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The best iPhone and iPad games this week - Five Nights at Freddy's, FOTONICA, and more

Deadly animatronics, vintage goblins, and the end sequence from 2001

The best iPhone and iPad games this week - Five Nights at Freddy's, FOTONICA, and more

Every Friday, Pocket Gamer offers hands-on impressions of the week's three best new Android games.

Goblin Sword
By Eleftherios Christodoulatos - buy on iPhone and iPad (69p / 99c)
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If Goblin Sword had come out on Commodore Amiga, it would have easily supplanted Zool and Superfrog as the game that proved it was possible to have a great arcade platformer without buying a SNES or a Mega Drive.

But it didn't. It came out on iOS in 2014. And while it won't make PS Vita and 3DS owners covet your iPad - and nor is it even the best game to come out on iOS this week - it's pretty solid retro fare.

You play as a warrior whose job it is to kill the blocky cartoon monsters that robotically patrol the open stages. The levels are short and mobile-friendly, but there are still branching paths to explore and hidden walls to find and pass through.

There are also bosses to fight, upgrades to earn, and boosts to acquire, all in a pleasant retro universe gently infused with the slickness and accessibility of contemporary games.

FOTONICA
By Santa Ragione - buy on iPhone and iPad (£1.99 / $2.99)
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FOTONICA is a bit like a cross between the console version of Mirror's Edge, in that it's first person, and the mobile version, in that it's an auto runner. It also resembles the old arcade Star Wars game, in that it has wireframe graphics. And it feels like playing the psychedelic end sequence in 2001.

The action takes place in a terrifying wireframe void. You have to run along floating pathways, holding a finger down on the screen to sprint and letting go again to leap across breaks in the path, all against the backdrop of infinite black space and ominous synth chords.

It could have been crashingly dull but it works thanks to its variety of modes, including same device multiplayer, and well-judged controls that require you to time your leaps to account for the delay created by the practical constraints of having a body.

Five Nights at Freddy's
By Scott Cawthorn - buy on iPhone and iPad (£1.99 / $2.99)
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Five Nights at Freddy's is a truly original horror game. You play as a night security guard at a Chuck E. Cheese-style restaurant that uses animatronic creatures. For some reason these monsters can't be switched off, and so they roam the corridors in the darkness

If you're worried about the carbon quota implications of these permanently active automata, you're quite right to be worried. But of more immediate concern is the fact that if they find you they'll try to stuff you into a mechanical costume, which will of course result in your death.

The only means you have of averting this outcome is to keep the doors to your guard booth closed, but closing them uses power, which is in limited supply. In order to survive all five nights you need to carefully monitor the array of security cameras and listen out for telltale noises, closing the doors only when the lethal creatures are almost upon you.

It's ingenious, tense, innovative, and terrifying.

Rob Hearn
Rob Hearn
Having obtained a distinguished education, Rob became Steel Media's managing editor, now he's no longer here though.