20 best iPhone & Android games for puzzles, racing, adventure and more
Think iPhone & Android games are all pay-to-win nonsense? These classics will make your thumbs itch for more
Games on phones? Pah — rubbish! But wait: weed out the dross and you unearth bite-sized nuggets of brilliance you’ll only dismiss if you hate gaming itself. Not convinced? Then check out the beauties in our list. Each title is available for free or pocket money prices. All are immediate and ideal for quick gaming blasts. But many have hidden depths too and are optimised for touchscreens, offering something different from console fare.
Oh, and scammy in-app purchases? We don’t like those either and have therefore concentrated on games with business models that don’t want to simultaneously punch you in the face and wallet.
1/20There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension
This one kicks off by claiming there is no game and suggests you ask for a refund. Don’t believe a word of it. Poke around and you’ll soon discover you can break things, hugely irritating the narrator. Dig deeper and you’ll unlock a grin-inducing adventure that upends gaming conventions and merrily smashes out your brains with a brick.
£3.60 for Android. £4.99 for iPhone/iPad
2/20Forget-Me-Not
Best for: Nostalgic arcade aficionados
Retro games are often best left in the past, buried alongside Spangles. But this one mines gaming’s history and combines the best bits. The resulting concoction fuses Pac-Man’s maze roaming, Rogue’s randomness and loads of blasting. Add to that a gaggle of foes as intent on blasting each other as killing you and you’ve endless high-octane arcade larks that never pall.
£3.59 for Android. Free + GameClub subscription for iPhone/iPad
3/20The Battle of Polytopia
Best for: Time-poor megalomaniacs
Sure, you could fire up Civilization on your device — assuming it’s powerful enough and you’ve several days to spare. Or there’s Polytopia, which strips back turn-based empire building. Despite abruptly ending its tech tree before guns are invented and cutting out anything resembling diplomacy, there’s surprising depth here — and an intense challenge, notably in the limited-move speed-run mode.
Free for Android. Free for iPhone/iPad
4/20Sneaky Sasquatch
Best for: Wannabe cartoon stars
Like an absurdist stealth game, Sneaky Sasquatch has you partake in a living cartoon, its titular protagonist tiptoeing around campsites, stealing food to scoff down. Over time, he can buy various kit from his dodgy raccoon mate and engage in a spot of golfing and other leisure activities not usually offered to hirsute monsters. Just don’t get caught by the ranger.
Free + Apple Arcade subscription for iPhone/iPad
5/20Threes!
Best for: Match classic connoisseurs
This match game should have been a Tetris-style giant, but inferior clones (hello, 2048!) stole its thunder. Still, we know better, right? So grab Threes!, immerse yourself in its clever match mechanics within a claustrophobic grid, level up cards, and realise hours have gone by when you were aiming for just one more go. Bit of a skinflint? Try the ad-funded Threes! for free.
£0.89 for Android. £5.99 for iPhone/iPad
6/20Super Cat Tales 2
Best for: Fantastical feline fanatics
Twitch platformers can be nightmarish on slippy touchscreens. Super Cat Tales 2 rethinks them. Your moggie auto-runs and you perform gestures to make it leap through old-school pixel art landscapes. You’ll hiss at early deaths and beg for a D-pad, but the smart controls soon click — as does the game as a whole, due to its superb level design and many secrets to discover.
Free for Android. Free for iPhone/iPad
7/20Data Wing
Best for: Debuggers with a need for speed
As you direct a tiny ship around neon-infused courses, grinding track edges for speed, you soon realise something else is going on. The game reveals you are a ‘data wing’, ferrying information within a smartphone run by a dodgy AI. Data Wing then switches back and forth between thrilling arcade sections and a tantalising story about technology that packs a surprising emotional punch.
Free for Android. Free for iPhone/iPad
8/20Mini Metro
Best for: Design buff commuters
The Tube map is gorgeous visual design, but in Mini Metro it comes alive. You’re tasked with dragging routes between stations that randomly pop up, micromanaging the map in real-time to keep the network running. If you thrive on tension, one mode keeps building until everything inevitably gums up. Want to chill out? Try the endless mode instead.
£0.71 for Android. £3.99 for iPhone/iPad
9/20Device 6
Best for: Masters of mash-ups
Few games grapple with the nature of touchscreen devices like Device 6. This marriage of spy thriller, adventure and puzzler effortlessly shifts from a ballsy opener to an intriguing mystery where words from the story form the pathways you explore. As you dig deeper, your device itself becomes increasingly intertwined in a satisfying, clever and very meta narrative.
£3.99 for iPhone/iPad
10/20Jumpgrid
Best for: Gamers with fly-like reactions
From the highs of Super Hexagon to the terrifying lows of Flappy Bird, mobile gaming is no stranger to tough twitch-based challenges. Jumpgrid fiercely snarls at them all and then punts your ego into the sea with its Pac-Man in a shoebox dot-munch/teleportation combo, where you avoid whirling obstacles or die. And you will die — a lot. It’s dizzyingly brilliant though.
£2.16 for Android. £2.99 for iPhone/iPad
11/20Hidden Folks
Best for: The sharp of vision
You know those books where you comb over an illustrated scene to find a bloke in a bobble hat? Yeah, forget them, because Hidden Folks is much better. Each of its puzzles comprises hand-drawn animated landscapes and objects that beg to be prodded, making mouth-originated sounds and sometimes revealing secrets. It’s the finest lean-back chill out game on mobile.
£3.60 for Android. £4.99 for iPhone/iPad
12/20Samorost 3
Best for: Admirers of hand-made worlds
The mechanics of this point-and-click adventure could have beamed in from the Amiga. But Amanita Design’s lush visual work transforms it into something else — something better. Dazzling hand-crafted backgrounds, beautifully composed audio and engaging characters full of heart infuse life and soul into the game. The puzzles are solid too, but it’s the protagonist’s reaction to victory that’ll really win you over.
£3.60 for Android. £1.99 for iPhone/iPad
13/20Sticky Terms
Best for: Idiom-happy puzzle-solvers
Many word games start you off with a scrambled stack of letters. Sticky Terms instead rips letterforms themselves to pieces. Each puzzle begins life as what appears to be a tiny slice of modern art. You flip and drag the abstract pieces, eventually connecting them to fashion words that comprise ‘untranslatable’ sayings. It’s a gorgeous, tactile and generous freebie.
Free for Android. Free for iPhone/iPad
14/20Super Fowlst 2
Best for: Anti-demon poultry pals
TV would have you believe superheroes will be there for us when demons invade. Super Fowlst 2 instead reckons our hopes rest with a chicken that has trouble staying aloft. Odd? Sure. But a great premise for a game as you tap to arc awkwardly across the screen, bonking demon heads, battling deranged bosses and occasionally unleashing fowl fury on unearthing a stompy mech suit.
Free for Android. Free for iPhone/iPad
15/20Sky: Children of the Light
Best for: Explorers with friends
With a similarly open feel to thatgamecompany's other totemic indie title Journey, Sky… sees you explore a lush landscape, sliding down hillsides on your heels. Its foundation is multiplayer, compelling you to work with temporary friends to solve puzzles. Wordless communication can frustrate, but it’s breathtaking when someone takes your hand and you as one zoom towards the heavens.
Free for Android. Free for iPhone/iPad
16/20Asphalt 9: Legends
Best for: Not careful drivers
At first, Asphalt 9: Legends seems ludicrous. On-rails racing! But while you’d think auto-steering reductive, it transforms circuits into choreography puzzles to master, figuring out optimum moments to drift, boost and hurl your car into the air like a maniac. All the IAP stuff is skeevy, but you can have fun for nowt, and as a blazingly fast, ridiculous racer, it’s unsurpassed on a phone.
Free for Android. Free for iPhone/iPad
17/20Steredenn
Best for: Trigger happy optimists
The side-on blasting here recalls shooty games back to R-Type, but Steredenn adds procedurally generated levels and upgrade paths that force you to think rather than just blast your way to victory. It also understands how absurd ‘lone hero against the universe’ shooters are, as evidenced by weapon pick-ups that include a huge space boomerang and a giant stabby sword strapped to the front of your ship.
£3.99 for iPhone/iPad
18/20Slydris 2
Best for: Neat freaks with swiping smarts
We need to have a word about mobile Tetris, and that word is ‘garbage’. Fortunately, Slydris 2 exists, smartly rethinking block-dropping for touchscreens by making it turn-based. To stop things becoming easy, you can only move one from several new pieces each turn. You must therefore make cunning use of bonuses that shatter blocks so they fall into gaps and trigger combos.
£2.99 for iPhone/iPad
19/20Oddmar
Best for: Viking-liking Mario addicts
Traditional leapy platformers rarely work on mobile, but Oddmar is an exception. The titular hero bounds about by way of touch-optimised controls, collecting bling and unsportingly jumping on enemies to kill them. But this is more than a Mario-alike, with wonderful set pieces, first-rate cartoonish visuals and enough challenge to ensure you won’t scythe through the thing like a Viking’s sword through a Viking’s enemy.
Free + £3.39 for Android. £4.99 for iPhone/iPad
20/20Touchgrind BMX 2
Best for: Armchair-based stunt performers
There are many extreme sports games on consoles, but gripping a gamepad doesn’t help you feel connected to a virtual ride. With Touchgrind BMX 2, fingers sit atop handlebars and brakes, gestures steering the bike and triggering stunts. It’s a surreal but immersive experience — and rewarding when you pull off combos that ramp up your score. Also try Touchgrind Skate, which pulls a similar trick for skateboarding.
Free + IAP for Android. Free + IAP for iPhone/iPad
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