Monument Valley
What we say: Beautiful puzzler Monument Valley won bags of critical acclaim in 2014, deservedly. It’s a surreal shape-shifting game that sees you guiding a mysterious princess through a series of impossible-architecture levels by tapping and swiping. Short, but wonderfully sweet.
2The Room Two
What we say: The original The Room was one of the best puzzlers on Android, and its sequel The Room Two continued the quality. “A physical puzzler, wrapped in a mystery game, inside a beautifully tactile 3D world,” as its developer put it, this was carefully-crafted 3D puzzling with plenty of head-scratching challenge.3Clumsy Ninja
What we say: Clumsy Ninja was the best new character in an Android game this year, thanks partly to spiffing animation. His game is all about training the little guy to be a lot less hapless, from popping balloons and trampolining to playing basketball – with Clumsy as the ball. Joyful.4The Walking Dead
What we say: Telltale Games’ Walking Dead games are gripping, polished adventure titles that adopt a TV-style episodic format to tell their stories. You’ll want to binge-play them just as you might binge-watch the zombie-apocalyptic show that they’re based on. And while I’ve chosen Season One for this roundup, Season Two follows on perfectly.5Threes!
What we say: Threes! might have been the most moreish Android game of 2014: a puzzler so simple in theory you wondered why no one had thought of it before. As it turned out, lots of people thought of it afterwards: there are hundreds of Threes! clones. But the original, adding 1s and 2s together, then 3s and upwards, remains the most addictive.680 Days
What we say: 80 Days sits in between books and games as a piece of work: a retelling of Phileas Fogg’s journey around the world in 80 days, with an added layer of steampunk culture and technology. There’s plenty of reading, but also plenty of decision-making as you plot a route and explore the cities along the way.7Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
What we say: Right at the end of 2015, already-classic card-battler Hearthstone made its way from iPad to Android tablets. It’s a deep, engrossing strategy game, but perhaps the best thing about it is the way it makes the genre accessible for newcomers too, with a well-designed tutorial.8Leo’s Fortune
What we say: Leo’s Fortune won a design award from Apple this year, and its Android version was every bit as good as on iOS. A lush platform game with excellent level design, controls and visuals – and bags of charm too.9Surgeon Simulator
What we say: Surgeon Simulator was of the goriest games on Android this year, even though (in theory) you were trying to avoid the bloody bits. This port of the popular PC game saw you operating on “the world’s unluckiest patient”, transplanting teeth, eyes and double-kidneys with some... unorthodox equipment.10TwoDots
What we say: Dots was brilliant. Its sequel, TwoDots, was brilliant too. An ideal pick-up-and-play puzzler, as you connected coloured dots over 135 levels, challenging friends as you went. Some purists still prefer Dots’ more open-ended formula, but TwoDots was sufficiently different to pick up its own fans.11Best Fiends
What we say: Released right at the end of 2014, Best Fiends is a polished puzzler that sees you matching coloured items to battle slugs, upgrading your own critters as you progress from level to level. And yes, the difficulty level starts getting genuinely... fiendish once you’re into the thirties and fourties, level-wise.12Boom Beach
What we say: Boom Beach was the third game from Supercell, the developer that’s enjoyed huge success with Clash of Clans and Hay Day. It was more like the former with its mix of base-building, defence and attack, except with a military theme rather than the fantasy characters of Clash of Clans.13Thomas Was Alone
What we say: Already a hit on browsers, PCs, PS3 / PS Vita and iOS, Thomas Was Alone brought its solitude to Android this year too. And while a platform game where you play a rectangle called Thomas might not sound appetising, this is a lovely piece of work.14Fish Out Of Water!
What we say: Developer Halfbrick made its name with Fruit Ninja, but Fish Out Of Water! deserves to sit alongside that casual classic. It sees you skipping a group of colourful fish across the waves, each with their own bouncing pattern. Your job is to make them go as far as possible, while being scored by crab judges. Sounds weird, plays excellently.15Twisty Hollow
What we say: In an app store stuffed with match-three puzzlers, Twisty Hollow was a breath of fresh air: a puzzle game involving rotating circles to match different items and characters, creating goods for a fictional town. It had originality and verve in spades.16Skylanders Trap Team
What we say: It needed a pretty powerful Android tablet and lots of space – 2.5GB – but Skylanders Trap Team was stretching the platform to good effect. A proper, full-blown Skylanders game to match the console version, complete with its own joypad and portal stand so that kids could use their physical Skylanders toys.17Candy Crush Soda Sag
What we say: Yes, the Candy Crush games have plenty of haters. But they have even more fans playing on the sofa, on the train, in the loos at work... For them, Candy Crush Soda Saga was a sequel worth playing: the same sweet-swapping action, but with new touches (rising soda and hidden bears, for example) to provide new appeal.
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