingle / Finger Tied These two games are very similar, so I'm grouping them together. They both task you with solving puzzles by moving your fingers around the screen, inevitably getting them tangled up in the process.

The Firm A small game wrapping a stock trading theme around a Tinder-like swipe interaction. It does a great job of slowly giving you more to do until you're managing dozens of different rules in your head under time pressure.

Flappy Royale It's Flappy Bird, but as a Fortnite-style 99-player battle royale. It's also the only gamefeel-perfect Flappy Bird clone on the App Store. Full disclaimer: I made this, but it's free with no ads or IAP.

Fortnite It's literally the biggest videogame on the planet right now, and with good reason. Niceties like auto-fire help with the mobile controls. I mostly enjoy the iOS port for how easy it makes it to play in-person with friends.

Freeways A lo-fi puzzle game about designing freeway overpasses for self-driving cars. Feels like the punk cousin of Mini Metro.

The Gardens Between A meditative time-travel puzzle game. It's a bit on the easy side, and very slow-moving, but brimming with atmosphere. It's available for consoles, but works so well on a phone.

Getting Over It A delightfully frustrating game about climbing a mountain, from the creator of QWOP. Complete with pitch-perfect commentary from its creator, it's the perfect gentle introduction to games that are fun because they're so maddeningly hard.

Glitch Tank A 2-player head-to-head tank-battle game. Each time you use an action, its control is randomly replaced with another one. Add in other mechanics that complicate things, and it's easy to get overwhelmed in a good way.

A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build One part deviously-hard Sokoban-style puzzler, one part adorable game where you get to hug snowmen.

Grayout A sequel of sorts to Blackbar, Grayout continues its predecessor's trend of being a lovely hybrid puzzle/story game with a uniquely tight connection between mechanic and story.

Her Story An FMV game where you explore the circumstances surrounding a murder by searching and viewing old police interview footage. I don't want to give anything away; if you're at all interested in narrative games, Her Story is more than worth playing.

Hearthstone Blizzard's F2P deck-building card game. It's heavily inspired by Magic, but far simpler to grasp. A great example of doing F2P right, and a fantastic iOS version. It needs an Internet connection to play, even just against the AI.

Heaven Will Be Mine A mecha anime visual novel. It's touching, it's badass, it's very queer.

Helix A fantastic twitchy action game by Michael Brough. Its touch controls – you're trying to draw loops around enemies to kill them – works effortly in ways that most games don't.

Helsing's Fire A unique puzzle game combining a pretty cool lighting/shadow mechanic with a slick Victorian-horror aesthetic. It hasn't been updated for 4-inch screens, but it's worth playing even with letterboxing.

Hidden my game by mom Mechanically, this is a pretty straight-forward hidden object game, but its bizarre Japanese charm makes it an absolute joy.

holedown It's kinda like Pachinko or Peggle crossed with Breakout, with hints of Mr. Driller. It's addictive, juicy, and with a great progression system. The perfect "podcast game".

Hoplite A pared-down hex-based turn-based strategy game with roguelike mechanics layered on top. It's chess-like in the way that simple movement patterns elegantly combine to form higher-level strategies.

Human Resource Machine A smart take on programming games. It essentially teaches you the concepts of assembly programming, but in a way that works effortlessly on a touch screen.

Hundreds A great combination of reflex-based gameplay and strategy: although the game demands precise finger dexterity, you can deliberate a long time before acting. It also works great as a collaborative multiplayer game on iPad!

Imbroglio Yet another minimalist roguelike from Michael Brough. Brutally difficult, but equally rewarding.

Iron Marines A great RTS with some tower defense elements. Feels a bit like StarCraft. Fairly short, and there's no multiplayer.

INKS. A clever pinball-based puzzle game that has you using the pinball table as a canvas for spattering beautiful paint.

Kemono Mahjong If you want to play (or learn to play) Rishi Mahjong, this is a fantastic app with tons of options and tons of character.

Kero Blaster By Daisuke Amaya (of "Cave Story" fame), Kero Blaster is a jump-and-gun platformer with fantastic touch-based controls. It's also completely adorable.

King of Dragon Pass In this civilization sim, you're in charge of a primitive tribe in a fantasy world. Every action you take has severe consequences on what happens next; the sheer depth of the text-based simulation is impressive.

Kuron and the Jelly Islands A charmingly absurd game where you play as a cat, suspended on an island made of jelly, slurping up as much of that jelly as you can with a straw before you fall into the water below. A delightfully messy (and enjoyably difficult!) puzzle game.

Lara Croft GO A clever turn-based puzzle game based on the Tomb Raider series. Wonderful puzzle design, and an absolutely lovely aesthetic.

Learn Cryptic Crosswords This is more an educational experience than a 'game', but this is an excellent interactive guide to teach you how to solve cryptic crosswords, walking you through common clue types and providing a great learning curve.

Legend of Solgard A match-3 puzzle game, but one with depth and meant to appeal to more 'core' gamers. Has some obnoxious F2P elements (it's by King), but it's solid.

Letterpress A game by Loren Brichter (aka "the guy who invented pull-to-refresh"). It's ostensibly a "word game", but it's really a territory control game that just happens to use a Boggle-esque word finding mechanic.

Lili A quirky RPG/adventure game that has you climbing on the backs of mystical spirits to collect flowers. There are some F2P mechanics, which is frustrating for a paid game, but it's otherwise charming.

Linelight A beautiful puzzle game about moving a ball of light along a line. Not particularly challenging, but perfect for chilling out. Be sure to wear headphones.

Lost Frontier If you've ever played Advance Wars or Fire Emblem, you'll be right at home in this Wild West take on it. The difficulty is unforgiving, but the gameplay solid.

Lumino City A charming point-and-click adventure game made entirely from papercraft models. Puzzles lean more towards standalone logic puzzles than traditional object hunts.

Metamorphabet A charming interactive experience exploring the alphabet. It feels a charming children's book.

Meteorfall: Journey A delightful distillation of a deck-building card roguelike (a la Slay The Spire or Dream Quest) into a quick pick-up-and-play portrait phone game.

Mini Metro A super-chill sim game where you manage a public transit system. A perfect example of how to distill a complex real-world system into a focused minimalist strategy game.

Monument Valley A gorgeous Escher-inspired puzzle game. It's one of those games that isn't particularly challenging, but the act of playing it is an immensely serene and enjoyable experience.

The Mummy: Dark Universe Story A fun, light choose-your-own-adventure style romp through the world of the film The Mummy.

ねこあつめ (Neko Atsume) The most relaxing game you'll ever play. Put out food and cat toys, come back later, and watch adorable cats play with them. Use the presents they give you to buy more toys. Rinse, repeat, and enjoy. In Japanese, but easy to figure out.

New York Times Crossword The reigning champion of crosswords. Besides being a fantastic source of high-quality crossword puzzles, the app itself is one of the best-designed crossword apps you'll find.

OLO OLO is a 2-player game similar to shuffleboard or crokinole. You and your opponent take turns flicking pucks across the screen. The physics feel as effortlessly natural as playing a physical game.

Oquonie An atmospheric dive into a bizarre world. Oquonie is a text-free adventure game that has you navigate a confusing labyrinth, solving puzzles you only barely understand.

Osmos A solid chill-out game. As a single-celled organism, your goal is to eat smaller organisms than you and avoid being eaten. This is a slow, meditative game that's perfect for a lazy afternoon. Wear headphones.

Out There: Ω Edition A super-atmospheric roguelike about traversing the emptiness of space in search of salvation. Much slower-paced than, say, FTL.

P1 Select Another minimalist roguelike by Michael Brough. It's not my favorite of his (check out Cinco Paus!), but it is easily the most accessible to newcomers.

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX A brilliant high-speed modern take on Pac-Man. After playing Pac-Man CE, the original game (or even newer Pac-Man games like Pac-Man 256) feel boring and antiquated. Its swipe controls are easily as playable as the console version.

Papers, Please A game about being an immigration agent in a fictional Eastern Bloc state. It manages to somehow make the monotony of bureaucracy fun, while also layering in really interesting levels of narrative choice and social commentary.

Pipe Push Paradise A great brutally difficult Sokobon-style puzzle game.

Pixel Dungeon The best "traditional" roguelike I've found on phones. On iPad, I'd recommend Brogue, but Pixel Dungeon is also a bit more streamlined.

Pocket Run Pool Another tightly-designed Zach Gage take on a classic. It's quick and snappy, it's arcadey and fun, it feels great to play. The absolute perfect arcade billiards game.

Pokémon GO You've probably heard of Pokémon Go! It does a suprisingly stellar job of channeling grind-y F2P collection mechanics into a charming excuse to interact with your friends and the physical world around you.

the battle of Polytopia A bite-sized Civilization-style strategy game. Build up a tribe and conquer all the enemy tribes before they conquer you! Does a great job of shrinking down classic 4X gameplay into a compact mobile game.

Prune A relaxing, meditative puzzle game about pruning a tree as it grows, a la a bonsai tree.

Pudding Monsters A super-cute grid-based puzzle game where you have to combine slimy puddings in interesting ways.

Rayman Adventures A full-blown 2D platformer that loses nothing in having touch controls. Its one-button precursors Rayman Fiesta Run and Jungle Run are more tightly-designed, and there's some F2P bullshit, but Rayman Adventures is still really darn good.

Rayman Fiesta Run Easily the best single-button platformer on iOS. Absolutely gorgeous, and a dream to play. The precursor Rayman Jungle Run is also good, but the second game is better.

Really Bad Chess Chess, but with a randomized arrangement of pieces. It's a simple concept, but one that works phenomentally well, even for people (like me!) who didn't think they liked chess.

Road Not Taken One part roguelike, one part Minecraft-style crafting game, one part movement puzzle, wrapped up in a gorgeous art style. It takes a long time to really start to get it, but it's worth it.

Rolando An oldie but a goodie. Rolando is an adorable platformer that has you using (pitch-perfect) tilt controls to help cute little balls get home.

The Room A super-polished puzzle game that has you pushing and pulling at 3D objects to figure out their secrets. It has a fantastic otherworldly air of mystery that evokes Myst. There are four games; my faves are The Room 2 and The Room: Old Sins.

Rusty Lake Hotel A Flash-style escape room game with a delightfully macabre story. The puzzle design is clever, if a bit simple, but the charmingly dark atmosphere that totally sells it. They've released a few sequels, but the first is my favorite.

Rymdkapsel A minimalist take on tower defense and real-time strategy games. Both the visuals and the mechanics themselves have been pared down to the bare minimum to create a stunning experience.

Sage Solitaire A fantastic, original solitaire variant from Zach Gage. Incredibly simple, incredibly deep, and incredibly addictive.

Seabeard Imagine Nintendo's Animal Crossing, but with the aesthetic of Zelda: Wind Waker and about three times as many things to do. Absolutely charming, so long as you can put up with minimally-aggressive F2P mechanics.

see/saw A super-compelling two-button 2D platformer. It evokes the tight platforming of something like Super Meat Boy, but its 'tilt the world' controls work great on mobile.

[the Sequence] A puzzle game that has you arranging a set of components on a physical grid in order to create a specific reaction. It feels like a minimalist version of Spacechem, which is a really cool (and difficult!) thing to pull off.

Skullgirls The best 2D fighting game I've played on iOS. It's strongly in the mold of free-to-play games like Injustice: Gods Among Us, but it's a cut above the rest both in terms of production values and tactical depth.

Skulls of the Shogun Fans of games like Advance Wars and Fire Emblem will find themselves right at home with this turn-based strategy wargame. Perfect touch controls, great strategic depth, and a narrative that oozes personality.

Snakebird A brutally difficult puzzle game. Don't let the cutesy graphics fool you; the game's Sokobon-esque grid movement puzzles will break your brain. I'd recommend starting with Snakebird Primer, an entire prequel designed to be made up of easier (but still hard!) puzzles.

Sorcery! Sorcery! is a remake of an old choose-your-own-adventure book. From the campy paper cut-out art to the many branching paths, it diverges quickly. It has three sequels, and each one is a major improvement over the previous one.

Space Invaders Infinity Gene A trippy, psychedelic take on the classic arcade game. It feels like halfway between a rhythm game and a classic shmup.

Spaceteam Spaceteam is ultimately a game about shouting at your friends. It's an absolutely phenomenal party game for gamers and non-gamers alike. It also happens to be free.

Strategery Strategery is essentially an abstract version of Risk. Between a randomized game board and a wealth of customizable settings, it's very difficult to get bored with Strategery. Lots of multiplayer options as well.

SteamWorld Heist It's sort of like X-Com meets Worms: excellent tactical turn-based strategy with a 2D side-scrolling view, and lots of fiddly (in a good way!) eyeballing shot angles.

Subsurface Circular A charming short (1-2 hours) narrative game where you play as a robot detective, interviewing other robots via a very clever dialog system

Subterfuge A Diplomacy-esque game of naval warfare about negotiating with and strategizing against your friends. Notably, ships move in real-time; a full game takes seven days to complete.

Super Hexagon Super Hexagon is a game about getting lost in a state of flow. I love it for its hypnotic visuals and sound, perfectly-responsive controls, and sheer ball-busting difficulty. It's insanely difficult, but never cheap.

Super Mario Run It's a Mario game, on your phone. It borrows elements from one-button phone runners, and it's more of a score attack than most other Mario platformers, but it's very distinctly Mario.

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP A dreamy, atmospheric adventure game. It's much more about wandering through a surreal gorgeous world than complex puzzles or action.

Swap Sword An incredibly fresh-feeling (and brutally difficult) match-3 game, which is in itself quite an achievement these days.

Threes! A delightful little puzzle game. Adorable graphics and sound are the cherry on top of an already addictive puzzler. If you've played 2048, it was based on Threes (and isn't nearly as good).

Ticket to Earth A pretty cool combination of a tactical RPG and a match-3 puzzler.

Tiny Thief A casual take on a point-and-click adventure game with stealth elements. It's divided up into self-contained puzzles, making it great for short play sessions. The earlier levels are a bit too easy, but if you stick it out it gets better.

Tiny Wings A riveting physics-based game all about getting into a good flying flow as a bird.

TouchTone A moderately fun stream-based puzzle game wrapped in a pitch-perfect framing narrative. TouchTone tells an NSA-like story of government surveillance, contextualizing your puzzles as helping enact wiretaps.

Triple Agent A fantastic Werewolf-style social deduction game played using just a single phone. It needs at least 5 people, but it's great fun for a party.

Triple Town The epitome of "simple to learn, difficult to master" puzzle games. Triple Town is essentially a match-3 puzzler, but joining three like pieces together causes them to combine into a single upgraded piece.

TypeShift A refreshing new take on word puzzles. The normal game didn't particulary grab me, but the "clue puzzles" are a great fresh take on crosswords.

Vignettes A toy that has you interacting with lots of lovely 3D objects in joyful ways. The lack of "game" might turn some people off, but it's a fun little object to interact with.

Warbits A great Advance Wars-style strategy game. The game is remarkably similar to Advane Wars, even down to the overall theming, but it's unbelievably polished and has lots of character.

Wheels of Aurelia A lovely narrative game that aims to capture the feeling of road-tripping through 1970s Italy. It's available on other platforms, but thrives as a portrait mobile game.

The Witness Although Jonathan Blow's puzzler was a big-budget console release, it shines on mobile. Its 3D movement controls are the best I've seen, and its tricky bite-sized line puzzles are perfect for quick pick-up-and-play sessions.

Words With Friends It's Scrabble, on your phone. You've probably heard of it, but if you haven't, check it out. The board, point values, and letter distributions are tweaked from Scrabble to make games more exciting and higher-scoring. (Full disclosure: I used to work on the Facebook version of WWF.)

World of Tanks Blitz The controls are awkward, the free-to-play elements obnoxious. But it's your best choice if you want a team-based online shooter, and it's pretty darn good.

Yōdanji: The Roguelike A great simple "coffee break Roguelike". Controls great on mobile, and perfect for quick pick-up sessions.

You Must Build A Boat Unlike most match-three puzzle games, YMBAB is real-time, which gives it a wild and frenetic energy. A very compelling framing mechanic and a great aesthetic make this hard to put down.