GAMES OF THE WEEK - The 5 best new games for iOS and Android - March 12th
Hello again and welcome to the latest entry in our long-running GAMES OF THE WEEK series. If you're looking for the best 5 games which have hit the iPhone, iPad or Android stores this week then you've landed yourself at the exact right place at just the right time.
With this article, we skirt around the droves of subscription services (Apple Arcade, Google Play Pass, GameClub, Hatch, et cetera) which have launched onto mobile platforms, and we also don't factor in things like Steam Link or Google Stadia which allow streaming to handheld devices. That means that our list is a finely curated list of brilliant, fresh titles which you can download and play without subscribing to, or installing, any third-party initiative. Of course, there are some great games on those services, but, let's focus on the stuff that you can grab right now.
As ever it has been an interesting week for games, and that's really highlighted in the variety we've got in this selection. There's everything from platforming battle royales through to an unforgiving roguelike - and we've also got a spooky puzzler. There's plenty more too, just take a peek and let us know if you think we missed anything.
Remember, if you're looking to check through some of our previous selections then you can always do that at our Games of The Week Hub, it's a great way to find games to fill out that empty storage space on your phone. Or, if you like your news in bitesize chunks, delivered straight to your palm then maybe follow us on Twitter.
Anyway, without any further delay, click through on the big, blue button below to find out more about the 5 best new games for mobile this week.
1
Seven Scrolls
Have you ever met a monk? I haven't, but if I know one thing about monks it is that their mental powers are notoriously deadly - projecting forth blasts of power in any of the four cardinal directions. Admittedly I learned this fact recently, from quirky broughlike Seven Scrolls.
My favourite thing about Seven Scrolls is easily the titular scrolls. While there's definitely a lot more than seven combinations of scrolls, you can only carry a certain amount of them with you. Each one is a modifier, some are good and others are bad. The variables and options are wild, and you can gain the ability to travel through walls when you kill a foe, or even - as I just had in my last play - have an enemy explode in a 3x3 radius when you attack another enemy.
There's a massive potential for chaos, but if you're smart (and lucky) then you can wrestle that chaos into your favour.
2
Bullet League
Battle Royale is definitely a genre that's received more than a few entries over the last short while, but that doesn't mean that there's no room for innovation. Bullet League takes the deathmatch-elimination formula and shoves it into a 2D platformer format that feels like something ripped from the Flash era, but with all of the modern conventions of the BR genre.
Rounds are quick, maps are extensive, and the pressure to keep moving sets in from the moment you spawn into a round. There's also a competent bot system, so even if there are not too many players on at the time you can still have a quick, couple-of-minutes jaunt into the world of Bullet League's 2D battle royale world.
3
Harvest Moon: Mad Dash
Harvest Moon: Mad Dash is a streamlined version of the long-running slice of life series. It's released previously on, well, almost every console, so it makes sense that it makes the journey to us here on mobile.
It's streamlined in so much as it's actually closer to a large series of minigames. There's no slow, daily routine, instead, you're grabbing growing crops and slamming them into one another to create larger blocks of crops - as it all goes on the game introduces new dangers such as dashing bulls. Is Harvest Moon: Mad Dash a fun Harvest Moon game? No, probably not. Is it a fun game with Harvest Moon branding? Yes.
4
Hidden Through Time
Hidden Through Time is a wonderful little 'Where's Wally' (Waldo, for our American readership) style game. Click around a mass of cartoon, animated landscapes, peeking in buildings and waiting for animations to fully run, in order to locate all of the hidden objects.
There's four timezones to journey through, and if you finish that up then you can even make your own levels afterwards using the in-game level creator. It all looks very fun and is definitely one to grab if you enjoyed last decade's Hidden Folks.
Note: At current, the AppStore page isn't loading for the game, but we'll update the product page as soon as it's live. Until then you can grab it on every other platform, notably Android.
5
Path to Mnemosyne
If jarring puzzle games are your thing then we've got a treat for you. Path to Mnemosyne, that game you might remember for its infinite-seeming, creepy corridors, has now launched onto both iOS and Android.
Of course, it's not just one big corridor, duh. There's a series of location and interaction-based puzzles which pull you deeper into the madness before your final release. Bumbling along past staring eyes, strange tentacles and various other nightmares, it's a game which tests your spirit as well as your puzzle-solving abilities.
