Euclidean Lands feels right at home on a touchscreen device. The ease of moving the environment about feels graceful and natural, and the smooth animations help to make the game feel satisfying to play, especially when the geometry expands out, showing more of the level hidden underneath. The art style invokes M.C Escher, and overall has a rich, warm tone that is pleasing on the eye. Playing at pace you will find around 3-4 hours worth of gameplay, but that could be bumped up if you struggle with some of the more complex stages.

A fascinating ‘anti-platformer’ that feels at home on mobile; proving all things should be turned up to 11.

A superbly original and exceptionally presented colour matching tactical game that's all too brief. This should be remedied when the extra episodes are released.

The bottom line is that if you enjoyed Rome: Total War you should pick this up without hesitation. Whether you're interested in the new historical period or not, Barbarian Invasion provides a new scenario and a bunch more factions with which to play what was already a great game. If you haven't played Rome: Total War and enjoy this genre I whole heartedly recommend Barbarian Invasion to you as well. Few games combine strategy and tactics the way the Rome: Total War games do, and other than time-period preference there's no reason you have to play the original.

If someone took the linearity of Candy Land, added smart decision points, traded its kitschy artwork for a modern, spare look, bleached its jewel tones, and blanketed it all with enough negative space to make a whiteout blush, the result would look and feel like Tokaido. But is the gameplay equally as blissed-out? And if so, is that such a bad thing? To both, I’d answer no, not really. It is a gentle stroll of a game, incredibly soothing to gaze at passively. It almost goes without saying, but to really enjoy Tokaido, you must really enjoy the journey.

Visually rich and a real corker of a design, Card Thief is a must-try for puzzle or solitaire aficionados and a good starting point as any for newcomers.

Sunless Sea is not a great game, but it's a very good and very unusual one. In truth, it's a better game with a controller or a keyboard than a touchscreen. But if that's the only route you have to taking passage on the Unterzee, learning the clumsy controls is a price worth paying.

Deep Paths does away with many of the harsher features of those early dungeon delvers - there is no need to worry about starvation, or losing health by walking into walls. Nor is there a need to trouble yourself managing your supply of torches to avoid being plunged into darkness, as the lantern in Dark Paths seems to have an unlimited supply of fuel. Yet in other ways it is stubbornly old school, which may be a little too much for more mainstream gamers to enjoy. The good news is that the designer is obviously open to improving the game, he has already released an update with an option to make the monsters easier to defeat. A bit of time polishing the interface and introducing an auto-mapping function would really help Deep Paths appeal to a wider audience.

Shardlight is constantly striving to build a real sense of tension and mystery, which is reinforced by an excellent understated soundtrack and the constant announcements that boom over the PA system in true Orwellian style. Who is behind the nihilistic death worshipping Cult Of The Reaper? Why is the place swarming with red-eyed ravens? What is that thing in the jar that Tiberius the leader of the Aristocrats keeps talking to? Hopefully all will be revealed before Amy succumbs to the dreaded green lung.

The Escapists is an open-world sandbox game, except for the mandatory roll call and random cell tossings, that is surprisingly deep and plenty entertaining.

A tempting, compelling simulation game with a twist. Rough around the edges, but more often than not strikes gold (oil).

Warlock's Tower is a challenging, retro-styled puzzle game that feels a lot like a roguelike.

Initially quite fun, with some neat ideas, but the repetitive nature of the gameplay will soon irk all but the most patient of players.

RPS Saga, if nothing else, shows that jan-ken-pon is best left as a mini-game within a larger game. There is just not enough here to enjoy, and frustrating AI hampers what little there is on show.

It is difficult to recommend The Frostrune to anyone but die-hard mobile adventure gamers and/or people with a passion for Norse mythology.

If you’re a fan of interactive-fiction titles like the Sorcery series you'll likely enjoy The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, although the story is not nearly as deep as similar titles in the genre. Fans of tabletop RPG modules will also find a lot to like in this game's single-player narrative and frequent combat action. Finally, if you're a fan of the old-school original book you'll enjoy diving into this recreation.

Although not a perfect conversion from the PC original and despite the mystifying decision to release the sequel rather than the first game, this is still one of the best point and click adventures available.

Nintendo continue to take another safe step in their mobile gaming journey. Fire Emblem Heroes is enjoyable, but largely forgettable.

Voyageur is a game about exploration and imagination where you decide who you are and why you're hurtling through space faster than light. I recommend it to gamers who enjoy a more open-ended experience, and don't mind a bit of repetition.

A competent game, but one that seems to have hit the market three years too late while still demands a premium price.

The idea of a video game tied to a concept album has potential. Unfortunately, The Astonishing Game doesn’t deliver on that potential. The decision to implement it as a board game rather than a role-playing game limits many creative options. Even so, I would have liked to see a more engaging storyline or more meaningful ties between the story and the gameplay mechanics.

Potion Explosion is by no means revolutionary, but Asmodee Digital do an excellent job of bringing across a board game into the digital space in a way that seems more appealing than the original physical version. The price tag does feel weighty, and if you plan on playing with the family, I would advise on buying the real thing. But this is an enjoyable experience, and one that comes with a recommendation for both commuting for its offline mode, and when you have your feet up on the sofa with the online mode.

Sonny is a fun, challenging, combat-centric RPG that will satisfy fans of the franchise and new players alike.

Super Gridland is a solid match-three offering with a cool day/night cycle.

Once again, the standard game of chess has been manipulated into a unique and intense experience. Recommended for you chess buffs out there.

Punishing yet charming, this Tim Burton-esque world of exploration and terror will hook new players and old.

Even with a few minor quips, this a fantastic port of a classic that is immediately accessible and works in both ten minute bursts or a long weekend session. Essential.

Not all boardgames need a digital version and Mysterium is best left on the tabletop.

With it's original style and finely honed gameplay, either Severed is a crazy diamond of a game or I'm tripping. Or both.

A short-burst Norse-inspired tale that's fully functional but lacks that spark to make it a top-tier experience. It's worth trying the free-trial, at the very least.

A good, solid arcade-like experience let down by shoddy controls. Just shy of excellence.

If you enjoyed last year’s installment there is no reason why you would not enjoy Football Manager 2017 – unless you have no desire to be reminded about the whole Brexit nonsense.

Fans of old-school role-playing games will find a lot to love and should certainly pick up Avadon 3 for their gaming collection.

Colt Express is a well-designed, fun game that is destroyed by a poor online multiplayer experience.

Space Food Truck is another polished entry in One Man Left’s catalogue, and one that serves up something fresh in the world of co-op deck-building. Throw back a couple Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters and get behind the wheel.

Dungelot: Shattered Lands is a fun and challenging game with the best of both roguelike and RPG worlds.

Lost Frontier is a worthy candidate for fans of turn-based combat games who like a good challenge.

Fans of D&D and MMO style combat will find a lot to love about Demon's Rise 2.

Shifting the focus has helped Flatline morph into its own game... [But] in doing so it's lost some of what made Lifeline special in the first place.

Quest of Dungeons feels like the barebones of a rougelike game – a stripped down, uneventful, tedious affair. It works and functions perfectly fine, but it is so inoffensive and safe in its execution, that that ends up being its biggest crime.

Physics based combat makes a surprisingly enjoyable addition to turn-based strategy in this stylish, story driven campaign. Head out to the black and tell ‘em you ain’t coming back!

1775: Rebellion is a fun board game, but the digital implementation needs work.

Oh…Sir! has replaced Star Realms as my go to competitive online multiplayer game.

Rome: Total War is one of the best strategy games of all time and Feral Interactive hits the mark with the iPad version.

Lost Portal is a very fun and well-designed game. It provides a great CCG experience wrapped in an interesting RPG story. Best of all, it scratches the Magic itch without draining your wallet. This game might very well sit next to Card Crawl and other hall-of-fame games on my iPhone forever.

More than just a piece of RPG history, Jade Empire deserves to be experienced for its worldbuilding and memorable characters despite some shortcomings in core gameplay.

An intuitive, attractive puzzler for anybody who ever thought they could build a better subway.

A super stealthy, strategy game-of-the-year contender.

Sushi Go! could be a bit more feature rich, but this is a very satisfying and visually pleasing adaptation of the card game for which there isn’t currently much comparison in the app store.

While lacking functionality, Paperback is a fun and smart deck/word-building game that can only get better over time.

Crafted to perfection; here is a game that settles on a simple mechanic and absolutely nails it. One of the best mobile strategy games of the year.

I’ll come right out and say that Banner Saga 2 is a better game than it’s predecessor, and that’s no small thing, considering that the first game shook off its critics stings like so many biting flies, winning nearly all of them over despite their misgivings. It’s not perfect, especially as a mobile experience, but it builds on the previous game’s strengths and benefits from a shift in players' perspectives from what they thought The Banner Saga should be to an appreciation of what it actually is.

Board gamers, card players, deck builders, competitive gamers, architects, city planners, and anybody else who loves games that are just plain awesome will find this Concrete Jungle well worth their time. At $5 it's a no-brainer and my review would remain unchanged at double the price. Add this one to your mobile-game collection, you won't regret it.

I always thought my first one star review at PT would be something so offensively bad that it would leave me frothing at the mouth. Head of State disappoints rather than angers as seeing a good idea done badly is always worse than witnessing something that was a failure from the get go. Were it a cake Head of State would be a solid, if slightly underdone base missing all of its top layers, icing and decorations.

The game is definitely for min/maxers and “roll” players. If you enjoy character optimization, accumulating and upgrading powers, and fine tuning your choices for specific battles Oz will appeal to you. Battles are quick, fun, and rewarding. You should, however, be willing to either do some daily grinding or spend some real money to keep your heroes on par and all of your options open. If you are looking for a story-driven RPG for the “role”-playing elements, I'd recommend looking elsewhere.

If you enjoy wartime strategy games but either don't want to or don't have the time to micromanage every unit and territory under your control, Legends of Callasia is a great way to spend an hour or an afternoon. You can get that fix without a huge commitment. By keeping the action focused on generals the game moves quickly and you can play a full campaign in a couple hours.

A game that excels in its presentation and production, but ultimately feels like nothing more than a hollow experience. Sacred Legends has enough clever hooks to keep you going but nothing to make it memorable.

I’m personally ambivalent about Solitairica, but that has a lot to do with the long load times that most players won’t experience. I can’t recommend this game to anyone still playing on an iPad 2 or Mini 1, and anyone looking for something that is a card-game first and an RPG second will be better off waiting to see if Regency Solitaire makes the jump to mobile. Otherwise, Soltairica is a clever, quick-playing game fans of roguelites and puzzle RPS will find it easy to get into and highly replayable.

If you’ve played through the previous installments, picking up the fourth is a no-brainer. You’ll bump into characters you’ve met along your journey and use items you nabbed way back in the Shamutanti Hills. If you’re a newbie, it’s still worth the price of admission, but I would recommend picking up the entire series and starting from scratch to get the most out of it. Otherwise, it’s a bit like reading about the Battle of the Pelennor Fields without having sat through the Council of Elrond (spoilers?).

As it is now Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n.apk feels like a simple cash grab piggybacking of the show’s popularity instead of something with actual time and effort put into it.

Enyo is an original and engaging puzzle roguelike with a few input and clarity foibles that we hope to see addressed.

Satisfying first impressions are conflicted with a lasting impression of frustration, due to equally conflicting mechanics. Yet there is still enough here for a tentative recommendation.

A really good all-round puzzle game that comes with the bonus of being a Deus Ex title, albeit one that’s a little too easy sometimes.

Star Nomad 2 is a desktop game ported to mobile, and other than a few clunky UI design choices, it pulls it off in spectacular fashion.

It's Space Hulk, that's good. It's slow-playing, that's bad. It's still easier to set up than the miniature game, if you even have a copy.

Fun JRPG with a fair amount of complexity, marred by sub-par story and too many currencies.

Galaxy of Trian feels very unpolished, but the core of what here is an enjoyable tile-based strategy game.

It should be enough to keep you busy for a good long while, so long as you don't tire of the cookie-cutter mechanics.

Decent game that’s worth a try with friends. Feels a little light though.

It's a short, rough-edged experimental indie game with alt-comics art, and it's about interrogating circus performers. It's either your cuppa, or it just isn't.

This bizarre tale of history is yours and yours alone... and it's far too engrossing for you to ignore.

Short little romp over the skies of England with some nice replay value. Well worth the asking price.

Regicide features impressive animations of Orks and Space Marines blowing each other to bloody chunks, but is fatally bug-ridden and lacks a strategic core.

A major difficulty curve will turn off some, but don’t let this gorgeous yet tense rougelike pass you by.

A decent game that doesn’t make enough of an effort to stand out in any way.

It's a bold, punchy and handsome tactical combat game that just works.

Guild of Dungeoneering has a distinctive look, challenging, original gameplay, and a snarky bard. What's not to like?

Stripped down strategy mechanics that are both interesting and fun, but the game is mired by a ham-fist attempt at comedy.

Even with these flaws, Titan Quest is still a great hack ‘n slash.

A quick-fire RTS held back by a lack of depth and the inevitable F2P grind. Some smart ideas that hold promise.

Overall, The Swords is a sharply focused and concise package, one that is over far too quickly.

Interface and multiplayer issues aside, Battlefleet Gothic translates so well to touchscreen that it seems a marvel more miniatures games haven't followed suit.

Oddly charming, perhaps nostalgic, but pretty shallow and filled with free-to-play shenanigans.

As a source of insight into history, what Twilight Struggle does better than any other game I've played (as if it needs more trophies on its mantel) is provide some perspective on how different it felt to live during the Cold War.

Attractive and engaging to think about, less enjoyable for which to perfect solutions.

Star Realms follow-up Cthulhu Realms brings a zany take on dark summonings and evil magic to the deck-building genre. It's not exactly chocolate and peanut butter, but if pineapple and ham pizza can be good, so can this.

Fans of both Talisman and Warhammer 40,000, will like this one, fans of neither should take a different warp jump.

Bézier Games have an innovative approach to allocating development resources, with an engaging campaign but no online multiplayer in this adaptation of the highly-regarded tabletop successor to Suburbia.

Michael Brough has struck gold yet again with Imbroglio, one of the best iOS games of the past few years.

Fallen London is a text and story-driven game set in a highly original and expansive dark fantasy world that affords players an unusual amount of freedom to shape their character's destiny. The original web-based game runs well on mobile, but the recently released app is critically flawed.

INKS. is a light and fun diversion whose only real fault is the lack of a sense of progression.

A tablet game based on a card game based on a tabletop RPG based on another tabletop RPG maybe isn't where I should have gone looking for an original game, yet this is one of the great fantasy games on iOS.

I still enjoyed the majority of my time with Tormentum. It’s an enjoyably grim adventure that can be finished in a lazy weekend. If you’re into the art style and settings and can handle the anemic ending, you’ll probably have a good time. Just don't expect anything profound from it.

Part of the problem is that, though the characters are pretty interestingly varied, with a variety of effects on movement, action points, damage of different types, teleportation, an array of summoning abilities, healing, and board control, there's a substantial element of linear design.

If you are a fan of turn-based strategy titles then Warbits has everything you need.

It’s harder to recommend this game to a general RPG audience, but the problems with Petticles in Peril are mostly correctable, so the next episode of ChemCaper could very well fulfill the dream.

If you can ignore the goofy name (and actually find it on the App Store), The Game offers a fun and challenging puzzle game and a faithful recreation of the cardboard version.

7 Mages takes the best qualities of classic dungeon-crawlers while adding its own twists, a combination which makes it one of the best RPGs on the App Store.