The 19 best Android games of 2015: The must-have games for your mobile
Your go-to list for the greatest Android games you need on your phone
It's always been assumed that Android isn't a great place for mobile gaming. While that used to be the case in the early days of Android, Google's mobile OS certainly gives Apple's iOS game catalogue a run for its money.
Usually offered at a cheaper price, or with an alternative "freemium" model based on in-app purchases (denoted as IAP in our list), Android is a hotbed of gaming fun. However, it's a minefield out there, and there are clones aplenty, so to help you work out which ones are worth downloading, we've rounded up 18 of the best Android games available to download in 2015.
This article will be updated over the coming weeks and months. If you have any apps that you think deserve a place in our chart, get in touch using the comments section below or via Twitter @Alphrdotcom.
The MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) genre is exploding on PC, and CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher Battle Arena brings that competitive scene to Android.
It’s fun, fast, and you could easily sink hours upon hours of play into it without even trying.
If you’re itching for League of Legends or Dota 2 on mobile, this is the solution.
Clash of Clans has taken the world by storm, so much so Supercell can afford to have Liam Neeson in its Superbowl adverts. And there's a reason for why everyone the world over has become hooked on its brand of resource management and social gaming – it's so perfectly formed for dip-in play.
You know when a clash is going to go down against a rival clan, so you and your buddies can form up and build a solid defence while also forming a powerful offence. It's tactics, management, and a way to keep in touch with friends or make new ones in stranger-filled clans.
Supercell is certainly doing something right – it's probably why one member of the Alphr team is addicted to it.
Created by Ustwo Games, Monument Valley is like playing through MC Escher artwork. It's truly a beauty to behold, and the mind-bending platforming puzzles are just fantastic fun: you scratch your head wondering what to do until a eureka moment occurs and everything falls into place.
It may not be the longest game around, and you may find little reason to revisit once completed, but you won't come across another game as beautiful and pleasing.
Ever play SkiFree on MS Dos or Windows 3.1? Well Dudeski will bring back haunting memories of that angry robot chasing you down.
Built like an endless runner, Dudeski sees you careening down the slopes while a violent avalanche is hot on your tail. It's tense stuff, but you can overcome it by weaving around coloured slalom posts, making use of jumps, and gaining speed on icy pools.
Collecting pine cones on your way allows you to unlock shortcuts or pay for bonuses to increase your score, and if you grab onto a low-flying helicopter you'll be whisked away to a bonus level.
Spread across four regions of the mountain, Dudeski comes with a lot of gameplay despite costing nothing.
No fuss, no nonsense – Jamie McDonald's Sudoku does exactly what it says on the tin.
Split across Easy, Normal, Hard and – for the brave – Extreme puzzles, there's plenty to keep you going if you don't fancy paying. For those who do want to extend the challenge, McDonald has been incredibly favourable, offering up an extra 400 puzzles on a tier of your choice for just 59p.
Thanks to integration with Google Play Games, you can compare your scores and averages against friends, and even track your own number-crunching progress. And, because it's designed in accordance with Google's Material Design ethos, Sudoku is slick to use too.
Definitely the clearest way to flex your brain during your morning commute.
Playing more akin to a rhythm-action game than an all-out RPG, Weak Warrior has you bashing ghosts and goblins until you die.
Fixed to a spot, tapping the left or right and side of the screen swings your warrior's sword left or right respectively. Enemies rush you, and you need to dispatch them swiftly, as you can only take a couple of hits before you die. As you progress, new enemies approach, each with their own attack and run patterns, meaning that timing is key. Make a wrong swing and you could see yourself defenceless for precious seconds!
Incredibly replayable, wonderfully addictive, Weak Warrior is a fantastic game for killing a minute or two at the bus stop.
Created by the folks at Vlambeer, Ridicuous Fishing is, as its name alludes, completely absurd.
Your task is to help Billy fish the depths of lakes and seas around the world. Dropping your lure, you have to weave around all manner of exotic fish until you reach the full length of your reel. Then, on the way up, you have to catch as many fish as you possibly can.
Once done, Billy flings up his catch into the air – you need to shoot down every single one to cash in on your latest fishing escapade. With this newfound cash you can buy new weapons, perks, longer reels, and really anything you want.
It's silly stuff, but that's what makes it so fantastically fun.
Created by Asher Voller, Threes is a simple puzzle game that challenges you to match up number tiles in pursuit of a high score.
The game ends when you fill up the 4 x 4 grid – but the catch is, you can shift only an entire row or column of tiles at a time, so you can't simply move individual pieces to where you want them.
You can also only match together two identical numbers, or the blue "1" and red "2" tiles to create white "3" tiles. And, with every movement, a new piece joins the board, so you need to keep matching and removing the tiles as quickly as possible.
It sounds confusing, but it's one of those games where, once you start playing, you'll grasp it in moments. Thanks to the game's unique charm, you'll quickly be sucked in and won't be able to put your phone down.
Free clones may exist, but they all lack the polish and character that Threes has in spades.
A calmer take on the "endless runner", Desert Golfing sees you flicking a golf ball into a never-ending series of procedurally generated, single-screen holes.
The graphics aren't much to look at, but the simplicity of Desert Golfing's environment offers a zen-like experience that's relaxing as well as enjoyable.
Imagine if Tetris involved physics. In Weird Beard’s 99 Bricks: Wizard Academy that’s exactly what you have to deal with.
There’s a vague story line involving going to a wizard school to learn spells and beat foes, but the real joy of 99 Bricks is in the building.
Using Tetrinomes that fall from the sky, you need to create a stable base and build yourself a tower reaching up to the heavens. You’ll have to be careful where you place bricks as every brick has weight and momentum to account for.
Some bricks are made of ice, others of wood and stone. Icy bricks are slide around and are a serious hazard to stable structures, whereas stone pieces lock everything around them in place.
If that wasn’t enough of a worry, the higher you build your tower, the stronger the winds become, meaning a stable footing is essential if you want to build your own Tower of Babel.
The simplest games are often the most addictive, and that’s the case with this high-octane action title. You control an arrow that moves around a hexagon in the middle of the screen, and it needs to be navigated safely through twisting, approaching walls.
You’re tasked with lasting 60 seconds against the encroaching barriers and, if you do, they change shape and speed up – which ramps up the pressure. The techno soundtrack matches its rhythm with the game’s pulsating walls. Few games are infuriating and addictive in equal measure, but Super Hexagon nails it – and that keeps us coming back for more.
A heartfelt remastering of one of the most acclaimed and loved adventure games of all time, Grim Fandango Remastered is packed with colourful characters, mind-bending puzzles and so much comedic charm you'll wonder why you didn't pick it up sooner.
Playing as Manny Calavera, a travel agent at the Department of Death who just can't catch a break, Grim Fandango takes you on a wild and wonderful four-year journey in the Land of the Dead. But it's not all smiles and Mexican jokes: something's rotting away at the core of society, and Calavera is out to stop it.
You may very well baulk at the price, but Grim Fandango Remastered is worth every penny.
We live in a world where few truly original ideas come along; Crossy Road may be just a combination of Frogger and any number of endless runners, but it's so much fun we honestly don't care.
With pleasingly colourful and chunky voxel visuals, Crossy Road's simple controls require you to tap the screen to jump forward, swipe left to jump left, and swipe right to jump right. Your only goal is to progress through an innumerable amount of hazards.
In-app purchases exist to allow you to buy alternate characters from a huge roster, but if you don't fancy owning any extra characters you don't have to buy them – who knows, you may even win them through in-game rewards.
Aside from its confusing name, Grapefrukt Games' minimalist strategy game positions itself as a "meditative" space-station-building game. Instead of focusing on selecting units and mounting attacks on enemies, Rymdkapsel is all about building the best base possible.
Things start off slowly, but as you increase the size of your base and begin to fend off incoming attackers, Rymdkapsel becomes a game of resource management and exploration.
Thanks to a tetrinome building method, where the next shape you can use is dictated to you in the upper corner, you'll easily piece together a tight-knit base. You want your base to grow to as large as possible, but in doing so you need to ensure it's properly defended.
Games can go on for hours if you plan well, but with a quick save function you won't lose any progress if you decide you've had enough for one day.
Hearthstone is Blizzard's take on the trading-card battling game and, much to the annoyance of your time and wallet, it's managed to produce something rather spectacular.
Taking on the role of Warcraft heroes and villains, you'll enter into epic duels, summoning allies and beasts to help defeat your opponent. It's incredibly simple to pick up, and Blizzard regularly rolls out new expansions, packs and challenges to keep things fresh. You can also play against PC and iOS opponents so you can challenge all of your friends wherever they are.
Unlike many other card battlers out there, Hearthstone doesn't aim for your wallet, allowing you to play without paying a dime if you so please. Trouble is, you'll become so sucked in that you'll fork over some money eventually.
A quirky take on the colour-matching genre, Two Dots is unbelievably cute in its presentation – but underneath beats the heart of a devilishly addictive game.
Set as a tale of adventure across 285 levels, Playdots has boiled the match-two game down to its simplest form, fiendishly ramping up the difficulty as you progress. What starts as simply matching a set amount of dots in a restrictive move count quickly becomes a game of dot management, ensuring you tactically remove dots to create openings for whatever objective you're trying to achieve.
With daily tasks and the potential for power-ups upon completion, you'll keep coming back for more. Don't say we didn't warn you: be prepared to become addicted.
Simple, addictive and incredibly easily to pick up and play, 1010! Puzzle is a little bit like Tetris, except without the music and the ceaseless march of falling blocks.
Set on a 10x10 grid, you’re tasked with slotting shapes together to fill a grid in the most efficient way possible. Every time you complete a line, it disappears and you’re showered with a handful of points. As with Tetris there is no final goal, no upper limit, just more and more shapes, with the game dishing out more awkward configurations as you progress.
What makes 1010! so wonderful isn’t its simplicity and clean aesthetics, it’s the sense that you could always have done better. Every time you fail – which happens when you don’t have space to place the next shape onto the grid – it feels like a fault of your own organisational abilities. Once you pick 1010! up, you’ll find it very hard to put down again.
Love spelling? Love bears? Of course you do, who wouldn’t? And Alphabear brings these two loves together in addictive bear-fattening spelling bee fun.
Your aim is to clear a board of letters by spelling out words for points; the more letters you use up, the fatter your bears become. By the end of the level the bigger your bear, the more points bonus you’ll receive. Each level has a hidden bear to win, adding it to your roster or levelling up any bears you may already have.
It’s quirky, fun, and one of the best Android games available right now.
Your phone vibrates. It’s a message from Taylor, a stranded astronaut who’s crash-landed into an alien moon. His crew are all dead, he’s alone, and you’re his only point of contact through his two-way radio.
This text-adventure from the writer of The Wolf Among Us is a multi-pathed narrative journey where your responses shape Taylor’s actions. You’ll end up killing him along the way, but you can rewind back to any decision and venture off down a new path to finally discover the secret of what’s happening on this mysterious moon.
If you’d rather dip in and out of the adventure when you like, you can change the slightly annoying individual message notifications to simple grouped ones – ensuring you aren’t hassled by Taylor all day long.
Usually offered at a cheaper price, or with an alternative "freemium" model based on in-app purchases (denoted as IAP in our list), Android is a hotbed of gaming fun. However, it's a minefield out there, and there are clones aplenty, so to help you work out which ones are worth downloading, we've rounded up 18 of the best Android games available to download in 2015.
This article will be updated over the coming weeks and months. If you have any apps that you think deserve a place in our chart, get in touch using the comments section below or via Twitter @Alphrdotcom.
The Witcher Battle Arena (free with IAP)
It’s fun, fast, and you could easily sink hours upon hours of play into it without even trying.
If you’re itching for League of Legends or Dota 2 on mobile, this is the solution.
Clash of Clans (free with IAP)
You know when a clash is going to go down against a rival clan, so you and your buddies can form up and build a solid defence while also forming a powerful offence. It's tactics, management, and a way to keep in touch with friends or make new ones in stranger-filled clans.
Supercell is certainly doing something right – it's probably why one member of the Alphr team is addicted to it.
Monument Valley (£2.49; Forgotten Shores expansion, £1.49)
It may not be the longest game around, and you may find little reason to revisit once completed, but you won't come across another game as beautiful and pleasing.
Dudeski (free)
Built like an endless runner, Dudeski sees you careening down the slopes while a violent avalanche is hot on your tail. It's tense stuff, but you can overcome it by weaving around coloured slalom posts, making use of jumps, and gaining speed on icy pools.
Collecting pine cones on your way allows you to unlock shortcuts or pay for bonuses to increase your score, and if you grab onto a low-flying helicopter you'll be whisked away to a bonus level.
Spread across four regions of the mountain, Dudeski comes with a lot of gameplay despite costing nothing.
Sudoku (free)
Split across Easy, Normal, Hard and – for the brave – Extreme puzzles, there's plenty to keep you going if you don't fancy paying. For those who do want to extend the challenge, McDonald has been incredibly favourable, offering up an extra 400 puzzles on a tier of your choice for just 59p.
Thanks to integration with Google Play Games, you can compare your scores and averages against friends, and even track your own number-crunching progress. And, because it's designed in accordance with Google's Material Design ethos, Sudoku is slick to use too.
Definitely the clearest way to flex your brain during your morning commute.
Weak Warrior (free)
Fixed to a spot, tapping the left or right and side of the screen swings your warrior's sword left or right respectively. Enemies rush you, and you need to dispatch them swiftly, as you can only take a couple of hits before you die. As you progress, new enemies approach, each with their own attack and run patterns, meaning that timing is key. Make a wrong swing and you could see yourself defenceless for precious seconds!
Incredibly replayable, wonderfully addictive, Weak Warrior is a fantastic game for killing a minute or two at the bus stop.
Ridiculous Fishing (£1.99)
Your task is to help Billy fish the depths of lakes and seas around the world. Dropping your lure, you have to weave around all manner of exotic fish until you reach the full length of your reel. Then, on the way up, you have to catch as many fish as you possibly can.
Once done, Billy flings up his catch into the air – you need to shoot down every single one to cash in on your latest fishing escapade. With this newfound cash you can buy new weapons, perks, longer reels, and really anything you want.
It's silly stuff, but that's what makes it so fantastically fun.
Threes (£1.31)
The game ends when you fill up the 4 x 4 grid – but the catch is, you can shift only an entire row or column of tiles at a time, so you can't simply move individual pieces to where you want them.
You can also only match together two identical numbers, or the blue "1" and red "2" tiles to create white "3" tiles. And, with every movement, a new piece joins the board, so you need to keep matching and removing the tiles as quickly as possible.
It sounds confusing, but it's one of those games where, once you start playing, you'll grasp it in moments. Thanks to the game's unique charm, you'll quickly be sucked in and won't be able to put your phone down.
Free clones may exist, but they all lack the polish and character that Threes has in spades.
Desert Golfing (£1.19)
The graphics aren't much to look at, but the simplicity of Desert Golfing's environment offers a zen-like experience that's relaxing as well as enjoyable.
99 Bricks: Wizard Academy (free)
There’s a vague story line involving going to a wizard school to learn spells and beat foes, but the real joy of 99 Bricks is in the building.
Using Tetrinomes that fall from the sky, you need to create a stable base and build yourself a tower reaching up to the heavens. You’ll have to be careful where you place bricks as every brick has weight and momentum to account for.
Some bricks are made of ice, others of wood and stone. Icy bricks are slide around and are a serious hazard to stable structures, whereas stone pieces lock everything around them in place.
If that wasn’t enough of a worry, the higher you build your tower, the stronger the winds become, meaning a stable footing is essential if you want to build your own Tower of Babel.
Super Hexagon (£1.99)
You’re tasked with lasting 60 seconds against the encroaching barriers and, if you do, they change shape and speed up – which ramps up the pressure. The techno soundtrack matches its rhythm with the game’s pulsating walls. Few games are infuriating and addictive in equal measure, but Super Hexagon nails it – and that keeps us coming back for more.
Grim Fandango Remastered (£7.87)
Playing as Manny Calavera, a travel agent at the Department of Death who just can't catch a break, Grim Fandango takes you on a wild and wonderful four-year journey in the Land of the Dead. But it's not all smiles and Mexican jokes: something's rotting away at the core of society, and Calavera is out to stop it.
You may very well baulk at the price, but Grim Fandango Remastered is worth every penny.
Crossy Road (free with IAP)
With pleasingly colourful and chunky voxel visuals, Crossy Road's simple controls require you to tap the screen to jump forward, swipe left to jump left, and swipe right to jump right. Your only goal is to progress through an innumerable amount of hazards.
In-app purchases exist to allow you to buy alternate characters from a huge roster, but if you don't fancy owning any extra characters you don't have to buy them – who knows, you may even win them through in-game rewards.
Rymdkapsel (£2.49)
Things start off slowly, but as you increase the size of your base and begin to fend off incoming attackers, Rymdkapsel becomes a game of resource management and exploration.
Thanks to a tetrinome building method, where the next shape you can use is dictated to you in the upper corner, you'll easily piece together a tight-knit base. You want your base to grow to as large as possible, but in doing so you need to ensure it's properly defended.
Games can go on for hours if you plan well, but with a quick save function you won't lose any progress if you decide you've had enough for one day.
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft (free with IAP)
Taking on the role of Warcraft heroes and villains, you'll enter into epic duels, summoning allies and beasts to help defeat your opponent. It's incredibly simple to pick up, and Blizzard regularly rolls out new expansions, packs and challenges to keep things fresh. You can also play against PC and iOS opponents so you can challenge all of your friends wherever they are.
Unlike many other card battlers out there, Hearthstone doesn't aim for your wallet, allowing you to play without paying a dime if you so please. Trouble is, you'll become so sucked in that you'll fork over some money eventually.
Two Dots (free)
Set as a tale of adventure across 285 levels, Playdots has boiled the match-two game down to its simplest form, fiendishly ramping up the difficulty as you progress. What starts as simply matching a set amount of dots in a restrictive move count quickly becomes a game of dot management, ensuring you tactically remove dots to create openings for whatever objective you're trying to achieve.
With daily tasks and the potential for power-ups upon completion, you'll keep coming back for more. Don't say we didn't warn you: be prepared to become addicted.
1010! Puzzle (Free)
Set on a 10x10 grid, you’re tasked with slotting shapes together to fill a grid in the most efficient way possible. Every time you complete a line, it disappears and you’re showered with a handful of points. As with Tetris there is no final goal, no upper limit, just more and more shapes, with the game dishing out more awkward configurations as you progress.
What makes 1010! so wonderful isn’t its simplicity and clean aesthetics, it’s the sense that you could always have done better. Every time you fail – which happens when you don’t have space to place the next shape onto the grid – it feels like a fault of your own organisational abilities. Once you pick 1010! up, you’ll find it very hard to put down again.
Alphabear (Free, with IAP)
Your aim is to clear a board of letters by spelling out words for points; the more letters you use up, the fatter your bears become. By the end of the level the bigger your bear, the more points bonus you’ll receive. Each level has a hidden bear to win, adding it to your roster or levelling up any bears you may already have.
It’s quirky, fun, and one of the best Android games available right now.
Lifeline (£0.76)
This text-adventure from the writer of The Wolf Among Us is a multi-pathed narrative journey where your responses shape Taylor’s actions. You’ll end up killing him along the way, but you can rewind back to any decision and venture off down a new path to finally discover the secret of what’s happening on this mysterious moon.
If you’d rather dip in and out of the adventure when you like, you can change the slightly annoying individual message notifications to simple grouped ones – ensuring you aren’t hassled by Taylor all day long.
0 Response to "The 19 best Android games of 2015: The must-have games for your mobile"
Posting Komentar