Kid Tripp is an auto-running retro-style platform game created by Not Done Yet Games. It borrows some gameplay elements from the endless running genre, though really it's more of an old fashioned action game you might have found on the NES or Sega Genesis. It's simple, it's extremely challenging, and it's filled with chunky pixel artwork that perfectly defines the game's quirky sense of humor.

Dropchord is a music-driven arcade game from the lovely folks at Double Fine. With a thumping beat in the background and glowing neon artwork all over, your simple goal is to press two fingers on the screen and guide a line to touch dots that appear in the center. It's somewhat reminiscent of Cipher Prime's Pulse, only with a stronger focus on avoidance and puzzle elements that pure musical skill.

Want that refreshing RPG flavor with a slight twist? Deep Dungeons of Doom from MiniBoss has the formula down to a science. Fight monsters, gain experience, buy equipment and complete quests, all by tapping the sides of the screen. The adventure you'll undertake is as righteous as any "gotta save the world from evil" role playing game, but here you only have to worry about the exciting stuff!

Pivvot is an on-rails avoidance game created by Whitaker Trebella. It puts you in control of a small pair of orbs traveling along a fixed path in an abstract world of color and shape. Obstacles are placed along the path, and the only way you can avoid them is by pivoting the large orb around the smaller one. Simple concept, but like Super Hexagon and other "don't touch anything 'cause it's all dangerous" games, the challenge quickly escalates into a true test of reflexes.

In this game of Tic-Tac-Toe, three in a row is a bad thing! Conceptis presents Tic-Tac-Logic, a puzzler where you've got to fill the grid with noughts and crosses following three simple rules. There's got to be an equal number of Xs and Os in each row, you can't have two identical rows, and you can't have three Xs or Os in a row. It sounds simple, but it takes patience and deduction to figure out the single solution for each puzzle in this app.

rymdkapsel is a mesmerizing defense game from Martin Jonasson (grapefrukt) that is as elegant as it is intriguing. It combines elements of spatial awareness, strategic planning, Civilization-like expansion, and a touch of zen-like exploration as you work your way further into outer space, discovering ability upgrades while defending yourself from attack. It's a beautifully balanced game that has the ability to hold your attention for hours on end.

Droidscape:Basilica is a sci-fi puzzle game from Kyttaro Games that's got a few tricks up its sleeve. It casts you in the role of Bishop 7, a small robot who happens to be humanity's only hope to survive a new Dark Age. By drawing paths and then controlling the 'bot's progression, you can gather key cards to open doors and work your way to becoming a hero!

It's time for a simple, soothing word game. What's the Sentence from Tinyworks Games is a straightforward game that combines anagrams with famous quotes. A baseline of six letter tiles rests at the bottom of the screen. Above are several words with blank spots in place of letters. Tap the word you want to work with, then tap your inventory to start filling them in. Repeat the process until the famous quote is complete!

Blitz Block Robo from Nexus Game Studio is an action puzzle game that's all about speed, speed and more speed. It keeps gameplay simple with one or two basic mechanics and a few wrenches thrown into the mix just to make sure you don't get too comfortable. Easy to play, extremely challenging, and plenty of replay value. Sounds like an ideal mobile game to us!

A Ride into the Mountains is an artistic take on a retro arcade game created by Lee-Kuo Chen. You play as Zu, a young man who lives in a remote cabin whose only purpose is to protect an ancient relic from harm. When something happens to said relic one morning, Zu grabs his bow, hops on his horse and heads out to investigate.

Sky Tourist from Three Legged Egg has finally done something new with the physics platform genre made popular by Doodle Jump! Instead of hopping or flying or running or crawling, you maneuver a boy dangling on a wire suspended between two rocket ships. By changing the rockets' locations in relation to each other you can slide left and right, collecting cubes and taking a more extended look at the great stuff the universe has to offer!

Lums is the story of a bunch of Lums and a bunch of Vampires. It's a physics puzzle game that takes a unique angle on the Crush the Castle / Angry Birds formula of tossing things to destroy structures. Instead of pigs or snooty royalty, though, you get to shed a little light on some grumpy vampires. Watch 'em burn!

Yes yes YES. The Kagi Nochi Tobira series is back! The iOS and Android escape game Kagi Nochi Tobira 2013 from Daisuke Suzuki is one of the more polished "100-style" escape games out there (move over, 100 Floors), adopting a simple art style and puzzles that are both creative and challenging. Time to grab your mobile device and binge play.

Take Action to Escape is a mobile escape game from Mobest Media that wants to remind you you'll never escape unless you, you know, actually do something! Similar to escape games like DOOORS and 100 Rooms, you're presented with a series of single-screen levels littered with a few objects and a door that's locked tight. By tilting, tipping, shaking, sliding and staring at your device, it's your job to uncover the key so you can head to the next level!

Peace! Houh! What is it good for? Well, something apparently, as the various factions of Berzerk Studio's new defense shooter, The Peacekeeper, want it, and are willing to slaughter everything in their path to get it. A visceral burst of just-mindless-enough entertainment, The Peacekeeper is a bloody and hilarious good time, if a little repetitive in the endgame

Brash, sassy, and punchy, Ittle Dew and her friend Tippsie want just one thing... adventure, and lots of it! Fortunately the island she's stranded on has that in spades, along with challenging puzzles, humour, and weight-lifting cacti. Ludosity serves up a knee-weakeningly adorable and funny indie action adventure that calls upon classic inspirations like Zelda and The Secret of Mana without ever losing its own style and creativity.

This multiple level escape stands out because it's not a simple "clear the stage" game with many doors yet few puzzles. Each well-appointed room invites exploration, handling clues with finesse so it is challenging without being frustrating. You finish with a sense of accomplishment, making this a mobile game that is as satisfying to your brain as it is to your eyes.

Gorgeous, funny, and packed with wickedly devious levels, this is one iOS/Android game you won't want to put down. Play as an itty-bitty thief and his ferret companion as you point-and-click your way through beautifully designed stages and chapters, each with their own unique story and setup, to rob from the buttheads and give to yourself... or those who need it more.

Sprinkle Islands from Granny Smith creator Mediocre is a follow up to Sprinkle, a physics-based mobile puzzle game that is as adorable as it is fun. Pieces of a giant stone are raining down on Sprinkle Islands like meteors, causing all sorts of fires to spring up. Enter you, happy hero, with your simple height-adjustable vehicle that spits water like a little fountain. Time to douse some flames!

In FireRabbit's unique blend of a hidden object search with an escape-the-room game, you begin with a task list in hand, a garage full of parts and tools, and a classic American muscle car in need of some loving attention. And since it's available on most mobile devices, you can play this "fix'em up and drive away" project almost anywhere wheels will take you.

It may not offer much new from the previous titles, but the third installment in the addictively sadistic action platformer series for iOS is just as polished, hard, and face-punchingly fun as you'd want.

On the surface, this puzzle game is simple. Easy, even. You move in turns through small, carefully designed levels trying to avoid or eliminate enemies on your way to the exit. But before long, the new varieties of obstacles and tight level design will force you to think ahead in strategic fashion, making this one elegantly simple game that can challenge you with the best of them.

One part puzzle solving, one part snarky story, and one part riddles, Relentless Software's Blue Toad Murder Files: A Touch of Mystery is what you would get if you combined the Professor Layton series with You Don't Know Jack. Sounds like strange bedfellows for sure, but Blue Toad's wild narration and sense of humor keep the whodunit theme light and enjoyable while popping you from one mystery to the next. All without a single reference to Murder, She Wrote!

It's time for a simple, gorgeous game of billiards, the heads of the mobile gaming pantheon have decreed. Super Paper Pool from One Side Software is a bit like a cross between billiards, mini-golf, and maybe just a touch of Peggle, too. It's a game of precise shots and lucky breaks, where the slightest twitch of your finger can win or lose a level.

Ever wanted to combine Fruit Ninja with Space Invaders? P�caro Game Studio did, and so the team set to work to build Attack of the Spooklings, a game of endless fence protecting and enemy slashing. Attack of the Spooklings sends waves of enemies after you, and your only defense is to swipe like your life depended on it. Because it kinda does. Your virtual life, anyway.

Maximus is the sidescrolling beat-em-up iOS device owners have always wanted. Taking pages from brawlers like Golden Axe and Castle Crashers, this humorous take on the genre from Mooff Games does the nearly impossible by making touch screen controls actually work for an action game. Sounds crazy, right? It's not, and after spending some time with Maximus beating things up and gaining a few levels, you'll probably want to hunt up the Mooff Games folks and be all like "Are you a wizard?".

Samurai Shodown II isn't a game you'd expect to see on a mobile device. Virtual controls for a fighting game originally released 20 years ago? Doesn't sound like the most promising combination. But publisher DotEmu has gone to great lengths to make things work, handing you completely customizable button layouts and sizes as well as built-in MOGA controller support so you play without hindrance. A slidey touch screen may not have the give of a good arcade joystick, but it gets the job done!

Layton Brothers: Mystery Room is a crime solving mystery game from Level-5, the team behind the well-known Professor Layton series on Nintendo DS. While this incarnation may only bear passing ties to the prof's previous adventures, it's still a solid adventure game that will remind you of Phoenix Wright in some ways. Which is a good thing!

Toca Builders is a sandbox creativity toy created by the team at Toca Boca. Instead of giving you boring drawing tools or other cold, removed contraptions, this adorable game hands you half a dozen robots who each have different abilities. By driving them around, switching between them and using their skills to place and remove blocks, you can construct just about anything you can dream up!

The little programmable robot is back, and this time it's mobile! Light-bot is a logic-based puzzle game that's been kicking around the browser scene for a few years in the form of Light-Bot and Light-Bot 2.0. Now the game has made the jump to Android and iOS, bringing with it several dozen new levels that will challenge your ability to program robots to light up blocks. That makes it sound a bit easy, but it isn't, we promise!

Fed up with the current crop of farming games and their incessant cheeriness? Agricola brings you back to reality like stepping in a pile of fresh manure. Playdek's mobile conversion of Uwe Rosenberg's classic strategy board game has the same pleasant exterior as numerous Facebook farm-'em-ups, but its cuddly graphics and music will do little to soothe your aching brain as you struggle to keep your peasants from starvation. Fun? It sure is.

"Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain." Creepy music? Concrete walls? Perspicacious quotes? Yes, your adventures in the asylum are nowhere near over in Glitch Games' latest adventure, Forever Lost: Episode 2. Last year's breakout point-and-click escape hit is back to continue the story, featuring more twists, chills, and lots of classic adventuring fun.

Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage is a brand new offering from Nitrome, the browser game team who are responsible for such previous casual addictions as Steamlands, Hot Air 2: All Blown Up, Skywire, and of course the rest of the Icebreaker series. This new outing marks Nitrome's first foray into the mobile realm, and judging by the depth and quality of this release, we really, really hope it isn't their last!

It's a sweltering day outside. Seeing all the thirsty people gives Mickey an idea: lemonade stand! He's missing one key ingredient, however: water. Too bad it's not as simple as marching over to the sink and turning on the tap. From the creators of Where's My Water? and Where's My Perry?, the new physics-puzzle adventure Where's My Mickey? follows the same touch and drag formula as its predecessors, only with a new visual style and some few imaginative gameplay additions.

Super School Day is a quick-fire collection of mini-games from Second Impact Games. It shares a lot with titles like Wario Ware and the classic 4 Second series, though this game is out to make a mockery of them at every turn. Each round drops handfuls of extremely fast micro-games in your face, challenging you to complete them as best you can before you're whisked off to the next one. You will feel lost, you won't know what's going on, you will yell and you will fail. But you'll be laughing the whole time because hey, there's a sea urchin school uniform!

Billed as an arcade cabinet imported from an alternate universe, Nam-Cap takes the familiar concept of Pac-Man and turns it backwards in many ways. Your goal in each level is to fill the whole maze with dots (as opposed to consuming them all, obviously). Despite the reversal, Nam-Cap captures everything that made Pac-Man entertaining.

Little Luca from Glowingpine Studios is a unique one button physics puzzle game that puts you in control of a bunch of floating colored things that change shape. Really! As two friends gazed upon the peaceful night sky something terrible happened. Stars fell from their perches, leaving behind a glowing red void. And the only person/creature that can set things right is you. Time to get wobbling!

Crazy Machines Golden Gears is a new addition to the Crazy Machines series of physics building/puzzle games. The franchise has made the leap from downloadable desktop game to the mobile world, bringing with it all the challenge, creativity and, well, crazy machines you can imagine. If Rube Goldberg only knew the kind of legacy he would leave to the casual gaming world.

Pet Rescue Saga is a cute and captivating puzzle game that made its way from the world of Facebook to the mobile marketplaces. Created by King, the developer behind Candy Crush Saga, expect a well-tuned matching experience punctuated by a number of useful power-ups, all told through a shoestring story about rescuing adorable pets!

Follow your dreams! And if your dreams mean you have to pay a monkey scientist in bananas to reach the moon and a hypothetical lady monkey, well, so be it! Though it could use some more variety, this launch game has style and polish to burn for a simple but fun experience.

Want to take Mojang's wildly popular sandbox building simulation with you wherever you go? As long as you have an iOS or Android device you can! Though lacking a lot of the content from its desktop edition and multiplayer capability, Pocket Edition is a great way to get your diggy-diggy-hole on whenever you want, or just get your feet wet if you want to find out what all the fuss is about.

Bridgy Jones, which we promise has absolutely nothing to do with Helen Fielding or Renée Zellweger, is a physics puzzle/building game from Grow App. It's pretty much free from all that romance and stuff, but it's still tells a bit of a love story in its own way. The love between a dog and a chicken, a man and delicious fried eggs, and you and your ability to make bridges out of thin air, that is.

Color Zen from Large Animal Games is a relaxing puzzle game that's probably going to be your next go-to for quick bursts of entertainment. Each level hands you shapes of various colors, some of which are movable, all you have to do is give them a quick swipe. When shapes of the same color collide they meld into each other and fill the entire screen, effectively eliminating that color from the puzzle. The goal is to get every visible object the same color as the border.

Two childhood friends would never expect their destinies would grow to be so great... or to pull them in opposite directions. This iOS port of the beloved turn-based tactical RPG classic may suffer from some user interface problems, but with the challenging battles and deep narrative intact, it still remains a formidable, engrossing experience that deserves a place in any fan's library.

Pixel Rooms is a room escape game born from the combined talents of Urara-Works and Skipmore. You might recognize those names from the utterly amazing mobile RPG Fairune released not too long ago. Pixel Rooms goes several steps beyond the usual mobile escape setup, treating you to puzzles and stages that bend the rules in creative new ways. It's more than just doors that need unlocking, it's like a series of mini-puzzles from Hapland or GROW!

Sparkle 2 has just arrived from 10tons, the team behind the mobile physics puzzle games Tennis in the Face and King Oddball. And you know what? It looks gorgeous. It plays gorgeous, too, if you can pretend that's a thing that makes sense. Smooth marble popping puzzle action combined with a soothing soundtrack and drop-dead stunning visuals. It's everything you could want in a simple casual matching game.

Scurvy Scallywags is a hybrid match-3 puzzle game created by Beep Games, that studio where that guy Ron Gilbert works, not to mention his DeathSpank collaborator Clayton Kauzlaric. Scurvy Scallywags dresses you in your piratey best and sends you to the sea on a quest to discover the ultimate sea shanty (a.k.a. "song"). Along the way you'll defeat all sorts of foes, swap and match piles of gold, attach swords, coconuts and rats, spend your pirate booty on ability upgrades, and witness one of the most awkward pirate dramas ever performed.

The newest "100" room escape game (well, I say newest; another 30 have probably just popped up in the time its taken to write this) is 100 Dreams by Daisuke Suzuki, the maker of the excellent Kagi Nochi Tobira. The format should be secondhand by now: Each stage presents you with the simple task of opening a door under increasingly complex and puzzling circumstances.

Were you alive and mostly aware of your surroundings in 1984? Good, this article is for you! Karateka Classic is a mobile re-release of the original combat game created by Prince of Persia guru Jordan Mechner. Akuma has kidnapped the princess and you're going to fight your way through every one of his minions until you get her back. Bam! The music, the floppy drive loading sounds, the scan lines... it's all there. With some more modern features to accommodate touch screen controls, of course. But apart from that, it's all retro.

Locking horns with a great puzzle is an almost zen-like experience. There's something wonderful about letting the world slip away as you sink into the pure logic of a mind-bending puzzle. Of course, when that puzzle is as beautiful and engaging as Quell Memento, it makes the experience that much sweeter. Created by Fallen Tree Games, the lastest installment of the raindrop-sliding brainteaser Quell takes place in an abandoned house, filled with the memories of its previous owner.

Phoenix Wright is back, and he's in HD! After months of waiting Capcom has finally released Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright Trilogy HD, packing three Phoenix Wright games into a single, easy-to-get-hooked-on download. It doesn't matter if you've never heard of the series or are a tried and true fan, Ace Attorney offers a lot of story and a lot of suspense in a very attractive package.

Greedy Grub is a freemium town building game from Pixowl with gorgeous artwork and gameplay that's just left of the norm. It immediately captivates you with its tale of a cute orange grub falling out of a tree, and every character you meet afterwards is just as quirky and lovable. Layer on top of that an honestly entertaining collection-centric gameplay mechanic and you've got the perfect recipe for an addictive mobile game.

Travel the world. Find exotic kittens. And put bread on their faces. Pokemon meets internet meme in this bizarrely endearing free iOS game, where adorable art and simple yet addictive gameplay war with some monetization issues.

From the creator of the SQUIDS series comes a truly casual, but also truly addictive, casual brawler. Simply swipe to attack as you learn to chain together powerful abilities and combos to defeat your foes, earning upgrades to become even more powerful, in a game dripping with charm... and satire!

Logistics is a physics puzzle game from Robb Akerson. Using only the most basic features from building games such as The Incredible Machine, it's your job to move objects around the screen, one piece of candy or one block of ice at a time. It takes a bit of fiddling to make sure everything is in the right place, but Logistics is built with casual players in mind, providing a good logical challenge but never making you feel frustrated.

CastleMine from Mugshot Games combines tower defense with a little bit of old fashioned digging. Instead of mapping out mazes for creeps to crawl through or building balloon things on green green grass, you get to dig underground one block at a time. Uncover extra gold deposits, additional resources, or even nests of enemies as you attempt to defend your castle from the threat from below.

The woods are no place to be stranded in. You can lose your way; you can lose your mind; you can even lose yourself. Developed by Simulated Culture, Rootwork is a new strategic card game that drops you into the heart of the deepest, darkest forest and challenges you to make it out safely. However, a stray critter or a thorny bush are the least of your troubles here. These woods are full of dark forces and malevolent spirits, and at the center of the dark maelstrom is "She." Who is She? That's uncertain. But these are Her woods, and if She wants you to stay lost forever the odds are stacked against you.

You know what your average tug-of-war game needs? A table instead of a rope. At least that's what Otto Ojola thinks, and he's turned the idea into Tug the Table, a simple yet wonderful fighting game that manages to be reminiscent of Wrestle Jump while still being unique.

A lot of kids who grew up with RC cars turned into today's gamers. That's a dangerous blanket statement to make, but you can't argue there isn't some overlap. After all, isn't driving a radio controlled car around the living room kind of like a video game? And didn't playing with RC cars and video games make your parents mad? Looking to bring those two worlds together, Paladin Studios, the team behind Momonga Pinball Adventures, has released Nikko RC Racer, a wild and untamed arcade racing game that's about as close to driving the real thing as you can get.

Money, or freedom. Which will you choose? McBank: The Puzzle of Money and Freedom uses stark, humorous imagery wrapped around a series of quick puzzles that play on the theme of the uneven distribution of wealth and power in modern society. Even though most of the world's money is controlled by a relative few people, the masses continue to support them with their purchases and actions. McBank forces you to to choose with each level you complete, and the results aren't always pretty.

Move fast! No, faster! No, even faster! Available in your browser or on your mobile device, Mini Dash is a challenging one-hit K-O platformer full of missiles, buzzsaws, daring jumps, and more that will test your mettle over and over.

After your rather unceremonious birth, you're sent to the temple of the Silene Monks, where you choose whether to be a medic, a warrior or an engineer. From there, it's up to you to make the right choices to fulfill your destiny and, most crucially, not die. But Trial of the Clone is more than a simple choose-your-own-adventure. Along the way you'll gain stat points, weapons and items, which you can keep track of via a built-in D&D-style Adventure Sheet. These come to play in battles which pop up occasionally and affect the course of the story. Battles are pretty simple: You deal damage to your opponent based on your given stats plus a random number from 0 to 3, and then your opponent does the same — the last one standing wins. Loss in a battle doesn't necessarily mean death; it may just mean being relocated to a different department (say, engineering, where physical strength, ability and charisma are less in demand).

Douglas Chase, the hero of Tasty Poison's arcade puzzle game Dig!, has it rough. He works as an archaeologist for a failing museum, and in order to save his job, appease his boss and rescue the museum, he has to dig up new and exciting artefacts, pronto. And he has to do all this while mummies, tentacles and moles chase him, which never makes things easy. Oh, and toilet seats count as priceless artefacts, by the way. Have fun!

Daddy Was a Thief is a solid little arcade game from Rebel Twins, creator of the gorgeous mobile release Crumble Zone. The story begins with dear old dad losing his job, then picking up a How-To book on robbery so he can nip off to the bank for a bit of thievery. When the action begins dad is making his escape. The only problem is there are hundreds of things standing between his high-rise hijinks and the safety of terra firma.

Something has gone terribly, horribly awry at Don Eduardo's zoo. Flesh-seeking undead animals are on the loose and you, plucky boy or girl, are the last line of defense in Zoombies: Animales de la Muerte!, a mobile line-drawing defense game from High Voltage Software. Could this be the worst field trip ever?

Armed with only an arsenal of letters, the Banana Breakers are here to save the day! In this Mastermind-meets-Boggle word logic game, you've got to split the grid of letters into a series of words. You can use clues from submitted words to help you deduce the positions of letters in a word, but your next guess might give you clues somewhere else entirely! Can you solve the grid without going bananas?

Perfection is a simple, casual puzzle game from Dumb and Fat Games, creator of Sling It! and Phantasmaburbia. It tests your spatial resolve by challenging you to slice bits of an object away until it fits inside an outline. There's no timer, there's no move limits, and there are no missions to complete. Just some relaxing music and a great game of self-challenge at your fingertips.

You can't help but smile when you make these monkeys happy in Pencil Kids' wonderfully interactive point-and-click puzzle game. In each stage, figure out what will make the weepy-eyed simian dance in glee. This means using objects creatively, solving puzzles and even completing a few arcade-type mini-games. Finish all 15 stages to be treated to a coin collecting adventure bonus level. But the joy on those adorable faces is what makes the effort worth it.

Explore a mysterious paper world and help the Paper Titans reunite as they work together in 45 levels to gather up three stars and reach the envelope sealed with a kiss. Fold up these quirky characters then put to collecting, throwing, flying, exploding and shamaning past obstacles in an elaborate 3D world which is instantly accessible via a touch and a swipe on your mobile device. Playing more as interactive art than a challenging game, those who enjoy distinctive visuals and relaxing gameplay can let their imagination run wild in this papercraft playground.

Bart Bonte is back (ok, so he never really went anywhere) with a brand new game, this time on iOS! Factory Balls began as an entry in one of our early Casual Gameplay Design Competitions in 2008. The puzzle game has grown and expanded since then, producing several sequels and finally landing on mobile devices with a stylish visual upgrade. Get ready for a new generation of infuriating, satisfying sphere painting!

Do you like numbers and loops? Of course you do! You're only human. Conceptis, the team who brought pencil puzzles like Link-A-Pix and Nurikabe to the web, are continuing their trend of porting their browser puzzles to the iOS platform, trading in the scratch of a pencil or the click of a mouse for the tap of a finger. Their latest App Store addition is Conceptis Slitherlink, a mobile iteration of their loopy logic puzzle Slitherlink Light.

In Hummingbird Game, you play a mother hummingbird trying to lead her babies — and some friendly butterflies, dragonflies, and other animals — into the nest while avoiding wasps. The gameplay is neat, the artwork is gorgeous, and there are a lot of little details that really give it polish.

New from inkle studios, the team that brought the interactive novel Frankenstein to iOS in 2012, Steve Jackson's Sorcery! is a digital re-imagining of the Fighting Fantasy roleplaying gamebooks. You don't have to be a fan of the classic series to enjoy Sorcery!, nor do you have to be an avid reader (or own a pair of dice). You just need a little bit of curiosity and a love of interactive stories.

Manipulate cells and bacteria to your liking in this shiny match-3 game. As you play scientist, get three of the same cells adjacent to each other to form a higher grade cell. Trap pesky bacteria to stop their roaming, and complete level goals to move on. Don't forget to try the shop if you get stuck!

Welcome about your starship, commander. It may not have much going for it right now, but it's yours. With time, training, and diligence, you could turn it into a credit to Star Command's fleet... provided, of course, you don't get caught up in a deadly web of conspiracy and intrigue that could spell your demise. A challenging and addictive sci-fi simulation strategy game packed with gorgeous pixel art.

The most frightening things are often the ones you can't see. It stands to reason, then, that in a world where nothing is visible, just about everything is frightening. The Nightjar is an audio adventure from Papa Sangre that uses a rudimentary visual interface to allow you to explore a sci-fi horror adventure world. Every sound has a meaning, and every step moves you through a dark labyrinth of mental images. Now let's see if you can escape this ship you've been stranded on without getting eaten by one of those "complex, non-human" lifeforms!

To be a robot unicorn, galloping through the futuristic landscape straight from a prog album cover while feeling the wind in your luxurious mane, dashing recklessly through glittering stars and smashing into your component robot parts when you misjudge that one tricky jump... Robot Unicorn Attack 2 by PikPok and Adult Swim is a candy-coated cream puff of a game with a tough-as-nails center. In short, a new endless runner superstar.

Describing Blendoku, a mobile puzzle game from Lonely Few, is simple: it's sudoku with colors. Blendoku is such an intuitive game that reading about its mechanics will take longer than grasping them through experience. Puzzle freaks are advised stop reading now and gobble up this colorful and satisfying gem. Everyone else, read on for all the convincing you'll need!

Hiversaires is a game about not knowing. Not knowing where you are, or why you're there. Not knowing what those markings on the wall mean. Not knowing where you're supposed to go, or how to get there. But eventually, piece by piece, figuring things out. Created by Aliceffekt, Hiversaires is a first-person point-and-click adventure that drops you cold into a dark, mysterious, monochrome world full of cryptic symbols and machines.

From Jesse Venbrux, whose name you might recognize from games like the Karoshi series or Focus, They Need to Be Fed 2 is a mobile sequel to a freeware downloadable game that's all about feeding helpless critters to chomping piranha plants. Neat, right? Don't worry, it's not all sad and evil. In fact, it's quite a cheerful mix of puzzle and platforming elements that works really well on touch screen devices.

It sounded like a simple heist... get into the old abandoned house, steal anything of value, and get out. But you're not alone in the dark, and something is very unhappy you've intruded. Explore an eerie house full of randomly generated treasure, grab what you need, and get out before you're caught, making use of ghostly eyes to see through the sight of the thing hunting you.

Which sounds worse: tennis or clowns? Ha, trick question! They're both equally creepy in their own way! 10tons totally gets that, which is why the team that brought us the physics puzzle game Tennis in the Face has released the follow-up Clowns in the Face. Now, instead of just smacking things in the face with tennis balls, you're smacking clowns in the face with tennis balls. Neat!

New from Halfbrick Studios, creator of Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, comes Fish Out of Water!, an arcade game that's one part fish tossing, and, well, another part fish tossing, too! Pick up a scaly friend and give 'em a throw, sending each one across the ocean to see how far you can go. Get an impressive distance score and skip off the surface of the water as many times as you can and you might just impress the crabby judges at the end. Seriously, the judges are crabs.

NonoCube from Graycode Software takes the familiar picross puzzle and bumps it into the world of 3D. Now, instead of filling in squares on a flat grid, you carve out a shape by twisting and turning a cube shape floating freely in space. The same rules of logic still apply, you just have another dimension to worry about solving!

Yummies is a logic-based puzzle game from YUMMY Factory, the team behind the mobile brain teasers IQ Mission and IQ Mission: Epilogue. Your goal is to guide squishy-looking aliens to their respective capsules, nudging them along paths while you deal with all sorts of barriers and blockades. It's an extremely cerebral experience that's softened by a phenomenal visual presentation, right down to the grinning little aliens you'll be helping out.

Fester's brother has gone missing shortly after discovering gold, and Fester is determined to find him in this retro point-and-click adventure game. Your journey takes you through a small town in the wild West filled with quirky characters and humorous descriptions. Enjoy a Western-inspired soundtrack and great old-school graphics as you search for your missing brother.

Slayin isn't a game, it's a time machine rocketing from an 8-bit past. Pixel Licker's deliciously compulsive mashup of old school action RPG and contemporary endless runner-style progression is so infused with retro spirit that you might forget you're playing it on a device that lacks buttons.

Months after the tournament that decided Kurestal Kingdom's next ruler, one of the knights sacrifices his life to save the new king. In The King's League: Odyssey, the sequel to Kurechii's popular game from 2011, you manage a team of fighters who are looking to fill the job opening.

Pah. Tossed out with the rest of the garbage. The nerve! At least you have your freedom, though once you see what's ahead in this surreal world of shadows and machines you might want to go back to the junkyard. Badland is a one-touch action game from Frogmind that's sort of a cross between an endless flying game and a platformer. It tells a charming story without using a single word, expressing a range of emotions using little more than clever level design and plenty of beautiful, beautiful artwork.

Orion has one of the coolest jobs in the universe: creating constellations. While we'd really like to sit him down to find out how a bunch of random stars is actually a centaur with a bow, Trinket Studios has something better to offer. Orion's Forge is a new mobile puzzle game from the studio that brought us Color Sheep. Instead of defeating wolves with rainbows you'll be working with gravity as you manipulate energy to fill stars so they shine bright and clear in the sky.

Fairune is an action-puzzle RPG adventure much like the world where it is set: a place where illusion is reality and three spirit icons have gone missing, unlocking an evil scourge that generates monsters all over the realms. It looks like something you've played before yet eliminates hack'n'slash style combat in favor of solving puzzles. Instead of fighting, just walk over monsters and make your way across a maze-like retro environment, gathering the items you need to open new pathways until your ultimate goal: a showdown with three powerful bosses that will either end in victory or crushing defeat.

What's the crucial element missing from most games nowadays? If you answered anything other than "goats," you're wrong! Jumping goats make anything better, and that's been proven. By science. Released by Llamasoft, Goatup 2 is the goatiest retro platformer you ever did see. A follow-up to the endless jumper Goatup, this sequel is slightly more traditional gameplay experience, if your idea of tradition involves minotaurs in rainbow sweaters, the Queen of England and angry toilets.

Alien Hive, a game by Appxplore is a blend of match 3, sliding block puzzles, and resource management with some alien breeding mixed in. It's all a bit reminiscent of Triple Town, where you shuffle items around to fill in gaps and help tiles evolve to be all that they can possibly be.

You know the old clich� of the adventurer being chased by the giant boulder? It's a trope that has appeared in numerous movies and games, but we never get to see things from the boulder's point of view. Well, that's all about to change! Indiana Stone: The Brave and the Boulder is an arcade-styled action game from Twinsky Games in which you play the larger, rounder, rockier half of the oft-imitated duo. Your mission is to crush the unnamed (but curiously familiar) archaeologist who has stolen your precious golden idol with the intent of locking it up in a stuffy museum.

The latest release from Pocket Planes developer NimbleBit, Nimble Quest drops the simulation formula in favor of a good old fashioned arcade game. And we're not kidding when we say "old fashioned". Nimble Quest is essentially the 40 year old game of Snake with a layer of RPG elements and free to play features draped on top. It's a very different experience than, say, Tiny Tower, but it's got that same level of simple charm we've come to expect from the studio.

The 2010s are shaping up to be the decade of the Internet renegade, yet for those of us without the technical savvy necessary to participate in virtually sticking it to the man, BoxCat LLC offers us a tempting and significantly more legal alternative with Nameless: The Hackers, a mobile RPG with a lot of virtual bite.

Solitaire Blitz is a fast paced addictive card game for your iOS device. It comes with all of the charm and atmosphere you've come to expect from PopCap. Challenge the clock and your friends as you try to clear all the cards within 60 seconds. Earn silver as you play, then spend it on boosts to help you up your score and unlock achievements.

It's a monster's life for you in this casual yet engaging indie simulation from Dejobaan Games! Going from a lowly morsel swimming in a vat of goop to (potentially) a respected elder that can influence the course of history, it's a whimsical, weird, and occasionally gross cross between a choose-your-own-adventure story and a visual novel that offers lots of replay value and laughs.

Bobbing is a fast-paced, finger-twitching, reflex-hounding action platformer from Little Bobby Games. You play as a little eskimo creature whose only ambition in life is to run endlessly through a circular labyrinth filled with twists, traps and lots and lots of fire.

Totems puts a simpler spin on the classic Risk (or Galcon) style of strategy game. Handing you a fistful of animal totems and placing you on a map, it's your job to outwit your opponent as you take turns dropping pieces on the board, claiming territories and fighting for control over the largest chunk of land.