Deep beneath the earth, an android awaits a test that could determine whether he's ready to enter humanity... but what does humanity mean anyway? And what's the secret behind Ark 19? A short and sometimes unintuitive but engrossing story-driven puzzle experience for the iOS.

In this choose-your-own text adventure for Android and iOS, a logger wakes up hours after a hazy event to find the site destroyed and his crew missing. As you hunt for them, however, the choices you make will determine how things play out in this compellingly creepy and atmospheric tale.

Science student and unlikely space explorer Taylor is back in this sequel to the original Lifeline story. A strange space craft is approaching the mining ship that rescued you. Are they friend or foe? Find out as you help Taylor navigate the situation in this text adventure.

One year after volcanoes simultaneously erupt all around the world, plunging it into a new age, a young boy who barely survived with his family suddenly finds them missing, seemingly plucked out of thin air, and only a mysterious phrase to go on. This massive free text-based RPG adventure for Android and iOS offers over 2000 pages of in-depth post-apocalyptic storytelling with optional combat, minigames, and more, though ends abruptly as the first installment in a planned trilogy.

After you are mistakenly contacted by a blood-mage, you decide to join her on her quest in this fantasy themed text adventure. Travel with Arika in real time as she plots revenge against those who killed her parents. Your choices will determine whether she succeeds or fails in her quest in this game for iOS and Apple Watch.

A woman sits in front of a camera in a police station, interviewed seven different times about the disappearance of her husband. In front of you, you have access to the full archive of clips, searchable with keywords, and it's up to you to discover the whole truth in this inventive and engrossing indie interactive mystery narrative, also available on iOS!

Serafina's spent her entire life isolated in the jungle with only her father for company, but when he's kidnapped and she sets out to rescue him, she discovers more than she ever thought possible about the world and people outside, and herself, in this pay-what-you-want (including free!) indie otome visual novel, also available for Android.

In a world where space travel is common, unfortunately so are space disasters. A ship goes down on a desolate moon, killing all but one crew member. This lone survivor is desperate for some human contact. Somehow you pick up the astronaut's signal and end up helping Taylor make crucial decisions through the worst day of their life in this thrilling sci-fi narrative for iOS.

Ryan North, Kate Beaton, Anthony Clark and more combine talents to make one behemoth of a Choose Your Own Adventure gamebook with a seriously comedic style for iOS and Android as well as Mac, PC, and Linux. In the iconic tale of Hamlet, do you follow the rules... or do you play as someone else entirely and travel through time, thwart terrorists, advance ghost marine biology, and more?

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to colonize a distant planet? Jump into the shoes of a space pioneer in this sci-fi interactive fiction. The decisions you make effect not just your relationship with your new husband, but potentially the whole planet. What will you choose?

Returning from school abroad in France, your new life in America is hard to get used to... there's the local bully who's the only person(s) you know, the kids you're just getting to know, and, oh, the person who had your locker before you seems to have vanished under mysterious circumstances. Find out why, or find friends and romance in this LGBTQ-friendly visual novel episodic adventure for iOS and Android!

In this creepy Choose Your Own Adventure Kindle horror tale (use one of the free Kindle apps to play!), a desperate phone call from your eccentric brother sets you off on a mission to find and rescue him. But time is running out, and there are things in the dark you may not be prepared to deal with.

Available as a paid browser game, a download, or in your pocket for your mobile device, this meaty, smart text adventure takes you through thirty years of your own life as a fledgling roboticist, where your every decision can drastically change the world around you. Both philosophical and funny when it needs to be, Choice of Robots offers a massive amount of replay value, and a whole lot of food for thought.

The 3DS hit installment of the beloved visual novel adventure series comes to iOS in this stunning port with a free first episode. Play as Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice, and newcomer junior lawyer Athena Cykes as they work to prove the innocence of their clients in outrageous mysteries where you'll need a keen eye and a clever mind to spot lies, evidence, and more.

Phileas Fogg has made a bet that he can travel around the world in 80 days, and as his faithful valet Passepartout, it's your job to see that he succeeds, be it by airship, train, automobile, or... mechanical horse? A rollicking alternative history simulation adventure with deep lore and tons of replay value for your iOS.

Something is very wrong. There is an energy of unknown origin and intent seeping into our world. It is known as Exotic Matter. Join the Enlightenment or the Revolution in this massively popular mmo and hunt down that unknown energy in your local neighborhood.

You're dying and you wonder to yourself, "Will my life really pass before my eyes?" In this game, it just might, but it will depend on your focus and mind power. Part brain-training, part life history, this compelling game is likely to be one of the most unusual mobile games you pick up this year.

Less a game and more a community-driven storytelling experiment, this collection of tales and comics from different authors and artists covers everything from serious sci-fi to epic fantasy, and even humour. The catch? You get to vote on how each new installment of the stories you're reading will go.

Choice of the Deathless combines the rich, imaginative gameplay of the classic all text adventures of yesteryear and fuses them with the evocative and fully-realized world of Max Gladstone's novels.

Enter into a surreal thriller where the written word is both your narrator and your map. Follow the story as it leads you through six chapters, providing clues to unraveling its riddles through sounds, narrative, and images. Everything from design decisions, interactions, art and, even you, is part of the story in this remarkably unique mystery adventure game by Simogo.

In a powerful flash and beam of light, Greg's girlfriend disappears right before his eyes. Set sometime in the near future, this sci-fi mystery adventure puts you in the middle of gorgeous 3D environments. A point-and-click style interface allows you to explore your surroundings, solve puzzles and converse with characters while the truths are slowly revealed in the unfolding story.

Your choices determine the outcome of this choose your own adventure style interactive comic book. Explosions and red clouds are on the horizon. Your cell phone loses reception. Something bad is going on...will you survive? Whether you help others along the way or decide it's every man or woman for themselves, This is Not a Test offers up a great story.

It's tempting to fake redact half of this review, just to fit in with the theme of Blackbar. We'll resist the temptation, though, as this is a game that's worth talking about. Created by Nevan Mrgan, Blackbar is a word-based puzzle game where you sift through letters written to and from characters and try to figure out which words were blanked out by the Department of Communications. It's one part sci-fi story game, one part political statement, and three parts just plain awesome.

If Beret Applications' Demon Chic were a person it would be a Brooklyn-dwelling record store clerk riding a fixie to a farmer's market while listening to Yo La Tengo. It would be of the species Homo ironicus—in other words, the creature popular culture has dubbed the hipster. Yet, astonishingly, the game is neither as insufferable nor pretentious as this analogy would suggest. Instead this mobile piece of art instead is an entirely successful marriage of action RPG gameplay with an absurd, darkly funny, and frequently touching story.

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.

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).

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.

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!

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.

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.

When your homeworld falls to an alien threat, you find yourself embroiled in a mess of intergalactic politics that could influence its very survival. Choice of Games delivers a sci-fi text adventure for your mobile device that's lighter on character development than usual in favour of delivering an action-packed story that will have you questioning who you can trust on and off the battlefield, provided you survive it.

Like the classic adventuring PC games of old, here is the type of game you could easily lose chunks of time on as you switch between two characters, gathering anything not nailed down and working your way through hours of conversational threads, all in pursuit of Edna's freedom and sanity. Using the touch screen commands, your first job is to find you way out of a padded cell. Edna and her talking plush companion, Harvey, will win you over with their irreverent observations on life, sanity and the mundane world around us even as you sympathize with her situation. You, like Edna, might soon find yourself going in circles, vacillating between the joy of discovery and the frustration of confusion.

Holding onto your job just got a whole lot more difficult when your boss, a ruthless woman known around the office as The Crocodile, informs you that the estate agent who makes the least in the next several months will be fired. You may have the drive and the determination, but even you might find Crowther Terrace a difficult property to move... one might say you only have a ghost of a chance. A delightfully witty and even a little spooky text adventure from Choice of Games and the talented Gavin Inglis.

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.

Taking a few cues from classic animated games like Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, The Act from React Entertainment puts you in the clumsy shoes of Edgar, the humble window washer who has to save his job, rescue his brother, and pretend to be a doctor, all while doing his best to get the girl in the end. How does he do all of this? Not with style or finesse, but with blind luck. And a little help from your iPhone swiping skills!

We are not alone. Life has been discovered on Mars, but it's nothing like we ever expected to encounter. In this gorgeous, one-of-a-kind moody action adventure game for iOS, you'll journey deep into the red planet and uncover the secrets buried within its soil. Discover new life forms and challenging puzzles that force you to use the environment to your advantage as you help the planet grow... and ultimately decide its fate.

Frankenstein is a brand new work of interactive fiction written by Dave Morris and released using the inkle platform. Based on the original novel by Mary Shelley, this modern narrative weaves a captivating story that takes advantage the mobile platform to deliver a strong visual impact along with its interactive elements. You are both reader and player in this experience (though more the former than the latter), choosing directions for your character to take and shaping the narrative in ways that are both subtle and obvious. The end result is a visual and textual masterpiece that you will be both thrilled and intrigued to experience.

In this exciting installment of the Choice series by Choice of Games you're plunged into a world on the brink of destruction. Nuclear missiles? Widespread famine? Nope, it's the age old killer: Zombies! Pick your course of survival in this gripping narrative that propels you toward what could be your salvation or your untimely demise!

This quirky visual novel blends a "realistic" bartending simulation with a surprisingly complex story and a big cast of characters. Looking to pick up a bit of extra cash, you manage to land a bartending gig despite a complete lack of experience, and soon become wrapped up in the complicated lives of the people who come in the door. You'll make use of the iPhone's motion controls to pour and mix real drinks for each customer, trying to juggle good service with speedy bartending. It's a bit of an odd duck, with an occasionally stiff translation, and the motion controls can feel oversensitive at time, but the clever premise combined with the eclectic characters, lovely artwork, and massive list of drinks to make turn this one into a title you should definitely at least try out. The free Bar Oasis Lite is also available.

You find yourself on the floor of a dilapidated hospital, apparently situated in the middle of a meadow filled with the drone of cicadas. Monsters roam the halls, and the only other human occupant babbles about a witch who's trapped you both there, but as you piece together the truth from papers and journals, you'll begin to wonder who you can really trust... if you can even trust yourself. An action-heavy adventure title from Phosphor Games for your iOS made with the Unreal Engine, boasting great writing, beautiful visuals, and a lot of mystery.

One part strategy, one part text-driven choose your own story adventure, King of Dragon Pass is exactly the game you want on your mobile device. Ported to iOS from the original PC/Mac release of 1999, this storytelling experience is rich in its own history and affords you a vast amount of control over what happens within. Wage war, explore the land, trade with your neighbors, manage your tribe, and read pages upon pages of text explicating the world you're actively participating in. It's great to see a title like this brought back for a new wave of gamers to play, and it works quite well on the iPhone platform.

Flaws, the interactive work of fiction from author Jon Ingold, is a difficult game to categorize as well as a different game to review. For starters, it isn't really a game in the traditional sense, more like a choose your own adventure produced for modern, Kindle-enabled devices. Then there's the nature of the story, where discussing even a few of the details can spoil whole bits of the experience. Suffice it to say, Flaws is an intriguing interactive fiction "game" about finding treasure and fame, the Andromeda galaxy, a mysterious diadem, and a possible assassination.

Sometimes games are just there for us when we want to have some fun, blow up the princess, and save the zombies, or something like that. Other times, we want to explore more difficult and painful stories. Grace's Diary manages to seamlessly integrate the theme of a relationship abuse into a sensitive and moving visual novel.

Don't Look Back is a modern retelling of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, although there are subtle differences. For one, the mythical greek poet favored a harp over a handgun, and for another, he didn't need your platforming skills to guide him on his journey.