The best mobile games are the ones that make us feel smart, are easy to play in short bursts of time, and look better than a Renaissance painting. IQ Mission from Yummy Factory is one such game, taking the very recognizable set-up of a brain training game and turning it into a spy-based series of missions around the world. On a quest for pieces of a map, you'll travel from Rapa Nui to London to Monte Carlo, solving a series of themed logic games with difficulty levels ranging from "no duh" to "...HELP!!!".

As single player teamwork-based puzzle games go, cute is more often than not the way to go. Maybe it's a game about pandas, maybe a droplet of water and a bit of fire, or maybe some geometric shapes who are forced to get along via circumstance but eventually form a touching sort of friendship. All cute! Well, this puzzle platform game from Tobias Bilgeri isn't afraid to call it like it is. Titled About Love, Hate and the other ones, this game has you spreading both love and hate as you order around little critters to help your characters make it to the goal. Be a bully, be the nice guy, you've got to do it all in order to win!

We Create Stuff and Armor Games takes their popular and beautifully simple puzzle game to the iOS with entirely new levels. Dismantle 3D structures by pushing, pulling, and twisting the individual pieces until you find just the right configuration to let it all slide apart. Elegant, clean, and polished to a mirror finish, Interlocked for your mobile device is exactly the sort of simple, casually engaging and clever puzzle game we'd love to see more of.

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.

A Wonderland Story from Alchemy Games probably isn't what you expect from a colorful, expertly-illustrated mobile game. It may look like a platformer, it may even have the intense reflex requirements of a platformer, but really, it's a game of fast puzzles and quick planning. And it just happens to be set in the strange, strange world of Alice in Wonderland, only this time, Alice is the villain!

Haunted Halloween Escape drops you into a room full of spooky features and creatures. TeraLumina knows how to make a good game; the atmosphere is excellent, with the graphics and sound adding perfectly to it without being too distracting, and the puzzles flow just fine. Even the added challenge of making the game Halloween-themed didn't affect its quality. It's an excellent escape, and if you'd like a little Halloween in your day, here it is.

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.

Girls like robots and robots like girls, as long as they're not surrounded by girls. Then robots get very nervous. Nerds like girls, but girls don't like nerds. And, then, there's pie. Doesn't everyone love pie? Maybe, maybe not. But those are just some of the rules to consider when trying to make everyone happy in this clever block arranging puzzle from Pop Cannibal and Adult Swim Games.

Cats. Aren't they just the cutest and most sinister creatures ever smuggled into this dimension? Dingo Games, creator of Tasty Planet, knows what we're talking about, and the team's latest release Clumsy Cat illustrates it with style. Not only do you get to see the hidden world of pet life, you get to participate in it firsthand with a game that's all about doing the naughty things pets do when us sapiens are away: destroying everything they can get their paws on. Clumsy, indeed.

You might've seen one of those tabletop games where you turn the two knobs to tilt a platform and guide a marble through a maze. Odds are, you've never attempted to spice up the game with TNT and catapults. Gridblock is a challenging mobile game that intends to do just that. Tilt your device to slide the blocks to their targets in this action-filled puzzler that takes a steady hand and a sharp mind.

When you see a key, isn't your first thought, "I wonder what it will open?" That curiosity and search for answers makes the perfect theme inside this austere and surreal room, where you must use observation and exploration to open new paths and find your way out. This escape game may be small but it's three times the fun to play!

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!

Billed as a crossword game with a twist, KRIZL from Rekim is a mobile puzzle game that challenges your word skills along with spatial recognition. There are no riddles to solve or questions to answer, so instead of scratching your head over obscure pop culture references, you'll spend your time rotating grid pieces so that every stream of letters spells a complete word. It's a great way to make crossword puzzles more casual!

The world needs saving and only you, Kumo Lumo, a fluffy smiling cloud, can save it in this innovative mobile arcade puzzle game. Billed by developer, Blitz Games, as a "rain 'em up!" you are tasked with two things—grow up the good, drench out the bad—your only arsenal being a sprinkle of rain and a blast of lightening. It's a simple concept that puts a little sunshine into being a raincloud.

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.

Sarah Northway's massively popular zombie survival simulation strategy game gets an update in time for its anniversary on its mobile platforms! With the threat of winter hanging over your head and even more secrets and endings to discover, there's more reason than ever to pick up one of the most addictive turn-based sims around... for the first time, or again and again.

Sakura Quick Math from Shiny Things sounds like it's one step away from being an extended homework assignment. But thanks to its stylish and simple design, it turns into a brain teaser that's way more fun than you might expect, and it might just make you a little faster at basic arithmetic!

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!

Franken-Stitch has lost his head in this physics puzzle game available for your mobile device or as a computer download. Tap your way through obstacle courses of pulleys, trampolines, fans and more to reunite him with his happy little noggin. Use realistic physics and interactive objects on numerous challenging levels spanning multiple themed chapters.

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.

The princess has been captured! What do you do? Ride off on your majestic steed? Race to the castle in a carriage? Nope, you gotta bounce! Prince of Balls is an interesting platformer where leaping about and collecting all the goodies is the only way to travel. Getting to the end of each level can be tricky, but doing so with the fewest jumps to maximize your score makes this an easily replayable challenge.

You are a private eye investigating a rival P.I. when you are conked over the head from behind with a blunt object. Now you're trapped inside his office and must use your wits and detective skills to escape the room. Smooth navigation, a sleuthy ambiance and light parody of the genre make this a good, quick dose of noir whenever the mood grabs you.

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!

When martial arts and food combine, the result is something far more epic than that time you tried to slice through a cabbage in mid-air. Legend of Fat Ninja is a physics arcade game from Zephyr Games that tells the tale of Kureijita, the ninja chef who just graduated from the legendary Iron Skillet Academy. Along with fellow graduate and sidekick Kaminoha, he's out to prove he's the best chef in the land. All he needs are a few good recipes, and he knows just the food masters to take them from!

Mmm, delicious eggs. As we've learned from the Angry Birds series, round, legless piggies love nothing more than a good egg. And they'll do anything they can to get their snouts on one! In Rovio's latest physics game Bad Piggies, the tables are turned and you're working to help the pigs get what they want. Instead of slingshots and breakable forts, though, you're building rickety contraptions box by wooden box. It's a little bit of construction, a little bit of action, and a whole lot of crashing. Exactly what you need in a casual mobile game!

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.

Surprised to see Rayman in a place like this? Time to reconfigure your expectations, as our limbless hero is making a run for the casual mobile market. Quite literally, too! Rayman Jungle Run from Pastagames brings the platform star to a new genre that feels quite at home on the iOS screen: endless running. Instead of randomly generated drab worlds, though, you can expect some startlingly lush visuals paired with challenges and abilities that gradually evolve as you play. It's such a good jump and run game, you'll probably wonder why more titles haven't adopted a similar layout!

The latest in Toge Production's popular series of zombie action-strategy games, Infectonator 2 thrives on frenetic chain-reaction based gameplay, its awesome sprite art, and the pure adrenaline rush one gets by infecting the world, continent by continent. It may be a bit taxing on the CPU for such mindless fun, but that just means you'll keep going even after someone has taken a chomp from your brain

The Room is a thoroughly intriguing, point-and-click style 3D puzzle adventure centered around a single box that is built on immense imagination. The sheer wealth of puzzles contained within will hold you engaged for hours. Beautiful visuals and clever puzzles invite continued exploration and discovery. Besides the large amount of entertainment it contains, The Room has the happy side effect of making you feel fortunate to possess the means to play it.

With the success of music games on every platform, it was inevitable that iOS devices would see a few as well. While the range in quality is as variable as ever, Cytus from Rayark is on the high end of the scale. With clear, fantasy-futuristic graphics the game catches attention from the title screen simply by looking different, and gameplay doesn't disappoint either!

Explore the vegi-magical island of Geos in Lili, a quirky RPG adventure game for your iOS device. What starts out as an expedition to search out interesting flowers becomes much more as you get to know the island's inhabitants. The Constructs need outside help to break out from the iron rule of the Spirits. Will you stay to help your unusual new friends, or take the flowers and run?

In this cheery, silly RPG/simulation from maxmobile for iOS or Android, you're a pygmie hedgehog setting out on adventure and searching for friends. The vibrant presentation and simple, accessible gameplay makes this one addictive and fun despite its lack of depth, and something both kids and adults can find hard to put down.

Ah, the romance of the old west. Cowboys, cattle drives, the pony express... Also brush fires, coyotes, droughts, greedy land barons, and bandits who ransack towns and kidnap the population for ransom. It might not be as romantic as John Wayne movies would have us believe, but things were still pretty adventurous, a side of the times that Alawar chooses to represent in the time management adventure game The Golden Years: Way Out West.

A strange name for a strange game, Oh Hi! Octopi! is an arcade/puzzle release from the creator of 1-bit Ninja, kode80. Combining single-screen levels with matching-type gameplay and purposefully obtuse controls, it can be a maddening experience trying to learn to play the game, let alone actually accomplish something. But once you do, it's a great feeling, and you'll finally be able to say a hearty "hi" to those little octopi as you smash them with a hammer.

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!

The most whimsically beautiful golf game ever comes to the iPad in this port of JayIsGames' Best Physics Game of 2011, Wonderputt. The retina display on the new iPad showcases the stunning animations far beyond the browser version, but what'll keep you coming back is the natural touch controls and the challenge of completing the rainbow.

We've worked our way up 100 Floors, maybe opened a few DOOORS along the way. So... now what? How about turning on some lights in here? A new point-and-click mobile puzzle game from Smarcle (which isn't officially related to either of the games above), 100 Lights, is all about bringing some illumination to dark situations, challenging you to turn on the lights in each level. The best part is the solutions are never spelled out for you, and you'll have to shake, twist and swipe your screen to figure out how things work!

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!

HUEBRIX, a logic-based puzzle game by Yellow Monkey, wants your brain. Not in a zombie-eating kind of way, but in a cool, challenging way. Similar to games like PathPix and Link-a-Pix (or a number of other Conceptis releases), HUEBRIX challenges you to fill out a grid of squares by dragging "color snakes" around the board. All of this happens on a timer, so you've got to be smart, you've got to be fast, and it wouldn't hurt to have a positronic brain, either.

Super Hexagon, the latest release from VVVVVV creator Terry Cavanagh, is the kind of game that makes you hate games. It will make you feel like an inept player who couldn't play an arcade game even if you were in Russia (where arcade game plays you, we hear). You might even get mad at Terry, who crafted this fast, stylish game seemingly just to show you how often you can fail. But after you lose ten times in as many seconds, you'll suddenly realize that Super Hexagon has you by the collar, has already taken your lunch money, and if you want it back, you're going to have to keep playing. Strangely enough, that's a challenge you'll be thrilled to undertake!

Valentin isn't what you would call the bravest Viking in the village. His best ability of running in fear is a better asset for the hundred meter dash than a battle with some big old brutes. However, he has to prove himself somehow and taking on the evil wizard who kidnapped Princess Estelle is the perfect way to do so. Armed with only his wits, guide Valentin through thirteen scenes of point and click adventure and brave the terrible wizard!

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.

You know, if a suspicious book expressly tells you not to open it, one might take that as a warning sign. Unfortunately, you didn't, and now you've gone and freed the insufferably smug entity known as Mannequin... but he's giving you a chance to seal him up again. All you have to do is solve a puzzle... or hundred. How hard can it be? A supremely stylish little mobile game great for puzzle fans that heaps on the charm.

Have you ever been told not to second guess your answers on a test? Well, forget that! The seemingly obvious answer usually isn't the right one in What's My IQ?, Orangenose's new mobile puzzle/quiz game. Most of the questions are multiple choice, but since there's such a wide variety of categories and tricky responses, you'll never know quite what to expect next.

Your best friend Mary has gone missing for a few days and you take it upon yourself to search for her. Your hunt for her leads to a mysterious floating island inhabited by the remnants of an extraterrestrial race that needs your help to get back home. In this visually decadent casual adventure game, solve puzzles and piece together fragments in hidden object scenes in order to help not only your friend, but the earth bound aliens who want to finally go home.

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.

Illusion Labs wants to send you on an adorable quest to rescue lost boxies while you play with colored bombs and blow up everything in sight! And it's a quest you should gleefully accept, as the team's latest mobile offering Blast-A-Way is packed with all the right gameplay elements seasoned with sweetly delicious art style that makes you feel like you're four years old playing with blocks in your room. Only, you know, now you've got bombs.

Granny Smith is lounging about with apples in her eyes when suddenly a whippersnapper of a thief skates by and robs her trees bare. Naturally, granny immediately heads out to get her fruit back! This would be a rather boring game idea until you consider the following: the apples are strewn from country to city and beyond, and both granny and the kid are on rollerskates! Granny Smith, from Sprinkle creator Mediocre AB, is kind of a stunt game, kind of a physics game, and most definitely a racing game. But where it really scores big is in simple playability and that magic formula that makes you want to keep playing no matter how many times you die.

Dancing Robots! One night only! If you can reunite heads with bodies that is. Recover the heads of the dancing robots in this one-button action game. Using gravity wells, control your bot head, maneuvering around saw blades and fire spouts. Collect golden bolts along the way. Collect enough bolts to earn stars to open new levels. The dance must go on!

GYRO is a simple game of reflex-based color matching created by Submachine Factory. It's one of those games that are perfect for short bursts of play, providing ample amounts of challenge to train your reaction times and hand-eye coordination. Simply drag and rotate the circle on the screen (or use the bar at the bottom for fine control), moving it so its three color slices catch the appropriately colored particles floating in from outside. Capture more and you'll increase your score multiplier, but get one wrong and it resets. Now your only goal is this: score as many points as you possibly can!

It may be One Epic Knight, but it's several hundred different runs. From Simutronics, the creator of the inverted defense game Tiny Heroes, this tongue-in-cheek third person running game puts you in the golden greaves of a knight destined to run through a dangerous dungeon time and time again. The place is filled with dangerous spikey things, broken floors, tricky stairs, cuboid blobs, and much more. It's an absolute riot to play, so taking a jog or two through the halls is definitely a good idea.

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.

Surprise! Bust-a-Move (or Puzzle Bobble, if you will) is creative and fresh and fun again! Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team's Supermagical takes the familiar matching-based marble popping puzzle formula, quite literally turns it on its side, then adds a smattering of level-based progression, item upgrades, shops, mini-games, and even a hidden object diversion. The result is a colorful and charismatic game that feels like a brand new experience, no matter how familiar the gameplay might be.

Delight in the artistry of 58Works latest room escape adventure in an abandoned art gallery, a place of mystery, wonder, and fantastic puzzles! Available in your browser or free for your iOS, Garou is a distracting and challenging escape and yet another hit by the designers.

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.

Jack be nimble, Jack be— oh, forget that old number. Jack Lumber is a path drawing arcade game from Owlchemy Labs. Jack's granny has been kidnapped by a walking tree, and in order to rescue her, he's got to do some serious chopping, Fruit Ninja style! Jack's big and burly and very handy with an axe. Not only can he chop down trees, he can apparently channel lightning to aid in his epic quest. It's time to mow through the forest, murderlizing everything wooden until you get your granny back!

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.

So, what's your neighborhood like? Is it filled with happy, friendly people who wear strange hats, ride tricycles, and spend their days wandering between the fruit stand and the sunglasses hut? Did you build most of the things on your street? Is your neighborhood in 2D? Well hey, even if it is, the casual simulation game Happy Street from Godzilab is an all-around wholesome and addictive experience. Set up a shop here, pick up an apple there, get a bird to poop on your friend's head. All in a day's play in your ever-expanding village of pseudo-commerce!

It's escaping time! Flip's Escape is an arcade follow-up to The Last Rocket, an iOS puzzle game also by Shaun Inman. The goal is to fly as far as you can, passing light years of space in just a few seconds. Crash and you start back at the beginning, but not without earning some coinage and achievements in the process. One look at the clean pixel visuals and you might think you're in for an easy ride. But flight after flight, failure after failure, you'll realize you've got a lot of skills to sharpen before you get anywhere.

Months after discovering You Are a Box, Games Northwest is happy to report that You Are Still a Box. And you've got some work to do. The remarkably brain cell deficient Nabbles need to get to the exit, but since their only ability is walking and turning around when they hit a wall, you've got to help them avoid stepping into traps. As a box, you're just the moderately-animate object to do it, though you're going to need a little help along the way.

The end of the world is nigh, and it wants your brains! In this quirky, darkly humorous mobile edition of the zombie simulation based on the classic game Oregon Trail, saddle up with fellow survivors and strike out across the country with the promise of safety hanging in the distance. Manage your supplies, trade with people you meet along the way, deal with boss battles, and above all else hope Lady Luck decides to smile on you. That is, if you don't want to come down with dysentery while someone else has a broken leg and the others have all been bitten by zombies.

Can we use the phrase "high octane" without also referencing monster truck events in the same sentence? If so, we would officially like to add that to our description of Super Mole Escape, a new upgrade-fueled arcade game from Grumpyface Studios and Adult Swim. Playing as one of seven characters (most of which have to be unlocked to use), your job is to tilt your iOS device back and forth to swim through the dirt and escape the mole cops. Bustin' out of prison isn't always as easy as getting a poster of Rita Hayworth and a small rock hammer, you know.

Games centered around the sport of basketball seem to be making a comeback, and we're not talking about sports simulations, either. Titles like BasketBelle and Dude Perfect marry new mechanics to the old concept, creating experiences that are about as much like basketball as Homerun in Berzerk Land is like baseball. Now, Solipskier creator Mikengreg has released Gasketball, a physics-heavy mobile arcade game that's all about shooting and scoring baskets under some unusual circumstances. How unusual? Try reverse gravity triggers, teleportation platforms, pinball bumpers, and sawblades!

When sliding through a blocky two color world, keep one thing in mind: Space is Key. Actually, if you're playing this painfully challenging arcade game on your iOS device, that title isn't as true. With the browser versions of Space is Key and Space is Key 2, all you do is tap the [spacebar] to jump, hence the name. On a touch screen there is no spacebar, so instead, your finger is key. That's a bit of an awkward title for a game, though, so instead of brain thinking, we'll game playing!

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?

Looking for a career change? Consider the fantastic work of the physics puzzle builder in this quirky, silly iOS game! Build castles that reach the sky by dragging and dropping an assortment of blocks, towers, toppers and more to collect coins, house people, and more. Simple in concept, easy to get into, and polished up with a hefty dose of humour, it's exactly the sort of hard to put down casual mobile game that can gobble up your free time before you know it.

The surprise hit arcade launch game soars out of your browser and into your iOS in this polished little port. When a little girl wants to see her mother for Christmas, she sends the wish to the North Pole on a paper airplane, but doesn't suspect the many hands it will pass through along the way. Combining simple, addictive gameplay with a beautiful presentation, upgrades, and achievements, Flight is a perfect fit for the touchscreen and something everyone can enjoy.

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.

What springs to mind when someone says the word "maze"? Probably not an image of a butterfly dancing along a series of colored tiles to the sound of piano keys. Sergey Mohov, on the other hand, envisioned exactly that, turning the butterfly and piano vision into a gorgeously styled maze puzzle game by the name of Dedale. With music provided by Fractures, it is up to you to brave 100 levels of tile coloring, butterfly leading, maze escaping fun.

Your iOS becomes a gateway to arcade addiction in this oh-so-simple but endlessly enjoyable little dungeon-crawling hybrid. Swap tiles to gain treasure, supplies, and battle monsters as you try to keep running for as long as you can, hoping to amass a score large enough that our hero can escape the dirty castle he wakes up in. But with upgrades, achievements, endless enemies and more, why would you ever want to go?

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.

Gear up for some bizarre new words that wouldn't make it past any English teacher's red pen with Xether Labs's free iOS word puzzle! The concept and gameplay is simple... figure out the clues and fill in the blanks to reveal the strange new word you get by combining the two solutions. Best enjoyed passed back and forth on the couch with a witty and weird friend, it's the sort of breezy, simple, silly game mobile devices seem perfectly designed for to help you enjoy yourself whenever you have a spare moment.

A few big names are rolling out exciting mobile projects in the coming weeks, and not just big names in the mainstream gaming world! Sega's got some news to keep us cool through the summer, while Nitrome and NimbleBit have some pieces of excitement of their own to share!

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.

Those crafty rabbits. From Bugs to the waistcoat-wearing White Rabbit who's always late, you can pretty much bet each and every one of them is up to something nefarious. In Gamaga's new mobile puzzle game Follow the Rabbit, this is most certainly the case. As the action begins you watch as a cuboid bunny hops down the path, a sack of coins leaking gold with every bounce. Being the helpful villager that you are, you take it upon yourself to follow the rabbit, collecting coins and solving some fiendish puzzles along the way.

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.

The darling little arcade flying game for iOS, Tiny Wings, has just gone through a metamorphosis, turning itself into twice the game it used to be and spawning a native iPad version in the process! Tiny Wings 2.0 is sort of a sequel to the original, but creator Andreas Illiger decided to release it as a free update instead of a standalone app, allowing owners of Tiny Wings to grab it for free. And like mama always said, free is better than fooling around with in-app purchases.

Strap on your physics shoes (moon boots?), it's time for some quirky Rube Goldberg-like contraptions! Amazing Alex is the latest offering from Rovio, the well-known creator of the Angry Birds series. This new offering is a physics-based puzzle building game not unlike Crazy Machines or The Incredible Machine, though everything has been greatly scaled down to make it more fitting for a casual audience.

Astronaut Spacewalk by Jorge Hernandez is the closest most of us will ever get to taking a no-tether trot in outer space. The delightfully complex and detailed simulation game gives you a screen filled with controls and a few simple missions to complete, then sits back and watches while you climb the impossibly high learning curve. It will take hours, not minutes, to learn how to maneuver your lone astronaut, and until you do, you'll probably feel confusion, bewilderment, and possibly a touch of anger. If you stick with it, though, you'll discover a game that shares the joys and wonders of space exploration tempered by the realism of science, and it's a wonderful experience indeed.

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.

The core concept of 100 Floors is simple. On each floor you're presented with a single screen containing an elevator door that you've got to figure out how to open. Tap, swipe, pinch, and do other things that your mobile device is capable of doing until finally the level is clear. "Wait a minute," I hear you exclaim. "Isn't this just DOOORS with an elevator and a bunch of new levels?" To which I reply, "Yes. Why, is there something wrong with that?!"

Billy the Painter is a simple one-trick puzzle game built around filling empty spaces of floor with bright splashes of paint. Billy is tasked with painting the dull warehouse floor, and for the most part, he's gotten it all done. Some strategically-empty spaces are still around, though, and it's your job is to fill them as completely as possible. Paint spreads on its own, so all you need to do is tap the screen and a dab of paint grows into an ever-widening circle. As soon as it hits a border, the level ends, so time everything just right and you'll be well on your way to a career in floor painting!