The most exciting mobile games of 2014
Text: Ivan Sorokin
For several years now as mobile games in their diversity are not inferior to what comes out on the "classic" consoles - while the majority of the best of them do not try to imitate the "big brothers", but focuses attention on the instant enjoyment of the game and the intuitive gameplay. Our list is made up of just such games: in order to truly love them, it is not necessary to thoroughly know the history of the gaming industry and actively play multiplayer shooters; but their quality is such that only the most blinkered hardcore gamers can consider these games boring.
Monument valley
ustwo
Mobile game of the year - and maybe just the game of the year without any reservations. Air puzzle, assembled from Escher's paintings, ukiyo-e engravings, allusions to Hans Christian Andersen and the Navajo mythology; people belonging to the Soviet and post-Soviet culture, at the same time, will certainly remember the illustrations of Victor Pivovarov. Here you can see references to the finest puzzles using perspective distortions: "Fez", and "Echochrome", half-forgotten "Crush", and aesthetics of the pioneer tricks with measurements, "Paper Mario". Huge request: do not join the chorus of critics in the App Store and Google Play reviews, blaspheming developers for their greed. Evaluating the price of a game along its length is a practice that is deeply vicious.
Download:iOS, Android
Crossy road
Hipster whale
Unlike Pac-Man and Space Invaders, the other most important early hit of the golden era of arcade games, Frogger, did not receive witty sequels that would not change the basic gameplay, but adapted it to modern needs. The company with the pretty name Hipster Whale had to do this: it turned out to be an isometric runner - deliberately slowed down and very nice (and what's important - not trying to pull money out of you for no reason). The main character here is not a frog, as in the source of inspiration, but a chicken crossing the road in a textbook anecdote in English; during the game, you can open dozens of other "transition".
Download:iOS, Android
Paperama
FDG Entertainment
Surprisingly, but there were not so many puzzles based on origami in the history of video games, and the best of them came out just last year - this is the magic in its contemplative "Kami". The evaluation efficiency of paper folding in several moves of "Paperama" is not so perfect aesthetically, but it does make completely unexpected parts of the brain work: the order of actions and planning ahead are no less important than spatial thinking. The transition from easy to difficult pieces is carried out almost immediately after the start of the game, which you don’t expect from mobile games in recent years.
Download:iOS, Android
Timberman
Digital melody
At first glance, "Timberman" reminds too much of the most annoying game hit of the year, "Flappy Bird": eight-bit aesthetics, basic colors, maximum emphasis on the resulting glasses. In fact, the arcade action about cutting trees is much kinder and more exciting than the sadomasochistic game about birds. Despite the not too high variability, the game does not bother: perhaps the culprit here is the optimal length of one round (minute or two) and the hilarious animation of flying wood. It should be noted that at the same time the game deftly falls into the current trend of wood sexuality: checkered shirts, beards, hats, suspenders - well, you understand.
Download:iOS, Android
Lex
Simple machine
How to describe "Lex", the most innovative word pro game released this year, with a single phrase? Panic Scrabble. If in the classic board game you always lacked a timer and an infinite number of dice appearing from nowhere (and there seem to be a lot of such people), then “Lex” is an option for you. Psychedelic background patterns are more likely to help focus, not vice versa. In soothing Letterpress and Bookworm, such aesthetics would seem out of place, and here it underlines the growing discomfort. On the other hand, loyal fans of crosswords to catch here, perhaps, nothing.
Download:iOS, Android
Golfinity
Nimblebit
The distinguished company NimbleBit has become famous for its free managers like "Pocket Planes" and "Tiny Tower", who exploit the aesthetics of pixel art and, as many consider, to be quite intensive pulling money under this good-natured mask. The more pleasant to see "Golfinity", completely falling out of the policies of their releases in recent years. This is the perfect example of an abstract sports game: cool graphics, flying in the airless space of the hole, a well-thought-out physical model, and a breakthrough of levels is to the same extent mini-golf in which Pong was an imitation of table tennis.
Download:iOS
Threes
Sirvo
This has already been said a hundred times, but we insist that we have to repeat it again and again: "Threes" really deserved to become that megahit, whose place this year was taken by another puzzle with numbers, "2048". And not for the reason that several "Threes" key ideas are copied in "2048" (in games this is a common thing and not so reprehensible), but because "Threes" is better in absolutely all parameters: here is the coziest sound design, balanced color gamma, outstanding animation, a difficult mathematical model of the gameplay and a real feeling that you are smarter after a few games.
Download:iOS, Android
Trials frontier
Redlynx
The important game series "Trials" for the first time got to mobile devices and did it with fanfare. Despite the fact that, in parallel with the version for phones and tablets, a full-fledged sequel was launched on large consoles, "Frontier" captured a significant part of the overall attention - not least due to the style of the steampunk western. You should not be afraid of motorcycles: it is never a race or a sports game, but a cunning two-dimensional platformer, where the main thing is a jump angle and a unique physical model of falls (and also an immediate desire to repeat everything again - and again and again).
Download:iOS, Android
Jellies
52 Hertz Whale
A small group of young people from Nizhny Novgorod was inspired by the graphic style of "Ridiculous Fishing", one of the main mobile games of the last year, and made a very vigorous action puzzle about jellyfish who bit off the fingers of a bearded fisherman. Most of the gameplay here is reminiscent of a certain evolution of "Dots": you still connect the "dots" of different colors, but now they are also defiantly running away from you. Judging by the studio's public, the developers are closely watching all the hits of the App Store and meticulously assess competitors - which inspires sympathy and hope that this apparent success is not accidental.
Download:iOS
Shot the moon
pipsqueak games
The most stupid and most controversial game in this list is perhaps the most compelling. Under the music from "Peer Gynt" sung to you in your ear with a nasal voice, you need to methodically launch rockets into the frowning face of the moon, calculating its position during chaotic movement on the screen. This is, in fact, everything - ok, at some point the moon is still beginning to give birth to mini-moons, which actively disturb you. The primitive, but spectacular "Shoot the Moon" reminds of the golden times of sites with flash games: there is the same combination of wildness and simplicity, as well as a characteristic addictive effect.
Download:iOS, Android