On the surface, this puzzle game is simple. Easy, even. You move in turns through small, carefully designed levels trying to avoid or eliminate enemies on your way to the exit. But before long, the new varieties of obstacles and tight level design will force you to think ahead in strategic fashion, making this one elegantly simple game that can challenge you with the best of them.

You've probably already spotted the icon next to this blurb and thought, "Xs and Os in a grid? Must be Tic Tac Toe... But why haven't they played in the middle square? That's an easy win for both players!" That's true, however it might not be the best strategy in Tic-Tac-Toe-Ception, where the square you make your move in on one grid determines the grid your opponent plays in on a larger meta-grid. A simple game of three-in-a-row just got a whole lot harder!

Whether you're a die-hard sports fan or not, Kairosoft's latest free mobile simulation deserves its chance to charm you, and will probably do so with ease. Create and micro-manage your own soccer team both on and off the field, and compete against the game, or even other players world-wide... and hire team members from them! Easily accessible and yet packed with a ton of details for unexpectedly deep strategy, it's a fantastic game that's satisfying to play and hard to keep your hands off of.

Fed up with the current crop of farming games and their incessant cheeriness? Agricola brings you back to reality like stepping in a pile of fresh manure. Playdek's mobile conversion of Uwe Rosenberg's classic strategy board game has the same pleasant exterior as numerous Facebook farm-'em-ups, but its cuddly graphics and music will do little to soothe your aching brain as you struggle to keep your peasants from starvation. Fun? It sure is.

Somebody let the zombies out, and they're on a serious rampage to get rid of the survivors! Shelter is a post-apocalyptic strategy game from Survivalist Games that distills all the running, shooting and getting your brains eaten action from surviving a zombie raid into a card game. It's surprisingly challenging and calls on more skill than just being able to place a few cards on the table. And just because zombies busting down the doors happens with cards doesn't mean it's any less thrilling.

Two childhood friends would never expect their destinies would grow to be so great... or to pull them in opposite directions. This iOS port of the beloved turn-based tactical RPG classic may suffer from some user interface problems, but with the challenging battles and deep narrative intact, it still remains a formidable, engrossing experience that deserves a place in any fan's library.

Puzzle meets roguelike in this challenging little retro game created for Ludum Dare's minimalism theme. Four heroes sounds like more than enough to find all four magical scepters, but with random dungeons filled with unique monsters, tricks, and permadeath, you've got your strategizing cut out for you.

Gnomes, gnomes everywhere! Popping out of the ground, asking you to plant mushrooms around them. Why? Because they can. Don't mess with gnomes. Anyway, the numbers on their hats tell you how many mushrooms you're supposed to plant, and mushrooms send out rays of light, so you can't plant one on another's light path. With two gameplay modes, three difficulties and a number of board sizes, Gnomeland Security is a puzzly bundle of fun.

It never ends. Literally! This tower defense game will keep going until you die, as you place and combine gems around the field to keep enemies from reaching your loot. But when the game is over, you can start again with a brand new map and keep all the upgrades you bought, for a surprisingly clever twist on the defense genre, albeit without a lot of depth.

Frozen Synapse puts you in control of a squad of armed troops and gives you the ability to precisely map out their actions and movements. Once you have settled on a game plan, you and your enemy's commands are then played out simultaneously in real time (the game's defining feature) and hopefully the resulting encounter leaves you with more men standing than the other guy.

Raise money to save a forest from being cut down. It's a good cause so it should be easy, right? Wrong! Pick up your trusty clipboard and beat the streets talking to people and trying to stir them into donating to meet your goals. But be warned... getting people to open their wallets is harder than you think when your confidence, trust, charisma, and even job is on the line in this unique simulation/arcade game.

This barbecue is being crashed by some seriously unruly lizards of the prehistoric sort! Most gophers would turn tail, but you're not giving up your delicious steaks without a fight! Plan strategically and make use of a variety of clever tower types to defend your 'cue against incoming dinos of all sorts, ranging from hordes of sprightly compys to enormous bosses in this indie defense game.

The woods are no place to be stranded in. You can lose your way; you can lose your mind; you can even lose yourself. Developed by Simulated Culture, Rootwork is a new strategic card game that drops you into the heart of the deepest, darkest forest and challenges you to make it out safely. However, a stray critter or a thorny bush are the least of your troubles here. These woods are full of dark forces and malevolent spirits, and at the center of the dark maelstrom is "She." Who is She? That's uncertain. But these are Her woods, and if She wants you to stay lost forever the odds are stacked against you.

Welcome about your starship, commander. It may not have much going for it right now, but it's yours. With time, training, and diligence, you could turn it into a credit to Star Command's fleet... provided, of course, you don't get caught up in a deadly web of conspiracy and intrigue that could spell your demise. A challenging and addictive sci-fi simulation strategy game packed with gorgeous pixel art.

Follow the adventures of two viking brothers in this resource management strategy game from Alawar. Their land has been ravaged by savages, and you must help gods, gnomes, druids and more to save the magic tree that once protected your lands. Just a click sends your workers to do your bidding. Can you reclaim the magic and once again live in peace?

Evil never rests, so neither can you in the latest installment of realtime strategy from Booblyc! You'll lead Targa Wrathbringer and his army against a marauding demon horde, this time upgrading not only your units, but the heroes you'll recruit to your cause as well, and learn to master powerful new spells and abilities in the process.

There's a ghost in the system, and you're it! But you're not the spooky, chain-rattling kind. You're the rad, hacking, fight-for-justice kind! In this addictive sequel to 2010's popular tower defense game, place defensive programs and upgrade them with nodes to protect your data, or swarm your opponent with hostiles of your own in Monster Mode!

Months after the tournament that decided Kurestal Kingdom's next ruler, one of the knights sacrifices his life to save the new king. In The King's League: Odyssey, the sequel to Kurechii's popular game from 2011, you manage a team of fighters who are looking to fill the job opening.

Totems puts a simpler spin on the classic Risk (or Galcon) style of strategy game. Handing you a fistful of animal totems and placing you on a map, it's your job to outwit your opponent as you take turns dropping pieces on the board, claiming territories and fighting for control over the largest chunk of land.

Dojo Danger from Kihon is the kind of game you can't wait to be good at. One part strategy and one part arcade physics, the setup is a bit reminiscent of the SQUIDS series, putting you in control of a group of heroes who can be shot around the screen in order to defeat the bad guys. This time around, though, you get to play as a band of ninjas ridding the world of a zombie invasion by smacking into them and knocking them into spike traps!

Block Fortress is Minecraft meets tower defense meets first person shooter, all squeezed down into a mobile game. Build a base in the middle of a blocky wilderness, place turrets and towers and power supplies to fortify your position, then send in the waves of enemies. Once combat begins, you shift from building mode to combat mode, taking a gun into battle and watching over your fort by blasting enemies by hand. It's incredibly exciting and also deeply rooted in upgrades and tactics, making it the sort of game you can play for months without truly mastering.

The tower-defense smash hit behemoth is back and better than ever. As a Dark Lord with an awesome trove of treasure, you're forced to continually beat back the heroes after your gems. Luckily for you you have the forces of darkness on your hands. And luckily for us this sequel is every bit as addictive as the original with a great new look and some challenging new features.

Strategists and fans of collectible card games alike are bound to enjoy Highgrounds. Featuring both a single-player and PvP matches, the latter of which takes full advantage of its turn-based nature and allows for asynchronous play like you might see in Words with Friends or similar games. Unlike many games that employ a similar model, microtransactions don't spoil the fun. Instead, players who try the game and like what they see have the option of paying for more without being forced to break out their wallets in order to enjoy themselves.

It's kill or be killed in this turn-based strategy game. Create a team of top-notch soldiers to fight for your side. Study each unit's stats to choose the most efficient way to take out your enemy. Battle in several different pixel-y landscapes against various monsters until you come out on top!

The original zombie-defending gardening sensation may be a few years old, but Plants vs. Zombies lives strong as it makes its way to more and more devices. The killer PopCap app hasn't changed much from its original incarnation, it's just been optimized for touch-based controls and smaller screens. It's just as wacky and fun as ever, though, so if you've never given it a try, now's your chance! It's Apple's Free App of the Week!

Everyone likes to think they'd be a leader and a hero if a zombie apocalypse started, but this surprisingly challenging indie strategy sim proves it's not that simple. Take control of a group of five extremely different survivors who may or may not hate each other and make them work together to eventually escape the city... if you can keep them away from each other's throats. With randomisation of characters and locations, as well as a user-friendly content creation system, there's endless replayability to be had.

Work with other players to cooperatively end the frosty reign of darkness in this gorgeous and deceptively casual looking game of kingdom building and resource management. Blending elements of puzzling with real-time strategy, your task is to lay roads and factories for your little Flans to travel, gather resources, and beat back the winter. But it's not as easy as it sounds, and you'll need real planning, logic, and craftiness to win at this engaging and innovative game.

I told you! I told you not to trust clowns! And now the kingdom is in peril AGAIN because one seriously creepy jester has kidnapped the royal family! In this simple but gorgeously made realtime strategy game, you'll travel across the land besting and recruiting a roster of heroes with unique abilities to defeat your foes in defensive combat and eventually bring peace to the kingdom once more.

Calling all heroes! It's up to you to defend the castles of the kingdom in Wild Heroes. In this tower defense game you must place your heroes wisely to keep the enemy at bay. Upgrade them to wild status to really do some damage. Show the monsters what a hero is really capable of!

Kairosoft's latest free simulation for your Android device might have a weird idea of just what being a landlord entails, but darned if it isn't addictive. Build your apartment complex from the ground up, enticing new tenants and enriching their lives to help them grow and succeed. See your people become successful from the cradle to old age and compete in a variety of categories to have the best apartment around in this colourful, casual sim.

If you're a Gratuitous Space Battles nut then chances are you've got the various expansions already and are likely to do the same with this one. If you haven't tried the game yet, The Outcasts is a good starter DLC once you've exhausted the base content; the Outcasts' unique modules and ship aesthetics add a bit more unique flavor.

Stupid heroes! Always looting your randomly scattered GPs, knocking down your doors and whacking that stupid sword of theirs against your orbs of true evilness. Well, this one picked the wrong dungeon to vandalize, because you're the Atomic Creep Spawner and you've got a whole mess of atomic creeps just waiting to be spawned.

You need to be playing with a full deck to take down the Four Horsemen and ultimately The Beast in this real-time strategy game from Nerdook. Summon powerful warriors to the battlefield from cards you earn and unleash spells to drive the enemy back before they do the same thing to you. A simplified game, but an enjoyable one, and good for letting your inner warrior out on a coffee break.

Technology has advanced all walks of life but every now and then I'm sure the primitive colonial side of you craves a chance to go back to a more simple time. A time when warfare was fought with rowboats and planes that needed a passenger to fly itself. Well today is your lucky day for Colonial Wars is available for you to sink your teeth into. Break out your maps and strategy books because you'll be the guiding force behind entire fleets and it's up to you to take ownership of every island you see!

Available for the first time in a bundle pack, the Avernum series is one of the crown jewels of classic-styled indie RPGs. Created by Spiderweb Software, this seven-game ensemble takes you from the beginning to the end of an adventure spanning decades that changes the world. Avernum begins as an underground prison for the people the Empire wishes to get rid of, but over time you'll see the land evolve, lead an expedition to the surface, start a rebellion, and much, much more in these huge adventures.

A short and simple game of cards? Well, not THAT simple! In this clever strategy game, you're tasked with assembling a group of heroes, represented by cards, on the playing field before your opponent does. The catch? Each card has special abilities that can hinder or impact your enemy's progress, but they're also being used against you!

Not all fairy tales are made the same, and not all locked away princesses want to be saved. In Mad Princess, a defense strategy game, the goal is to help the princess destroy her would be "heroes," and ensure she gets to stay in her cozy castle filled with corpses. Armed with an assortment of traps, you will have to time and plan your attacks well to be effective against the attack.

Kitty minions, go forth and fight! In Battle Cats from PONOS, you control legions of tall cats, chubby cats, flying cats, cows (which aren't cats), and plenty of other cute warriors whose sole purpose is to defend their base from legions of tiny stickmen, hippos, snakes and other bad guys. It's a familiar combat-oriented defense set-up we've seen before, but there's so much lovable style poured into this game, you can't help but to play until the wee hours of the morning, pitting cartoon cat against cartoon cat.

The babies of fairyland have been nabbed! What kind of monster would do such a thing?!... well, um. You. Command a demon army trying to shepherd a group of babies back to their evil leader in this real-time strategy/tower defense hybrid. With upgrades, spells, fake demon babies, and more, it's a seriously cute, challenging, and quirky game where you get to be the bad guy.

The pixel is mightier than the sword, if only because a sword can only be used for stabbin' and the pixels in Social Titans' addictive iOS match-3 defense game can be used to summon vampires. Create matches on a battlefield to summon and merge new warriors and classes in order to protect your VIP, who is SUCH a VIP that they can afford to wander around said battlefield without actually lifting a finger to do anything useful. Sigh.

The next chapter in Sam Otero's fan-made spin on the popular Pokemon franchise has arrived! RPG meets tower-defense as you are free to manually explore the world, hunting for and capturing Pokemon in the field as a boy or girl, and ultimately discovering the truth behind the strange Shadow Pokemon while you save the world... again! Homage or imitation? That's up to you to decide.

Choose your hero and embark upon a dungeon crawl in Dungelot. In this roguelike you'll face a myriad of monsters as you fight your way deeper into the dungeon. Collect items to increase your stats as you find the key needed to exit each level. How deep can you delve?

The smash-hit comic series invades your iOS in this gorgeous real-time strategy game. Following officer Rick Grimes as he regains consciousness in a hospital some time after the zombie apocalypse has already begun, the game takes you through a series of iconic locations and allows you to recruit and upgrade all your favourite characters, each with their own unique abilities, to assemble your zombie-hunting dream team. Learn how to make the best of your heroes on the fly, working both solo and as a team, and activate distractions in your environment in order to stay alive and complete bonus challenges.

Double Fine Productions knows the spreadsheet is mightier than the death ray, but only when it has some serious super power to back it up! Hire, train, and manage a squad of elite superheroes from the ground up as they handle the day-to-day task of fighting crime and more in this fun and funny free simulation for iOS.

It's important to realize that aliens doesn't necessarily equal a creature that will be faced down by Will Smith. It's also important to know that Will Smith may not be the one who can fight off an alien invasion, even if he is looking sharp in a nice suit. In Symbiosis this possibility has come real and the defenders of the world are none other than plants that need you to properly position them so they can attack crystal aliens bent on the destruction of our world. Peppered with plenty of upgrades to take advantage of those aliens will be poorly prepared for the fight the plants are going to bring.

Last Day of Work loves virtual sims. I mean seriously loves them, at least according to their lead designer. And, well, their product line, which includes the massively popular Virtual Villagers series. For those of us who love messing with the lives of little virtual people without all that faffing about on an island, Last Day of Work created Virtual Families, a game which featured the animated people without the exploding volcanoes. Now they've come out with the sequel to that fabulous game, Virtual Families 2: Our Dream House, which deepens the gameplay of the original in new and interesting ways, and all for your handy portable iOS device!

The forces of darkness are at it again in this tower defense game. They'll send wave after wave against you as you use your soldiers, mages, and archers to hold them back. Place towers in the designated spots to start training your troops. Upgrade your units in multiple ways to find the best strategy for each level. Evil won't know what hit it.

GemCraft, one of the best tower defense series around, is now available for your iOS device! Use mana to build towers and traps. Combine gems to slow, poison or just plain destroy incoming creeps. Level up to unlock numerous maps and seven game modes. Hours of fun await!

Exposition... story... who needs it anyway? In just one month, Craze created a free indie RPG with extremely little narrative but extremely deep challenge and strategy. Over thirty difficult battles await you as you venture into a sprawling fortress with three young women as your guardians, where success depends not on grinding levels or items, but on carefully thinking out every turn in combat and swapping out the various skills and spells you'll learn to make the most out of bonuses, strengths, and weaknesses. Get ready to die a whole bunch!

Not sure you were aware of this, but balloons have some friends that appear to be a thorn in the side for the world's monkey population: bloons. The bloons never diminish in number no matter how many bloons-related games are released, and the air-filled fiends are still going strong in Ninjakiwi's Bloons Tower Defense 5 for iOS devices. In this tower defense strategy game, it's time for you to prove that you paid just enough attention in history class to know how to place troops but not enough to hinder your gaming expertise!

Fight as a team or create a free-for-all where everyone is the enemy; play for points or compete in a deathmatch; or have everyone shooting at once as opposed to individually, the choices are endless. Live chat allows you to talk trash to your fellow players as you try to annihilate each other across the changing landscape. ShellShock Live is back and better than ever with more weapons, more landscapes, more modes, and more explodey fun with ShellShock Live 2 (ShellShockaggeddon?)

Alas, magic poker chips do not exist in real life. But how cool would it be if you could take a handful of poker chips, stack them together, and they instantly become a single, larger poker chip? And what if you also had a deck of magic cards that could change those chips at will? MAGIC. Well, for all your card-and-chip whims, we recommend Chip Chain, a classy match-3-like puzzle where racking up runs of chips can lead to big points.

When a country is thrown into chaos and criminals roam the land harassing innocent people, the last person you would think to call for help is an even worse criminal. However, Hardadjust has decided he's ready to shed his lawless life and take on a grander mantle. With your help he plans to take the crown for himself and bring forth a glorious age of prosperity. With your battle trained mind he actually has a chance in Hordes and Lords.

Undefined delivers another engrossing, addictive installment in the casual turn-based RPG series full of new races, treasure, streamlined battling, and more. Search for four fragments of a key throughout dungeons that are never the same twice in your quest to become a hero and enter the fortress of a legendary archmage.

For those of us who just can't get enough monster battling, there's Pocket Creatures PVP, a strategy game from NTFusion that expands on the original Pocket Creature. Pocket Creatures PVP is practically overflowing with content. Tweaking your monster team is a lot of fun, especially when you take them into battle against other players. The game is well-presented, accessible and addictive.

Cook, Serve, Delicious! is a simulation and time management game from Vertigo Games, creator of the similarly spectacular The Oil Blue. If you see a restaurant game and immediately think "casual diversion", let Cook, Serve, Delicious! change your mind. This isn't a light and simple easy to win time management game. It's a full-on simulation that makes you work for your money, pushes you to play faster than you thought possible, and teaches you to strategically plan menus to maximize income without turning the ever-picky customer base away. It's not an easy game to excel at, but it's an easy game to get hooked on, and the challenge of building and running your own restaurant from front to back is going to captivate you for weeks on end.

Behold, a delicious platter of letters. They're all yours to take... but you must guard them from your thieving opponent! Letterpress is a multiplayer word game with a cool strategic twist where making words is only half the battle; you've got to fight to keep your letters. It's a quick pick-up-and-put-down game perfect for matches with friends on Game Center. That is, if you like dominating your friends with your vocabulary.

The adorable warmongery of The Podge's City Siege series of strategy action-shooters has taken a turn for the extraterrestrial in City Siege 4: Alien Siege. It's time once more to blast some martians, rescue hostages from the terror of brain-sucking plants, and to buy the heck out of some wicked cool upgrades. With the feel of its predecessors, but with a streamlined sci-fi bent, City Siege 4 has awesomeness to spare.

IriySoft delivers a gorgeous and easily accessible real-time strategy title with just the right amount of depth. Seize territory back from the invading armies of the undead as you balance the defense and maintenance of your own structures with aggressively leading assaults on captured buildings to add to your own forces.

Staal Media brings you a cutesy, wootesy realtime strategy game with Cloud Wars. Play as the heroic blue clouds to take down your enemies in pink and yellow. Of the same gameplay style as the Phage Wars series, you'll forget your sending your fluffy units to battle with the endearing, colorful graphics... that is until you build up your tiny cumulus cloud into a big, dominating cumulonimbus. Then all bets are off.

Welcome to the Red Army! That 50 ton tank is sure to make a few Germans quake in their boots. Just try not to run over too many of your fellow soldiers, da? Endless War 6 is a campaign strategy game by Vitaly Zaborov that places you in the middle of the pitched battles of WWII's eastern front. The CPU load is heavy, but those of a military mindset should appreciate its realistic strategic considerations and customization options

Join Jack and his friend Scout on the trail of the dastardly wizard who nabbed the princess, learning to forge increasingly more powerful weapons for the soldiers who are willing to pick up arms for you, and gather new, more powerful blueprints and materials along the way. Despite there being nary a fast food item in sight, gameplay is pretty similar to Flipline's Papa's series of games... only with steel and pigmen.

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.

Save the world in this retro-fashioned Zelda-like adventure game with tons of enemies, weapons, quests, level up system, and a huge world to explore! Customize the keyboard commands as well as your character's stats to suit your playing style and hack-and-slash your way through the nostalgically detailed, 16-bit environment.

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

This is the story of the greatest band of all time... no, not Tenancious D... you! Heavily inspired mechanically by Game Dev Story, this musical simulation tasks you with handling the (hopefully) meteoric rise of a band of initially talentless musicians through the decades. Write songs, make albums, handle interviews and more as you strive to become legendary in an evolving industry. Also, make songs about farts, because everyone seems to love those. Speaking from experience here.

Pity the poor royal court of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. The exhausted souls just finished uniting Egypt in order to keep the gods happy and now they are faced with a new challenge: travel down the Nile and rebuild temples before the gods start getting all explodey on their butts. And all of this must be accomplished while the royal architect is severely under the weather and the royal cat has gone AWOL. Pharaoh Touti and company are back in BlooBuzz's (formerly Wendigo) latest time management strategy The Timebuilders: Pyramid Rising 2.

Described as a "spaceship simulation roguelike-like" by its developers, Subset Games, you won't be doing a whole lot of boldly going where no one has gone before in FTL: Faster Than Light. In fact, most of your time will be spent directing crew members and putting out engine room fires. But scifi strategy fans will love every minute of it, even with the hardcore difficulty.

It's time to clean up a new place in this sequel to FlyAnvil's original zombie shooter. Move through the city establishing secure locations and going on missions to bring each area under control, earning cash to spend on your substantial arsenal and upgrade tree. Adding just enough new elements to the original to spice things up, Decision 2 is still a bit repetitive, but keeps the tried-and-tested zombie shooter formula from feeling too brainless, and looks good doing it.

No one respects the rights of ghosts these days. Wether it's a bunch of drunken teenagers with a Quija board or wannabe "ghost hunters" from no-name basic cable channels, no self-respecting ghost can find a moment's peace. Well, for the undead and their sympathisers, the moment of catharsis has finally come, with Kelly Weaver and Jimmy Hinson's action-packed little real-time strategy game, The Haunting of Magnolia Manor. It may have a simple premise, but it manages to do what all the best realtime strategy games can: provide a fast-paced, action-packed, knucklebiting good time...at least, if you still have knuckles to bite.

In the medieval fantasy world of Trouble With Robots, robotic lifeforms from outer space have come to turn the world of Middle Turf upside down, destroying old villages and replacing them with futuristic highways and strip malls. You'll have to build your best deck full of spells, powerful trolls, dwarves, and elves (not to mention angry pitchfork wielding peasants!) to stop the invasion and bring peace back to the land in this lean little card battle game, that picks a few elements and does them right, rather than trying to juggle more than it can handle, leaving you with a satisfying experience that you can come back to and improve, even if you are a gamer on a time-budget.

Do you dream of building a theme park that would put Universal's Islands of Adventure to shame? Can you out plan the creative genius that is Disney? Then put your designing skills to the test in this sandbox-style simulation game from Fugazo. Use strategy to research and build rides, attractions and concessions. Decorate your park to improve its appeal and win the hearts of its visitors. You'll know when you've succeeded as the coins pour in and you're on the cover of every magazine for international amusement park acclaim.

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.

Space mining comes with certain dangers. Top of the list is the constant threat of attack from natives, who just don't seem to appreciate your need for the minerals on their planet. There's a constant need to defend mining operations that many people never see, and in Planet Juicer, a side-view tower defense game from Yellow Bouncy Ball, you're in charge of keeping the mine safe.

WWII was a serious historical event. Relic of War by TogeProductions, on the other hand, is a fun alternative-history strategy game with paranormal elements, isometric Wolf 3D aesthetics, and Nazis in miniskirts. Beneath the questionable storyline, however, is a solid strategy game that will have even the most snooty of history buffs cheering for more ectoplasm and mutants!

In a universe torn asunder by a near cataclysmic event known as the Shine, there are those who fight to keep the peace and others who fight to steal whatever peace there could have been. You wake up on a space station surrounded by people who make you realize that you have no memory and absolutely no idea why they're so interested in you. Through exploration and space battles you'll find that not everyone has the best intents for you and that somehow you must make it out alive. In this beautiful prequel to The Reconstruction made by Deltree it's all up to you to be a hero for the universe.

A day in The Void just wouldn't be complete without some bandits, skeletons, necromancers and wolves attacking you. Following the first Legend of the Void game without skipping a scene, Legend of the Void 2 by Obelisk Games is an intense, item-heavy browser-based role playing game that takes a very serious approach to the genre, aiming to emulate the experience of a full-fledged console or PC RPG without all the overhead. The result is a great sequel that continues right where the first game left off, dumping you in a world packed with monsters on a quest to, well, just stay alive.

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!

Mooooo! Do you hear that? It's the sound of cows being abducted! In this tower defense game from Lightmare Studio, you and your pal Barney must use your wits and whatever you can find lying around the barn to protect the cows from the aliens who crave them. Be it an explosive grill or poisonous gasses, you'll find plenty of ways to keep the invaders out of the cow field.

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.

Solving disputes peaceably is for suckers! At least, that's what the family you create who stars in this turn-based strategy game seems to think! They've turned on their neighbours for all manner of seemingly innocuous reasons, and it's up to you to help them duke it out so they can get stronger and earn upgrades. Remember, kids. Violence solves everything... especially when it's three in the morning and the people next door won't stop playing Hey-Ya on repeat.

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.

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.

In this time of over population, it's hard not to daydream about having a nice little town all to yourself. Sadly, unless you're a billionaire, chances are the only way to experience the feel of colonization is through the gracious world of casual gaming. The Promised Land from Boolat Games is a pleasant simulation building and strategy game similar to Virtual Villagers that hands you a piece of uncharted land ready to be plundered. As an adventurer, you're off to find the elusive spring of eternal happiness and build yourself a town that could rival even the most advanced of civilizations!

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!

Strap on your pistols and saddle up, pardner, there's a new card-based strategy game in town! From Cryptic Comet, the maker of Solium Infernum, comes Six Gun Saga, a game that combines cards, heavy strategies, and all the fierceness of the wild, wild west. Choose your boss then go at it with guns-a-blazing! Build up your town (or sell your cards) to make money, and form posses, then use them to collect victory points by defending story cards or just blow your opponent's men away! Turn by turn, you will either play as, or match wits with some famous characters like Wyatt Earp, Dirty Dave Rudabaugh, and others.

Necro Gaia is a short arcade defense game from Lazy Brain Games, creator of a few other freeware indie games such as Mecha Spider Island and Infernal Edge. This intense little release puts you in control of a small blue planet called Terra, a lovely little Earth-like rock orbiting a sun that is traveling to another galaxy. You have to stay along for the ride, but the trouble is, all sorts of dangerous things are floating in the blackness of space. By changing your orbital position as well as summoning some temporary planetary friends, you can help Terra survive her journey to her new home, defeating the all-consuming Necro Gaia in the process!

A little robot is lost and alone in the galaxy after being crippled by a radiation wave... but hope isn't lost yet. Travel to a series of remote planets and dig for valuable resources in this mining game, searching for everything you need to finally find a way back home. Fans of Motherload will find a lot to appreciate here, with a gorgeous presentation and a few new elements dressing up the familiar gameplay.

Hey there strategy and tower defense fans! Just a little note to announce a bit of good news for iPhone and iPod Touch owners. Kingdom Rush, the so-awesome-it's-mega-awesome tower defense game from Ironhide Games, has finally made its way to small-screened iOS devices, following Kingdom Rush HD for iPad and the browser version of Kingdom Rush last year. The game stands out as one of the best defense/strategy game on the planet, capturing two awards in our Best of 2011 feature, including Best Browser Defense or Strategy game along with Game of the Year! If you haven't tried it in one of its incarnations, you owe it to yourself to correct that mistake immediately!

Role playing games aren't an uncommon sight, and neither are fling-based arcade games. But if you combine the two, throw in a dash of strategy, dozens of fish/cephalopod puns, and layer on some gorgeous artwork, you've got something truly rare. SQUIDS Wild West is the follow-up to the original SQUIDS game, combining a number of gameplay elements into a casual game that can ride two seahorses at the same time!

Beethro Budkin has had to face all sorts of challenges crawling through the first eight floors of Dugan's dungeon. Now though, he stands on the precipice of levels nine through twelve, and they're filled with Deadly Rooms of Death of all kinds! Caravel Games' series of turn-based puzzle-strategy games gets just a bit more hair-pulling in DROD: King Dugan's Dungeon Lite - Episode 3.

Oh, Deadly Rooms of Death! Never has a redundant name heralded such awesomeness! The easy part of Beethro Budkin's quest to rid King Dugan's dungeon of terrorizing baddies is over, as he descends to floors 5 through 8. But even an expert smitemaster like Beethro may be stymied without a little guidance from you. So ready your Really Big Sword and enter DROD: King Dugan's Dungeon Lite - Episode 2, another great installment in Caravel Games' series of turn-based puzzle-strategy games.

The Empires of Arkeia are under attack and the king needs your help defending them. In this game knowing have to effectively use your forces is imperative for success against some less than friendly foes. From a casual infantry man to a trained warrior, every person counts and with experience you can help upgrade their fighting and survivability!

A classic turn-based strategy dungeon crawler, Deadly Rooms of Death finally comes to to the browser in King Dugan's Dungeon, from Caravel Games. Join Beethro Budkin, exterminator extraordinaire as he seeks to slay all the underground creatures in King Dugan's Dungeon. With its emphasis on exploration and puzzle-solving, Flash DROD is a perfect gateway for those intimidated by turn-based strategy, while still fun to hardcore genre fans looking for the challenge of finding optimal solutions. It's a bit slow to start, but stick around and you'll fall in love with the game's cunning design and impish sense of humor.

Looking at the title of Alexandria Bloodshow, your mind might fly all over the place wondering what genre the game represents. Sounds like a great name for a first person shooter set in ancient Egypt, right? Well, that may be, but in this case, Alexandria Bloodshow is actually a tactical card combat game that succeeds the even more unusually named SAMURAI BLOODSHOW: les vagues blanches, les nuages rouges. Yeah, that's right! Once you put the names aside, though, you'll find a couple of excellent slow-paced strategy games that will remind you of Plants vs. Zombies in some surprising ways.

Senso Rabbit, the star of Mighty Ducks Entertainment's debut action-strategy game, may lack sight, but he'll need all his other senses to make it through the minefield and grab his desired carrots. An unusual game with a strange sense of strategy to it, Senso Rabbit might not appeal to players in the mood for something twitchy. Those of a methodical mindset, however, should find it quite charming.

To quote the intro of Fallen City, Channel 4 and Big Robot's educational puzzle/real-time strategy game: What is a city? It is a machine; a machine for living in. But all machines can break down. The inhabitants of Fallen City (Angries) have become distracted by their individual lives and dreams and have let the once gleaming metropolis fall into disrepair. Frustrated by their inability to live the lives of fame and fortune they were told could satisfy them, many of the Angries fell into boredom or rage... and the city sunk ever deeper into its gloom. But broken machines can be fixed, right?

Ready to get dragged into an undeniably captivating time management strategy resource management building game? Kingdom Chronicles by Aliasworlds casts you in the role of humble do gooder John Brave, resident unlikely hero hero. I know what you're thinking, been there done that. But wait! It's not only about being sexy and knowing it while having damsels in distress swooning in their tallest tower prisons. I promise.

Defense games are as common as smudged screens on the iOS mobile platform, but developer Simutronics has done something creatively different with Tiny Heroes, a game that has as much personality as it has evil minions at your disposal. Putting you in the role of castle owner, you must place traps and send out baddies to thwart the deluge of heroes who are after your gold. You'd think a few sawblades and a Gork or two would be enough, wouldn't you?