You’ve got yourself an iPhone and you want to play some games on it. You might not want to just plunge into the App Store—it’s a jungle, full of deadly spiders, wild animals, and bad games. Here, let us help you.
Below, we’ve listed the 12 games we feel are a great starting point for iPhone gaming.
Hitmangames are famous for their open-ended sandboxes. At their best, they let you creep around a party or a museum, find your target, and creatively take them out. Hitman GO… doesn’t really do that. What it doesdo, however, is offer a bunch of smart, tightly designed puzzles that gradually become more complicated as you go, but are never too complicated to finish off in the space of a single bus ride. With its stripped down board-game aesthetic and abstract violence, it may not lookmuch like a Hitmangame, but it still manages to capture the series’ meticulous, satisfying nature.
A Good Match For: Hitmanfans, puzzle fiends, people who like imagining what it means when one board game piece “assassinates” another board game piece.
Not A Good Match For: Those looking for an actual portable Hitmangame.
Watchit in action.
Purchase From:The App Store
In Super Mario Run,Mario runs forward of his own accord. Your primary job is to tap the screen to make him jump, which you’ll have to do to help him collect the hundreds of coins strewn throughout each level. That may sound simple, but the creative designers at Nintendo have added a healthy amount of depth to that basic formula. There are touch-pads that stop Mario in his tracks, multiple paths to each objective, and each level can be replayed several times with increasingly complex coin configurations. The more you put into Super Mario Run, the more you’ll get out of it.
A Good Match For:Mario enthusiasts, fans of touchscreen platformers like Rayman Run, those who like replaying levels and perfecting them.
Not A Good Match For:Anyone looking for a Mariogame with traditional controls, people who only want to spend a buck or two on phone games, anyone who can see themselves blowing through each level once and never replaying them. Also, anyone who plays a lot on planes or subways: Super Mario Runrequires a data connection to work.
Readour review.
Watchit in action.
Purchase From: The App Store
AreaCode’s numerical puzzle game may be the most perfect short-session game ever created. As falling numbers land on a 7×7 grid, you need to make them disappear by matching the number of vertical or horizontal spaces match the digit. Yes, it sounds tedious but when the rules finally click in your head, it’s a lifetime addiction.
A Good Match For:Anyone who spends a lot of time waiting for things or people. Whether you’re stuck at the airport or waiting on a queue at the bank, a few quick levels of Drop7will make any kind of stationary drudgery more bearable.
Not a Good Match For:Those hoping to stay productive. It take superhuman willpower to resist the siren call of Drop7and if you want to get anything done after installing it, make sure your iPhone’s out of reach.
Watchit in action.
Purchase From:the App Store.
You could call Device 6 a text adventure, but that would be selling the game short. What it is, rather, is one of the strangest, most mysterious and downright elegant games made for touchscreen devices… and it just happens to involve a lot of reading. Call it multimedia-enhanced interactive fiction. As you rotate and flip your device, chasing the winding map of description and design, you’ll find yourself drawn into a strange and sinister adventure complete with one of the catchiest pop tunes ever included in a game.
A Good Match For:Spy fiction buffs, Lost fans, mystery novel readers, anyone with even a passing interest in typography or visual design.
Not a Good Match For:Those who want a lot of action or replayability, people who hate reading.
Readour review.
Watchit in action.
Purchase from:The App Store.
By boat, by land, by airship, by giant mechanized city with legs, do you have what it takes to make it… Around the World in 80 Days? That’s the question at the heart of 80 Days, a fantastical re-imagining of Jules Verne’s famous novel that casts you as Passepartout, manservant to the gentleman Phileas Fogg. As a valet, you are responsible for packing the bags, negotiating at markets, and planning the itinerary on your journey ‘round the globe. Each trip will be different from the one before it, and thanks to the game’s peppy writing and frequent surprise detours, each trip will be great deal of fun. 80 Dayscaptures the joy and melancholy of travel with unusual wit and humanity.
A Good Match For: People who like interactive stories, geography buffs, fans of travel.
Not a Good Match For: Anyone looking for a low-investment, pick up/put down action game. Also, those who hate to read—the majority of 80 Daysis text-based interactive fiction.
Watchit in action.
Purchase from: The App Store.
Threes is basically a game about kissing. And math. You slide a bunch of little numbers around a tiled pad, trying to get two like numbers next to each other. If you can do that, they’ll get friendly and combine to form a new, bigger number. Keep on moving, keep on combining, and your score will climb and climb. Threesis an immaculately designed game made all the more winning for its aesthetics. Charming, musical, and deviously addictive, it’ll become your new iPhone obsession.
A Good Match For: People looking for a simple puzzle game to play on a commute, anyone who likes competing with their friends for high scores.
Not a Good Match For: People hoping for a deep story, those who prefer sub-standard clones.
Readour review.
Watchit in action.
Studyour tips for the game.
Purchase From: The App Store
Final Fantasy VIandVIIare great and everything, but Final Fantasy IXis one of the most charming and underrated games in the series. The story of Zidane, Dagger, Vivi and Steiner makes the transition to mobile devices with surprising grace; not only do the touch controls work well, but you can now opt to turn off random encounters if you just want to explore. If you haven’t played this one, give it a spin on the go. It’ll keep you occupied for many, many bus rides to come.
A Good Match For: JRPG fans, lovers of deep role-playing games, anyone who’s ever wanted to actually beat the jump-roping game (it’s way easier in this version).
Not a Good Match For: Anyone looking for a quick, casual mobile game: This is a core FInal Fantasy game, and will take many dozens of hours to complete.
Watchit in action.
Readour take on how the little things make it great.
Purchase From:The App Store
Remember Magic: The Gathering? Sure you do. Blizzard’s card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraftis a lot like that, albeit streamlined and easier to pick up and play... and way more addictive. Hearthstonebegan on PC but seemed destined for the app store, and boy oh boy does it fit right in. After an hour or two you’ll be building your own custom decks and challenging your friends and strangers to matches, either online or, if you’ve both got phones in the same room, in person. Each match is over in a matter of minutes, making it easy to fit into your everyday life. And while eventually you might feel tempted to start paying for the random card booster packs, you can wring a whole lot of enjoyment out of Hearthstonewithout paying a nickel.
A Good Match For: Fans of card games like Magic: The Gathering, people who like Blizzard games, anyone looking for a fun (free!) online multiplayer game for iPhone.
Not a Good Match For: High-level perfectionists who don’t want to pay extra, people hoping for an offline option. Hearthstone will do a good job of matching you up against random online players of a similar level, but if you want to build a deck full of rare, powerful cards, you’ll have to sink in some cash.
Readour thoughts on the iPad version.
Watchit in action.
Download From: The App Store.
You’re in a cold, dark room. First, you get a fire going. Then, you head out in search of wood. After that… well, things develop. To say more would be to spoil what makes A Dark Roomspecial, but suffice it to say: This game grows far beyond its humble origins, and the journey from here to there is an engrossing one.
A Good Match For: Fans of management/RTS games, anyone who likes a little mystery in their games.
Not a Good Match For: Anyone hoping for cutting-edge visuals or production values. A Dark Roomis text-only, with no audio or visuals to distract you.
Purchase from: The App Store.
You wouldn’t think that a game that stitches together fishing and firearms would be a sublime mobile experience. Well, maybe you would think that... but anyway, if you think that you’re right, so good for you. Everything about Ridiculous Fishing: A Tale of Redemptionis both as ridiculous and as great as the title suggests. You’ll be playing, fishing, and shooting for many hours to come.
A Good Match For:Anyone who’s ever been bored with real-world fishing. All that quiet and waiting and patience that usually comes with the ol’ bait-and-line pastime gets thrown overboard in Ridiculous Fishing. Thank God.
Not a Good Match For:Those who want tilt-free gameplay. You’re going to look a little silly with all the turning and twisting your 21stcentury smartphone in pursuit of crazy levels of fish death. But it’s worth it, by God.
Readour review.
Watchit in action.
Purchase From:The App Store
Framed tells a comic-book tale of espionage, intrigue, and death-defying escapes, with a twist: You, the player, can re-arrange the frames of the story to change the outcome of a given page. That usually means figuring out the best way to set things so that the protagonist sneaks past their pursuers undetected, but it can mean a lot of other things, as well. Framed is a great deal of fun, with style to spare.
A Good Match For: Puzzle fans, comics fans, saxophone solo fans.
Not a Good Match For: Anyone looking for a substantive mystery or adventure. Framedis a pure puzzle game, with little actual story or character development.
Watchit in action.
Purchase from: The App Store.
Reignsis Tinder, except you use it to rule a fantasy kingdom. People live and die on your every swipe, and so do you. On one playthrough, you might close your borders and get killed by irate peasants. On the next, you might follow your dog into the forest and eat a weird mushroom. On the one after that, you might meet the devil. Reigns is a mobile experience where you can get a full, satisfying story in a matter of minutes, all while trying to solve a deeper mystery about why you keep getting reincarnated as different kings. In the process, you’ll die. A lot.
A Good Match For:Fans of witty writing, fantasy buffs, Tinder power users.
Not A Good Match For:Those looking for more standard fantasy action fare, people who hate repetition, OKCupid power users.
Readour impressions.
Watchit in action.
Purchase From:The App Store.