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

If you're a fan of real-time combat games Barbearian is easy to recommend as it is certainly one of the better mobile titles in the genre. It looks great, is loaded with smashy goodness and visceral feel, and is a ton of fun to play. It offers plenty of challenge without nearing the rage-quit-and-never-look-at-the-game-again reaction some similar games seem to elicit. The ability to micromanage the difficulty and completely control the UI layout is just icing on the cake.

A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build is a delightful little puzzle game.

As a sequel, Euclidean Skies is as different from its predecessor as it can be while maintaining the core puzzle tactics concept. It’s not perfect, but it’s better for it.

Space Grunts is a winner, have no doubt.

It may be slightly more demanding up-front than a Tetris sure, but show it a fraction of the forbearance given to an RPG or a 4X game and you’ll be entranced by a beautifully efficient design that makes the player feel like some arcane trickster genius.

Draknek's game is difficult but hospitable, obviously made with great joy and care. Cosmic Express is an elegant and wonderful chance for you to surprise yourself, to laugh at your foibles and cleverness in turn.

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

Once again, inkle Studios has bested themselves in creating the gold standard for interactive fiction, and causing us all to start wondering when the next chapter will arrive.

Donkey Kong Bananza elevates the 3D platformer genre with highly engaging mechanics, an almost entirely sandbox environment, and buckets of charm. This isn’t just the game that I’ve wanted to play for years without even knowing it, but it’s the first truly must-have Nintendo Switch 2 release. As I’m writing this, I already can’t wait to go back for more.

You Must Build A Boat is such a rare combination of frenetic speed and methodical planning that its closest relative might be Dark Souls.

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

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.

If you wanted to pick fault with this, it would be a lack of any kind of single-player campaign. But that's a nice to have, an extra feather in the hats of the creme de la creme of mobile adaptations like Galaxy Trucker. It isn't necessary in an economic game like this. And however you feel about economic games - and player interaction - this version of Race of the Galaxy is good enough to be worth your cosmic dollars.

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.

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.

A breeze to control, exciting to play and to excessively replay, laden with tactical playgrounds.

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.

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

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

Though outside our usual remit, this game is so unusual and of rare quality that it has proved itself a rising star. Astrologaster is a pitch-perfect musical comedy of (medical) errors.

Yes, yes, a million hollow moons yes, Cultist Simulator is a good game, the kind which will haunt your waking moments with its patterns and intricacies. The app is so easy to use, making the repetition of the game dreamlike rather than simply dull, and though I’ve beaten it twice and wasn’t sure I could tackle another go-around, it seems like I’m a born again cultist. I’ll remember my fleshsack days fondly, looking back from the seat of the Glory upon those quotidian beginnings. But first I have to finish this last bit of research...

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

Ball bouncing has never looked or felt better than it does in Holedown, a game that proves that there’s always a more interesting way to do the things we’ve been doing for years.

The controls aren’t perfect and it’s still on the short side, but The Room Three delivers exactly what you’re promised: brooding and beautiful atmosphere with epic-length puzzles to solve.

A smart expansion of incredible action foundations, PlatinumGames’ latest entry delivers a wild story and defies expectations while presenting heartwarming themes at its core. Bayonetta 3 is an action masterpiece, offering a veritable feast for fans of the Umbra witch and closing out the trilogy with the biggest and best entry yet.

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.

For those of us that have played Kairosoft’s Game Dev Story, this game will feel very familiar. Replace the graphics with Kairosoft’s trademark pixel art and, on the surface at least, the two games would be hard to tell apart. However, look a little deeper and you will realise that Game Dev Tycoon has a lot more to offer, both in terms of depth and opportunities to experiment with different approaches. The presentation is clear and simple, and overall, it just feels like the game has found its true home on touchscreen devices -- and it works equally well whether you choose to play in short sessions or over longer periods. My one real gripe is that the endlessly looping music quickly becomes irritating; it would have been lovely to have a soundtrack based on the chip music of different eras.