Best Android games

Brain & Puzzle

10000000 ($2)

What happens when you mash together a dungeon crawling RPG and a match-three puzzle game? The answer is this shockingly addictive title. The eponymous score is your ultimate goal, but you’ll need to be fast and strategically adept to defeat the monsters, level up, and improve your castle as you sprint towards freedom. The retro, 8-bit graphics and sound are an irresistible touch for older gamers and they give the whole thing a warm, nostalgic glow.

Bridge Constructor ($2)

Why is it so satisfying to build bridges and see if vehicles can make it to the other side? This polished game brings out your inner architect and offers 40 challenging levels in various settings. Spend your money wisely and see if you can solve them all. You’ll need to plan carefully if you expect to bridge those gaps with sturdy structures. If you played X Construction before then you’ll love this title.

Cubistry ($1)

Cute and powerfully addictive, Cubsitry, will leave you feeling goggle-eyed and spaced out after you spend far too long frenziedly tapping matching boxes to try and beat your best time. The standard game challenges you to demolish a huge cube made of patterned squares by tapping matching mini-blocks, but there’s also a Cube Attack mode where the cube grows as you battle to destroy it. It’s simple stuff, but the best puzzle games often are.

Ingress (Free)

The parallel world created by Google’s Niantic Labs for Ingress really shows off the potential of augmented reality gaming. It’s an MMO sci-fi game where you must choose factions and take part as the Resistance or the Enlightened. You fight over portals in real-world locations, and you can even suggest new entries. There are plenty of mysteries to solve; there’s a social collaborative aspect; and it encourages real-world exploration. It’s hard to explain, and it’s still in closed beta right now, but if you’re intrigued then request an invite here.

The Bard’s Tale ($3)

This in-depth Role-playing game (RPG) with quests, character development, and up to 30 hours of gameplay is not to be missed. The Google Play store doesn’t have enough titles like Bard’s Tale. Not only is it highly polished and visually stunning, it also has a really wacky sense of humor. There’s a huge world to explore, lots of NPCs to meet, plenty of enemies to defeat, and mountains of weaponry, armor and loot to accumulate. It’s a big download and you’ll need a decent phone to run it.

 Plague Inc. (Free)

Ever had one of those days where you feel like wiping out humankind? You need to download Plague Inc. Your mission is to infect the world with a deadly virus or disease and see if you can wipe humanity out before it can adapt and survive. This is an absorbing strategy game and, despite the morbid premise, it’s very tough to put down once you start playing.

Hill Climb Racing (Free)

Instantly accessible and fiendishly addictive, Hill Climb Racing is a physics-based driving game. You play as Newton Bill and the aim is to get through a series of bumpy maps while collecting as many coins and pulling off as many tricks as possible. It looks basic, but it’s a lot of fun and the upgrades give you a good incentive to keep playing.

Kairobotica ($5)

Here’s a blend of management sim, RPG, and turn-based combat that puts you in charge of a floating robot space colony. This builds on Epic Astro Story and Dungeon Village (both also worth a look) to bring you a slightly simplified version of the Kairosoft formula. It is very weird, but you can always try out the Lite version before you buy. It’s tough to choose just one game from Kairosoft for this list so we’ve gone with one of the latest ones, but do check out their other releases.

Monsters Ate My Condo ($0.99)

An arcade puzzler that’s colorful and crazy, Monsters Ate My Condo is fast-paced and addictive. You have to feed monsters different colored floors of a tower block and color co-ordination is vital – feed the wrong color of floor to the wrong monster and you’ll regret it. A sense of humor, frantic gameplay, and a Japanese-inspired aesthetic make this great fun to play

Angry Birds Space (Free)

Just when you thought Angry Birds had left the nest, Rovio brings it back. Angry Birds Space is the first true sequel to Birds and comes packed with classic bird-slinging action, but entirely new types of puzzles. The space setting allows the game to toy with gravity and planets. Now, birds fly in whatever direction the gravity goes, adding a whole new dynamic. Since each planet has its own gravity field (like a halo around the planet), you can make birds spin around planets and fly in all sorts of directions. Read our full Angry Birds Space review.

Spirits ($2.99)

This is a really beautiful puzzler that challenges you to guide your spirits to a swirling level exit. You’ll have to sacrifice some of your spirits in order to perform actions that help their brethren reach the goal. The gameplay is reminiscent of Lemmings and the visuals and audio are very well designed. It looks more relaxing than it is because there’s a real strategic challenge.

Jewellust ($2.95)

It may be a Bejeweled clone, but it’s the best one on Android. Jewellust is addictive, no way around it. Simply tap colored jewels to line them up in a row. When three or more are in a line, they vanish and more jewels fall. Those looking for a great match-three puzzler, or a simple game almost anyone will enjoy, this one is for you.

Organ Trail: Director’s Cut ($3)

You just can’t go wrong with a retro zombie survival simulation. This is a great title for zombie fans as you travel westwards in your station wagon with four friends trying to survive the apocalypse. It’s a clever parody of The Oregon Trail which focused on the early settlers and their perilous journey. The scenarios are hilarious and the strange mixture of gameplay is never less than entertaining.

Drop7 (Free)

This is a unique twist on a familiar puzzle format. Much like Tetris, game pieces are constantly falling from the top of the screen, but instead of shapes falling, it’s discs with numbers on them. The goal of the game is to place a number in either a row or a column with the same number of discs as the number displayed on the discs. It is easy to learn how the game works, but impossible to master. With three different modes there is a little something for everyone.

Slice It! (Free)

Have you heard of Fruit Ninja? It’s a popular iPhone/Android game where you slice fruit by swiping the screen with your finger. It’s highly addictive. Slice It uses the same basic idea, but adds a new dimension. Instead of an action slicing game, Com2uS challenges you to take your time and cut a shape into the proper number of shapes using slices. The result is a bit slower, but a helluva lot of fun. With more than 140 levels and support for multiple languages, this is one of the most polished and complete games on Android. Take your time and have a blast.

Traffic Jam ($1.64)

We have a soft spot for free-the-block games. Traffic Jam is the most polished block puzzler we’ve found. Your goal is to get the yellow car out the exit door, but to do it you have to clear the path by meticulously moving different cars around. Honestly, we’re not sure who parked these cars, but they must have grown up in Chicago because they are almost immovable.

There are plenty of levels to beat and the less moves you use, the better your score. Don’t like cars? There are a few other themes too, including ice blocks, boats, and classic wooden blocks.

Wordfeud ($3.11)

WordFeud is a multiplayer version of Scrabble, and it’s a good one. The in-game dictionary is solid and the graphics are good enough. WordFeud caught our eye because of its multiplayer. You can challenge friends in your contacts list or play a random stranger. You’re quickly matched with an opponent. Some games go quickly, while others can stretch across a day due to the notification system built into the game. If you have Google Sync enabled, you’ll receive a notification whenever your opponent finally spells his next word (the more tense Scrabble games get, the longer turns take). The system works well and lets you get on with your life in-between moves. There are some other Scrabble-like Android games, but WordFeud is the best we’ve played so far.

Draw Something (Free)

Draw Something is a social drawing game, and it is addictive. It’s like playing Pictionary with your phone, but everyone is on the same team. You are asked to draw a picture depicting one of three words provided, each one with a different difficulty rating. Once you start playing this game with your friends you will have a hard time putting it down.

Jump to other categories:

• Arcade & Action

• Brain & Puzzle

• Sports Games