Minesweeper is the kind of game everyone's played at least once in their life. Or 57 times simply because, hey, it's there. When you combine zombies and the very familiar logic puzzle you get Zombie Minesweeper, a game from Frogtoss Games that is exactly what it sounds like: minesweeper with zombies chasing after you. Your job is to carefully move across the minefield, planting flags to mark dangerous tiles while you aim for the detonator at the end. Reach it and it won't be your brains splattered across the place.

Run, Commander Video, Run! Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien is the next chapter in the BIT.TRIP series by Gaijin Games. You've got to jump, slide, kick, and glide your way to all of the gold bars while avoiding getting bonked by a ton of enemies. Sporting a wonderfully wacky atmosphere and fantastically catchy soundtrack, Runner2 is definitely a game you'll want to make a dash for.

Dungeon Plunder is one of those mobile games whose name says it all. Created by Dominic Duchesne, this randomly generated roguelike ditches most of the story and gives you precisely what you want in an RPG: looting, equipment, stuff to fight, and experience to gain. The best part is that combat is handled not with a menu system but with a good old fashioned slot machine!

Here's something you don't see every day: an endless runner made on a sweater. Well, not really, but everything in Knitted Deer is an actual knitted pattern, which suddenly makes pixel graphics seem less retro than before. Jump and shoot your way through the yarney landscape as you avoid just about everything you run into, the only exception being knitted coins and knitted power-ups!

From Dumb and Fat Games, creator of Phantasmaburbia, Sling It! is a quick-fire arcade game perfectly suited for satisfying your urge to break things while ridding the world of smoke-belching machines. It uses a simple-style difficulty progression that throws enemy after enemy in your face, challenging you to chip their metallic bodies apart and use the debris as a weapon. A bit of poetic justice, maybe?

When I first ran across Vampire's Fall from Krime Media, I was on a quest for a new mobile RPG—any new mobile RPG—because, I admit it, I have an addiction. I really only downloaded the game because it was free, and for the first few rounds I wasn't really hooked. But then I started noticing the details. And trust me, there are a lot of details.

The Silent Age: Episode One from House on Fire is built like a classic point-and-click adventure game. It goes to extreme lengths to keep everything as crisp and minimalist as possible, reducing the controls to quick taps and pouring on massive amounts of attention-getting atmospheric details using just a few sound effects and some subtle gradients. But it's that stark simplicity that makes The Silent Age such a fetching game, one that will have you eagerly awaiting future installments!

The dead walk!... and it's you! In this wonderfully bizarre hybrid of slot machine and RPG, take control of a zombie king and his undead army as they rampage across the country through a series of graphic novel-styled adventures, doing battle over the reels and amassing enough loot to buy more units and weapons to expand your arsenal. Simple, fun, and immediately addictive, with a great sense of surreal ghoulish charm.

New in the line of mobile room escape games with "100" in their name ("door exit" games, if you will), 100 Crypts takes a bit of a darker tone with its series of point-and-click puzzles. Dropped off in a series of one screen rooms, your goal is to find a way to unlock the door, unseal the tomb, open the port hole, or do whatever it takes to leave the area, usually so you can find yourself in the exact same situation when you reach the other side!

Year Walk, the latest mobile release from Simogo, is almost the exact opposite of the team's previous release Beat Sneak Bandit. It's a great credit to the studio, however, that such different games can be pulled off with equally impressive results. Structured like a minimalist point-and-click puzzle game, Year Walk weaves together various pieces of Scandinavian folklore to set an atmosphere of cold intrigue and foreboding mystery. It's a beautiful and very meaningful game, and quite the haunting experience if you sit down and let yourself get drawn into the story.

The original zombie-defending gardening sensation may be a few years old, but Plants vs. Zombies lives strong as it makes its way to more and more devices. The killer PopCap app hasn't changed much from its original incarnation, it's just been optimized for touch-based controls and smaller screens. It's just as wacky and fun as ever, though, so if you've never given it a try, now's your chance! It's Apple's Free App of the Week!

It's not often one can look at a racing game and say "Wow, that appeals to a wide audience!" Cubed Rally Redline is one of those games. Created by No Can Win, this pixel art racing game has more in common with mission-based arcade games like Jetpack Joyride than your average racer. Hit the track, jump a few ponds, dodge some cows, and see how far you can go without crashing.

Explore a surreal, magical world inhabited by unusual monsters and other oddities, helping a little girl recover her stolen teddy bear in this point-and-tap adventure from Storybird. Solve conventional adventure game puzzles as well as tone-based riddles to progress through three beautiful chapters, unlock remarkable artwork in the gallery, and enjoy a lovely narrative-free story so charming that it will capture your heart and make you its everlasting friend.

Pixel Dungeon is a free dungeon crawling RPG that aims to be a roguelike anyone can play, all without stripping itself of everything that makes crawling through randomly generated sewers an entertaining event. All you need to do is tap the screen to move across the tiles, wiping away the darkness to reveal walls, doors, items, treasure, and an enemy or three (teeth gnashing, be careful!).

Back in the olden days the life of our earliest ancestors was one of struggle and strife. Vegans and pescetarians hadn't found their chance to emerge yet and instead life was sustained through the efforts of hunters and gatherers. In Feast or Famine, a brilliant new action platform game by X4 Games, you will play the role of the hunter chasing after birds and bison while dodging an assortment of cranky creatures and environmental hazards. Shown through art inspired by caveman paintings this game is good enough for caveman and a throwback treat for us modern folk.

Broom attack! Also, you might be trapped in a dream. Or some other sort of subconscious realm. It's tough to tell, but judging from the strange sights and the cryptic "as legend has foretold" messages from sages and statues, there's definitely something odd going on here. Anodyne from Sean Hogan and Jonathan Kittaka is an adventure through a melancholy world that plays out like a classic 16-bit RPG. It borrows some of the best micro-concepts from games like The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Yume Nikki, and even Earthbound, creating a world that's as innocent as it is moving and as dangerous as it is surreal.

With a title that practically demands a dramatic pause before the final word, 100 Doors of Revenge is a new single-screen room escape game from Gipnetix Games, creator of 100 Doors 2013 and 100 Escapers. Once again, you find yourself faced with a series of locked doors, and the only logical course of action is to start solving your way forward!

DungeonDiary by Windbell is an RPG mixed with a programming game. It sounds like an unusual combination, but the minute you get your hands on it you'll see the enormous potential it has. After your family suffered through a natural disaster, you're left with a massive debt and no way to pay it off. Except by going on adventures! Not a bad way to survive, until you realize that in order to get paid you'll collect more grasses and mushrooms than you knew existed, fight off hordes of bees and "sexy cats", and escort helpless citizens through the wilderness.

Calling all heroes! It's up to you to defend the castles of the kingdom in Wild Heroes. In this tower defense game you must place your heroes wisely to keep the enemy at bay. Upgrade them to wild status to really do some damage. Show the monsters what a hero is really capable of!

Ever had a tennis ball delivered to your face? Not in the gentle way your local postal service worker might deliver a package (*snicker*), the kind of delivery where a professional aims for your head and gives it a good shot? We're glad you answered "no", because if it were true, you might end up like the villains in Tennis in the Face, a game of precision physics from 10tons. A little bit of aiming and a whole lot of ricocheting can go a long way. It's time to take down the corporate machine!

Rise of the Blobs is a colorful, creative, and fruity puzzle matching game from Robot Invader, the studio behind Wind-up Knight. In a world where marshmallows talk and pieces of fruit are weapons, you have the honor of saving the corn syrupy folk in an endless arcade game that isn't afraid to crank up the speed. In a welcome change from the norm, you must manage a three dimensional puzzle board that rotates at the touch of your finger, meaning you won't always be able to see what those pesky blobs are up to!

What's inside the Cave, DoubleFine's latest platforming puzzle adventure? For seven very unusual and very different heroes, that answer is quite personal indeed. But no matter which three you set off to solve the mysteries of the depths with, you can be sure you'll encounter hilarity, challenging puzzles, memorable characters, stunning visuals, and more than a few secrets of the bizarre and personal sort.

Puzzle and Dragons is a fusion of puzzle gameplay and Pokemon-like monster hunting, training and collecting. From the safety of your mobile device you get to manage a team of tiny elemental creatures who can be fused and evolved to become more powerful fighting machines. When your crew is ready to roll, head into the dungeon where you'll battle enemies by swapping gems on a Bejeweled-like grid. It's an almost perfect blend of puzzle matching and role playing, streamlined to be casual friendly without removing too much of the team management bits we love to obsess over.

Riven, the 1997 sequel to Myst, has finally made its way to iPad! Ported to iOS back in 2010, the team at Cyan had some graphics issues to deal with before a large screen release would be possible. After lots of tinkering it finally happened, and the result is the lush and intriguing Age of Riven staring you in the face, complete with a refined interface and full touch screen controls.

Dolls are suspicious. We all know it. They're little, creepy, and just packed with possession potential. But we've never really had proof before now, when your niece comes under the thrall of one seriously nasty specimen whose history is much darker and more mysterious than you might suspect. In this iOS exclusive horror hidden-object adventure, meet bizarre characters and track a sinister plot back to its origins in one strange town.

Inverse Universe from FireRabbit, the creator of the Stalker Room Escape series, is a lovely 3D rendered escape game crafted especially for mobile devices. Instead of the usual single room to bust your way out of, Inverse Universe employs a more traditional layout with a dozen or so areas to explore, each with items and clues you'll put to use elsewhere in the game. It's a nice set-up with some good puzzles and a light sense of humor, making it an excellent and extremely mobile-friendly diversion!

What are you doing? Protect those plant seeds! When zombies get it in their heads they'd rather eat seeds than brains, the plant kingdom rallies together to form the Vegendary Heroes, a group of fearsome warriors dedicated to fighting off the invading undead. I Am Vegend: Zombiegeddon is the tale of this epic struggle, taking a tongue-in-cheek setting and sense of humor from games like Plants vs. Zombies and setting it in a two dimensional defense world.

Gunslugs from Orange Pixel is an arcade game. It's an arcade game with guns and shooting and enemies, helicopters jetpacks and tanks. There's lots of destruction, lots of replayability, unlockable characters, and plenty of weapons with which you can cause said destruction. Basically, it's everything you could ask for from a rampaging action game, all packed up in a neat little mobile release with ample amounts of retro-style visuals, music and secrets.

Mushrooms. It's all about mushrooms. And keys and crates and stuff, too, but really, mushrooms. In Corrypt, a puzzle game by Zaga-33 creator Michael Brough, your job is to work your way through maze-like screens as you hunt for the items you need to appease unsettled citizens. Using a slightly tweaked sokoban-style setup, be ready to sit and scratch your head as you wonder at the logic of carving a path through groups of wooden crates.

Asteroids have long been the nemesis of creatures living on Earth. Just ask the dinosaurs. Or the makers of that gem of an arcade game, Asteroids. Or the NASA researchers who were trying to figure out if we'd get smacked with a big chunk of space rock in a few decades (spoiler: we won't). Crumble Zone from Rebel Twins understands that ancient fear and it capitalizes on it by letting you save the world over and over again by tossing little missiles towards the sky. With satisfying sound effects, a soundtrack that actually rocks, and plenty of things to unlock, it's quite possibly the most exciting asteroid defense "simulation" around!

Remember pinball? Not the the massive stand-up tables you'd feed with quarters at the arcade while your friends foolishly played Mortal Kombat. We're talking about the handheld versions with simple boards and inexplicably infinite replay value! Sauce Digital looks to recreate that world of tiny metal pellets and plastic flippers with Pinball Kid, a small and simple arcade game for iOS devices. It looks retro, it plays retro, and with board names like Rocktopus, Zombeaver and Antdroid, it's almost impossible to resist.

Sometimes you just wanna jump on a trampoline. And turn three sets of reversing flips while in the air and land without smacking your face! Bouncy from monogames is an impressively illustrated arcade game that is essentially an upgradeable stunt trampoline for your iOS device. It's better than risking your cranial integrity on a real life trampoline, and you get to fight for higher scores and upgrade your equipment in the process. Plus, buck-toothed bunny!

The world of creativity games continues to expand, but this time it's on mobile devices! Growtopia, a combined effort from Robot Wants developer Hamumu and Dungeon Scroll creator Robinson Technologies, strips out a lot of the complexities often found in creativity games like Minecraft or Terraria, allowing you to build and decorate your own little world that goes wherever your mobile device goes. Bored on the bus? Growtopia! Don't wanna listen to your boss droning on? Growtopia! Entire evening free? GROWTOPIA!

Hide and seek can be a very serious past time, but it loses som`e of its appeal when bad things start to happen as a result of an innocent game. Escape: The Ruby of Judgment is a point and click escape game from the talented folks at IDAC, the mobile division of Gotmail. Featuring lovely stylized visuals and an impressive battery of puzzles, this somber but entertaining release proves you don't need a mouse to craft a good escape game!

Joe Danger is kind of a big deal. Not only is he the World's Most Determined Stuntman, he can also leap across shark-infested pools, dodge giant mousetraps, evade threatening speed bumps, and apparently hover atop giant fans. Pretty sweet deal, right? After Joe's initial outing as a console download, the fearless stunt driver has landed on iOS devices with Joe Danger Touch, a fantastic arcade game from Happy Games with tons of things to unlock and plenty of wild rides to pursue. Great mobile racing game, or the greatest mobile racing game?

Kitty minions, go forth and fight! In Battle Cats from PONOS, you control legions of tall cats, chubby cats, flying cats, cows (which aren't cats), and plenty of other cute warriors whose sole purpose is to defend their base from legions of tiny stickmen, hippos, snakes and other bad guys. It's a familiar combat-oriented defense set-up we've seen before, but there's so much lovable style poured into this game, you can't help but to play until the wee hours of the morning, pitting cartoon cat against cartoon cat.

Duncan and Katy is a mobile action/arcade game by Francisco David Moreno Pérez. Featuring two young heroes, a nutty scientist, and swarms of invading aliens, you get to run around a series of small islands picking up things like swords, crossbows, guitars, chocolate bars and springboards to stave off the attack. Keep knocking those baddies around and the professor will provide you with a weapon that can chase them away, but don't think for a second that defeating aliens will be that easy!

From the creator of 100 Doors 2013, Gipnetix Games, comes 100 Escapers, a game that strides a little closer to traditional room escape territory than the usual lot of mobile escape games. You're still trapped in rooms, of course, but instead of having a single screen to bust out of, you've got a little big of wiggle room to walk around, open drawers, examine things, and fashion a way to get that door open so you can continue forwards.

The Journey Down: Chapter One is an adventure game from SkyGoblin that made the trip from desktop download to mobile app without a hitch. First released in 2010, the game has since been remastered with brand new visuals, voice acting, and lots of additional content. It looks fantastic and plays like an expertly-crafted adventure game of old, even with the fancy futuristic touch screen interface!

This iPad-only puzzle is a mystery wrapped in a conundrum wrapped in an enigma. And jump scares. Claiming to be a faithful digital recreation of an actual, physical puzzle box with an unsettling history, the game is a series of mechanized puzzles where figuring out the goals and controls for each one is part of the challenge. And it's definitely a big challenge at that. Unlock more of the Box's history as you proceed, and play somewhere nice and dark with the sound turned up.

Choice of Games and Alana Joli Abbott deliver a gorgeously detailed and immersive text adventure for iOS and Android set against the backdrop of mystical ancient China. Outwit or succumb to mischievous fox spirits, challenge or support the emperor, become a student or one day a teacher of an ancient art, and craft a legacy that will stand the test of time.

Graduation time at Spellwood Academy! Biggles the bespectacled bunny wizard is ready for finals, but unlike most school exams, these happen to be quite entertaining. Spellwood from Three Rings (creator of Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates) drops you in a cheery fantasy world of one-on-one word battles, allowing you to face off against opponents in turn-based tile combat. Think of it as Scrabble meets Puzzle Quest with wands and anthropomorphic animals and you'll have a good idea what to expect!

Man, those ancient pharaohs had it rough. Keeping cobras out of the marketplace. Trying to collect stamps by fulfilling citizen requests. Dealing with the Pyramid Association. And how'd they ever decide where to build their hammer shop?! Kairosoft, makers of Kairobotica, Beastie Bay, and the Story series of games, has recreated a slice of the ancient world with The Pyraplex, a mobile simulation that will steal massive chunks of your time and refuse to let go until you're the pharaoh of all the pharaohs.

Double Fine Productions knows the spreadsheet is mightier than the death ray, but only when it has some serious super power to back it up! Hire, train, and manage a squad of elite superheroes from the ground up as they handle the day-to-day task of fighting crime and more in this fun and funny free simulation for iOS.

Welcome to the life of a teaching assistant (and/or editor)! The Grading Game by Mode of Expression is a beefed-up version of the arcade-style browser release First Person Tutor. It puts you in the unenviable role of a TA grading papers for a grumpy proffessor who wants his students to get the grade they deserve: a perfect F! Since you're a bit strapped for cash you have no choice but to capitulate, sifting through papers and marking every error you see with a big red pen.

Looking for a little extra adventure in your mobile gaming life? 3D Methods has released another casual point and click title that follows the layout of Forever Lost, The Haunt, and the game's own spiritual companion, Cryptic Kingdoms. Instead of rattling about in a surreal fantasy world, though, Cryptic Caverns drops you in a dark and dreary island filled with an intriguing backstory and more than a few ancient mysteries to stumble across.

Oh, now, where'd that smiling stump with the spectacles go? It was just there but now... Anyway, you've got three other weirdo creatures to find, and Hidden Doodles isn't going to slow down so you can take in the scenery. A hidden object game without all the story or adventure elements, Hidden Doodles from Invedars is similar to Little Things Forever releases, dropping you into level after level of crowded scenes filled with some amazingly creative drawings. Take your entire comic book collection, tear it up (please don't, not really), put it in a blender (don't!), then arrange everything on the table and try to find Superman with Bart Simpson's head. That's Hidden Doodles in a nutshell, and you're going to love it.

Get ready to smackdown your opponent in the one or two player game Wrestle Jump! Control a Mexican wrestler with the single goal of pounding the other guy's head to the ground. Kick your leg against the arena floor to throw your opponent wildly around. Whoever gets the most smackdowns wins!

Hey, you're trapped in a room! Where's that Nelson guy to laugh at you when you need him? You're not going to sit around and get mocked, though. You're clever, you're resourceful, and even though every time you leave the room you end up in an almost identical location, you're determined to get out. Doors

Stay on your toes (or in this case, your fingertips) in this fast-paced game of Lemmings-style mining arcade action for your iOS. Draw paths for relentlessly cheery little squads of miners deep into the earth, guiding them around peril to plunder. As stages advance, the challenge ramps up as more and more new elements come into play, but a stellar retro style and some seriously quirky humour will keep you coming back for more.

Baby it's cold outside, but with your Little Inferno fireplace, you can stay warm and entertained forever... as long as you don't run out of things to burn. The Tomorrow Corporation brings a unique, quirky, and gorgeously addictive indie game that's part physics puzzle, and part adventure, all without leaving your hearth. Who really needs the world outdoors anyway? What could it possibly have to offer... ?

TNNS is a wild arcade game from Action Button Entertainment and Rabbx that plays like a cross between Breakout and Pong, only about a billion times better (rough estimate). Imagine using a rubber paddle to smack a rubber ball around a stage filled with blocks, stars and arrows, then using some sort of telekinetic powers to make the ball curve a bit. That's TNNS, and if you're not laughing with amazement each time you fail/succeed, you're probably doing it wrong.

War of Eclipse is a one button arcade and role playing game from Game Stew that has a distinctly retro look and feel. A mysterious dark explosion destroyed half the population, bringing with it a race of evil aliens. The people fled in terror, taking refuge underground where they now spend their days gathering resources and hoping to survive for another day. But now, just when you get your new ship, the aliens attack. Now you've got to defend humanity the only way you know how: with steampunk ships that fire lasers!

Kung Fu FIGHT! is a non-stop jump and run arcade game from Nostatic Software, creator of Quiet, Please! It's a game where you fight the bad guys to save the girl, just like in the cheesy old movies and video games from yesteryear! Sporting a variety of obstacles and a number of ways to deal with them, you'll fight your way across dojo and village on your quest, and since Nostatic loves us so very much, there are plenty of unlockable trophies as well as checkpoints to record your progress. Hooray!

Speedy delivery! Or, no delivery, it seems. Static Quest: The Delivery from CookieBit is a survival-based arcade game packed with enemies, spells, weapons and items, all of which can be upgraded as you continue to punch baddies that get in your way. It's a little bit like Earn to Die, a little bit like Punch-Out!!, and a little bit like being glued to the floor while your older brother punches you in the arm and keeps asking why you're hitting yourself. But, you know, in an entertaining, good kind of way!

Cook, Serve, Delicious! is a simulation and time management game from Vertigo Games, creator of the similarly spectacular The Oil Blue. If you see a restaurant game and immediately think "casual diversion", let Cook, Serve, Delicious! change your mind. This isn't a light and simple easy to win time management game. It's a full-on simulation that makes you work for your money, pushes you to play faster than you thought possible, and teaches you to strategically plan menus to maximize income without turning the ever-picky customer base away. It's not an easy game to excel at, but it's an easy game to get hooked on, and the challenge of building and running your own restaurant from front to back is going to captivate you for weeks on end.

Exploring a ravaged underwater utopia sounds like a great idea, right? No? But, think of all the interesting structures, the possessions that were once owned by people slowly rusting away, the great chance of seeing a shark and getting a great picture! Oh, and there are some sinister hooded figures that seem to enjoy causing havoc and destruction and may possibly have intentions to kill you, but that's such a small nuisance. I'm sure you wouldn't even notice it! For the daring protagonist in Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden, the new hidden object puzzle adventure horror game from Artifex Mundi, it's probably a bigger nuisance than she anticipated.

Knights of Pen & Paper is an RPG. But it's an RPG that's about a bunch of adventurer people sitting down to play a pen and paper RPG. So... when you play the game, you're actually playing a game about a game, even though both games are basically the same game. Inception, anyone? While these folks sit and enjoy their Dungeons & Dragons-type adventure, you get to take care of everything else, from fighting battles to accepting quests, upgrading skills and hunting down better equipment. And if that isn't interesting enough, you can buy the players a snack, maybe while eating a similar snack of your own?

Here we have it: Chrono Trigger on Android and iOS! Just the mention of the game's name will stir a lot of emotions in people, and not just those of us who were around for the original release. Almost 20 years ago, a dream team of designers and artists at Square (now Square Enix) got together to make a game with a silent protagonist who forms friendships with people throughout time in an effort to save the world from a most insidious form of evil. It had memorable locations, epic battles, emotionally charged sub-plots, and multiple endings. Chrono Trigger helped shape the RPG genre for years afterwards, and as the recent mobile ports prove, it's just as relevant and stirring as ever.

Created by Colin Northway (Fantastic Contraption) and Sarah Northway (Rebuild) with art by Thomas Shahan, this gorgeous physics game feels like a vertebrate version of World of Goo with the building-centric gameplay of Fantastic Contraption. Using the simple tools of legs and muscles, you must help Quozzle on her quest to find her family as she attempts to traverse terrain as twisted and diverse as you can imagine. How are you going to make it over the next hill? Maybe by attaching two dozen legs to Quozzle's eye and strapping them all together with muscles? Why not, let's give it a shot!

New from Rocketcat Games, creator of Mage Gauntlet, Hook Champ, Super QuickHook, and Hook Worlds, Punch Quest is an endless running game built on the quest completing/loot gathering system found in games like Jetpack Joyride. Instead of flying around like a little beetle, though, you play as a well-muscled lad or lass who simply must punch everything in sight, from bats to skeletons, dinosaurs to priceless vases, all in the name of gathering coinage and upgrading your skills.

Cryptic Kingdoms is a casual point and click adventure game similar to The Haunt, Forever Lost, or the often cited Myst series. Featuring a semi-surreal Earth-like world packed with locked devices, mysterious locations, and a striking lack of living creatures, you'll explore scene after scene as you attempt to make sense of the puzzles and mystical contraptions.

Kairo is a first person puzzle adventure game from Richard Perrin, creator of The White Chamber. Set in a minimalist, somewhat abstract world of temples and stones, floating pathways and mysterious mechanisms, you'll be given no clues as to what you need to do to complete the game. Instead, you'll wander through room after room, using your keen powers of observation to figure out where the puzzles are and how to solve them. It's a game design choice rarely seen since the days of Myst, and it brings with it a satisfying gaming experience that has become increasingly rare in the age of tutorials and online cheat codes.

Just in time for that scary late October holiday, The Haunt 2 from Furious Apps arrives with a serious dose of point and click adventure-style puzzle solving! Following the same set-up as The Haunt, you take on the role of a paranormal investigator who has come to rid the town of its little ghost problem. You'll sift through houses and barns, train stations and a dark forest in search of clues, and what you end up discovering may not be as "little" as the town would have you believe.

Polara from Hope This Works Games is a jump and run mobile game with a little added color. Instead of simply hopping over gaps or testing your reflexes with split-second timing, you've also got to keep an eye out for an obstacle's color, switching your character's color to slip through each danger unharmed. Layered on top of that are some nice futuristic Tron-like visuals and a story that, while predictable, is actually kind of interesting in a semi-cheesy sci-fi sort of way!

Search through the mirrored dimension, where the ordinary world is twisted and unsettling, on a quest to stop a romantic tragedy from unleashing an evil pact. During your adventure through a surreal realm, you'll encounter an intriguing assortment of strange sights as well as plenty of interactive hidden object scenes and puzzles until you reach the final confrontation with an ancient evil power. Will you discover the secrets of the dark carnival?

If you want all the drama, passion, suspense and intricacies of the courtroom, the best way to get it is to go to school, study really hard for several years, then bribe—Nah, just kidding! You can easily get your fix by watching TV, reading a bunch of fiction books, and playing games like Devil's Attorney, a new simulation from 1337 Game Design that's one part comedy, one part 1980s culture, and maybe two parts lawyering, all carried out via a snazzy touch interface that's much more entertaining than studying case files and figuring out what habeas corpus means.

If you want all the drama, passion, suspense and intricacies of the courtroom, the best way to get it is to go to school, study really hard for several years, then bribe—Nah, just kidding! You can easily get your fix by watching TV, reading a bunch of fiction books, and playing games like Devil's Attorney, a new simulation from 1337 Game Design that's one part comedy, one part 1980s culture, and maybe two parts lawyering, all carried out via a snazzy touch interface that's much more entertaining than studying case files and figuring out what habeas corpus means.

Challenging adventure wrapped up in an atmospheric and portable package is what we have been looking for, and what Glitch Games has delivered in spades. Immerse yourself into the world of Forever Lost Episode 1 and enjoy the escaping fun!

From 10tons, the heavy-hitting creator of some of our favorite match-3 puzzle games, including Azkend 2: The World Beneath, comes a game about destroying the entire world, one rock at a time. King Oddball is a physics arcade game that plays as sort of an upside-down Crush the Castle or Angry Birds, challenging you fling rocks from the King's tongue so you can cause as much destruction as possible. If that doesn't sound like it's enough fun, factor in the eccentric, internet-approved sense of humor and fantastic visual style and you've got a game you'll have to force yourself to put down.

It's Pokemon for mobile devices! Ok, not quite, but the latest release from Game Dev Story and Kairobotica developer Kairosoft has certainly been looking at the monster training RPG for inspiration. Beastie Bay takes the familiar Kairosoft set-up and leans it more towards role playing territory, confining simulation elements to a smaller portion of the game while exploration, turn-based battling, and monster management take center stage.

It's a vision of the future we've all considered at one time or another: zombies have taken over the world, and the only way we can get to safety is to drive beat-up old vehicles across the barren landscape, splatting undead walkers as we floor it until we're out of gas. Earn to Die lets us play out that inevitable reality in the safety of our own mobile devices, dropping you in a desert and giving you a hefty garage of upgrades and the ability to earn cash by running into the wilderness and stunt driving as far as you can over and over again. Despite being a teensy bit repetitive, Earn to Die has that lovely ability to keep us hooked, probably because we get to crush zombies with sawblades attached to our bumper.

God of Blades is an endless running/combat game designed by White Whale Games. Instead of focusing on jumping around like a little grasshopper, you are given the ancient and epic powers of sword combat, dispatching foes by unleashing various swipes and abilities as you take on a stream of enemies who stand in your way. It's all about the artwork and aesthetic in God of Blades, and the development team absolutely nailed the look that will remind you of fantasy novels and prog rock album covers from the 1970s. Even if you weren't alive and kicking back then, everyone needs a little unabashed sword combat now and again!

A house, in a field, looking about as haunted as haunted can get. Why not step up and take a closer look? The Haunt is a mobile point and click puzzle game from Furious Apps that plays (and looks) like a casual adventure/hidden object game you might download to your desktop computer. Instead of a mouse and keyboard, though, you get to investigate a haunted house with your own two hands, finding items, managing your inventory, and solving mini-games while a paranormal presence follows you from room to room.

You've got a few minutes before you have to be at work. That means it's time for a game! But what to play, Pac-Man or a tower defense game? How about both? From Tametick, the creator of Cardinal Quest, comes Pakkuman's Defense, a surprisingly superb melding of the classic arcade game Pac-Man and a modern tower defense game. There are ghosts. There are dots to eat. There are towers to place. And yes, you're going to have a blast with this unusual hybrid!

You are wanted, you are obsessed over. Thus you are trapped in a room on the threat of death should you leave. Makes you feel kind of, um, icky all over, right? In this series of escape-the-room games for your mobile device, you must use lateral thinking, deduction and some general savviness to outwit your capture and find freedom.

Poor, helpless little... what are those again? Squished hippopotamus faces? Circle-blobs? Yeah, those. Poor helpless those. Actually, at least one of those circle-blobs has a name: Mayhem. And as you play this little genetically engineered experiment in OneSmartBunny's action/platform game Project: Mayhem, you'll begin to pity these critters more and more. But then you'll realize how tough this game is and start focusing on what really matters: landing jumps that require almost pixel-perfect execution, all without slowing down to see what you're doing. Good luck with that!

Need some hack-and-slash action that makes you feel like a hero? Then turn on this free iOS titled stuffed to the gills with strange locations, magical abilities, ferocious monsters, and fast-paced challenges. Spend rupees to unlock more equipment or upgrade your skills as you slash and spellsling your way through a ton of stages with requirements that sound simple but will need a whole lot of reflexes to pull off.

Bitless by Nicholas Rapp is like Space is Key meeting up with a platformer. It's a tough but funny, unforgiving but strangely compelling arcade game you play simply by tapping the screen. You'll be mocked by the narrator, you'll be tricked into messing up, and you'll die more times than you'll admit, but you'll keep playing simply because you can. And because you must. Getting hooked on Bitless is almost like acing an exam just because your friends said you couldn't do it. That'll teach them to spout mildly non-supportive jargon at us!

In this captivating and addicting match-3/RPG fantasy hybrid for iOS and Android, you time as a new student at a school for witches and wizards should be filled with studies. Unfortunately for you, you've been partnered with the brash and bossy Alicia, and her short attention span and hunger for power means you and your new friends might stir up some trouble in your cauldrons. A simplified version of Puzzle Quest with stunning visual designs and easy to master gameplay you may find hard to put down.

It's always seemed inefficient to trap mammals inside robots. It didn't work for Dr. Robotnik, which should have been a lesson to everyone. Nevertheless, in Horn, an epic third person RPG adventure from Phosphor Games, the robots themselves decided to start converting humans into their own kind. While its a bit unclear why that happened, its up to you, an amnesiac blacksmith's apprentice, to sort it all out.

Pocket Heroes mixes co-operative roleplaying strategy with roguelike difficulty, all set in a retro, SNES style world. Journey in a group with your friends or random teammates, killing monsters, looting, and leveling up along the way. It's a multiplayer-only game, and turns only progress once everyone on your team has done their thing. If you work together, you might just survive for a while!

Siela's family restaurant is having trouble staying afloat, and her sister is considering selling the whole thing to someone else. With no choice but to seize management herself in a last-ditch effort to turn the business into a success, Siela and her friends must cook and serve food made using ingredients they hunt for in the wild in this simple but addictive blend of RPG and simulation for iOS and Android.

That's right, it's a licensed game based on a 30 year old movie! In WarGames: WOPR, the War Operation Plan Response computer is hacked by David Lightman who proceeds to engage in games against the artificial intelligence. Things get a bit out of hand, though, and the struggle nearly sets off World War III. In the movie it's all about man versus machine, and you know exactly who wins. In the game, you play as the computer fighting against those do-gooding humans as you attempt to fill the world with freshly launched nuclear missiles. And what better way to play out that attack than in an RPG-inspired puzzle game?

Little Red Riding Hood has brought wine and cake to her ailing grandmother. But then Grandma went outside, locking the door behind her, and hasn't returned. In this mobile escape-the-room adventure game from IDAC, explore the seemingly serene environment searching for clues and solving puzzles to find the best of the two ways out: one brings Little Red to safety, one brings a tasty dinner to Mr. wolf. Well, so much for an innocent outing to Grandma's house in the woods.

Bub is dead, but like any good dog, he's not letting that keep him down. In this free iOS advergame for the upcoming ParaNorman movie, you control the ghostly pooch as he jumps, chomps, and swings his way through levels trying to retrieve the zombie bones he's lost so that their owners don't come looking for them when the sun goes down. Simple and straightforward but absolutely gorgeous, 2-Bit Bub is a ghoulishly good time.

Be prepared to bring out the big guns in Great Big War Game, a great big turn-based strategy game from Rubicon. Move your military units around the maps and position them to take out the enemy. With a large variety of maps and units to choose from, as well as local and on line multiplayer capabilities, Great Big War Game is a great way to spend big chunks of your time.

Based on the B-movie of the same name, the one famously riffed by the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew so many glorious years ago, MANOS - The Hands of Fate is a retro-styled platform game from FreakZone that may very well be as punishing as the film itself. In a different sort of way. Armed with a few guns and an impending sense of "doom", work your way through the game's enemy-infested levels in an attempt to best your own speedruns. The Master would be pleased if you got a high score.

Sixty levels of smooth block sliding puzzling goodness can be a little bit too relaxing, perhaps? Well don't fret, because if you want a little snark to keep you on your toes, Woodhead serves up subtle Onion-style satire with every new level. Taking full advantage of the iPhone's interface strengths, this is a great little time-waster to keep in your pocket.

Fhtagn! Cthulhu's powers have been locked away, and he needs to save the world to get them back... so he can destroy the world of course. This turn-based RPG from Zeboyd Games affectionately sends-up both Lovecraftian horror and RPGs themselves, but it's also a game with more than ten hours of solid play for an amazing price.

The revolution is here, and it's pink, furry, and packing heat! In this action-packed iOS platformer, players control Belle, a multiarmed gun-weilding alien, in her quest to free her kind from slavery. Making your way safely through the frantic, dangerous levels will require mastery of the tricky controls, but Project 83113 is a beautifully made and fun blast while it lasts.

The tower defense genre has been around for years, punctuated every so often by the release of a game that sets a new standard for how things should be. One of the first for the browser world was Desktop Tower Defense, and for the mobile market, an early heavy-hitter was the original Fieldrunners. Developer Subatomic Studios took a few years to do it, but the team has finally rolled out a worthy sequel with Fieldrunners 2. Expect more maps, more variety, more units, more enemies, and more rewards with this stunning release that will rewrite the way you think of the tower defense genre on iPhone.

Hanger, the browser release from A Small Game that's all about swinging ropes and broken body parts, has made its way to iPhone, and it's just as outrageously arcadey as ever. If you've played Hanger 2 or Hanger 2: Endless Level Pack, you'll know exactly what to expect in this wild romp through twisty terrain, as the mobile version takes the best from those releases, remixes it a little bit, and tosses you loose to see what you can do. Expect to see a lot of severed legs and game over screens before you get a decent score in this game!

The year is 1937. It's a dark time in the city. Fade Haven has fallen prey to a rat burglar who is robbing the town of its precious diamonds. Is there anyone who can help? Time to call in Detective Pete! But of course, he needs your help. Team up with the super sleuth in Fade: Case of the Stolen Diamonds, a unique puzzle game for iPad by Treetop Games. Can you recover all the diamonds and bring the thief to justice?

Your frontier lass is being kidnapped! Get your revolver and head out the door! Gunman Clive is a sidescrolling action/shooting game by Bertil Hörberg, starring you versus a bunch of bad guys. Utilizing some fantastic 3D visuals in a two dimensional world, you will have the pleasure of shooting your way through the strangest old west town you've ever seen, complete with moving platforms and loads of enemies. Oh, and watch out for ducks, those things can be deadly!

A cinematic simulation of hacking that owes more to Wargames and Sneakers than Kevin Mitnick and Adrian Lamo, Uplink: Hacker Elitecyberpunk intrigue. Originally released by Introversion Software in 2001, and streamlined into the Hacker Elite version for the US market, the latter is now available for purchase from the lovely indie and retro game outlet GOG, and it's a worthy addition to any gamers library.

Outwitters is an asynchronous multiplayer strategy game from One Man Left, the creator of the equally captivating mobile game Tilt to Live. Outwitters takes place on a hex grid and stars three races of characters, each with a handful of unique units. By steadily moving soldiers across the board, deploying specialist healers, scouts, and the like, each team vies for control and the ultimate destruction of the other side's base. It's the most intense experience you can have with chubby pink soldiers and a field full of fish fighters!

Born is a mindless creature of the Void. At least, that's how it was supposed to be. When Born dares to escape into a world that seems to have no place for it, however, you'll need to utilize all the puzzle platforming abilities at your disposal and learn to master colour in order to find Born a place to belong and help it escape from the Void once and for all. A challenging but evocative platforming adventure that's heavy on narrative and atmosphere for your iOS.

In case you wanted your roguelike fix on the go, Seramy Games has developed Dungeon Ascendance for the Android mobile device of your liking. Play one dungeon level at a time, being able to choose a different class for each one. Unlock new classes and dungeons as you delve deeper and fight your way to collecting all the achievements. Your turn-based fighting arm awaits your command!

Hey there strategy and tower defense fans! Just a little note to announce a bit of good news for iPhone and iPod Touch owners. Kingdom Rush, the so-awesome-it's-mega-awesome tower defense game from Ironhide Games, has finally made its way to small-screened iOS devices, following Kingdom Rush HD for iPad and the browser version of Kingdom Rush last year. The game stands out as one of the best defense/strategy game on the planet, capturing two awards in our Best of 2011 feature, including Best Browser Defense or Strategy game along with Game of the Year! If you haven't tried it in one of its incarnations, you owe it to yourself to correct that mistake immediately!