Incoming! Our 8 most anticipated iPhone, iPad, and Android games for June and beyond

You can tell developers are getting ready for their summer holidays.

Perhaps mindful of their forthcoming sunny breaks, or of an imminent productivity-sapping World Cup in Brazil, the number of firm mobile game release dates we're receiving has plummeted.

It's all "coming this summer" this and "out soon" that, with a general implication of "oh, you know, whenever it's ready. Stop hassling me."

Assembling a list of hotly anticipated iPhone, iPad, and Android games for June has been a little tougher than for other months, then. But the following eight games are very much at the forefront of our minds, regardless of whether they debut next week or next month.

We're hopeful that a good few of these games will be available in June, then, but don't hold us to that.

Tales of the Adventure Company
By Slothwerks - heading to iOS on June 5th; out now on Android and Windows Phone

In a rather unusual turn of events, Tales of the Adventure Company (TotAC) is a splendid-looking game that was released on Windows Phone first and Android second. It's not out on iPhone and iPad until next week.

Perhaps best described as Disco Zoo with a deceptively deep RPG core, TotAC has you moving through a dungeon and defeating the end boss in 100 moves or less. You must tap on the floor tiles of each dungeon to reveal the enemies and new heroes beneath.

Add in a cutey pixel-art style, and we're just about sold on the whole concept.

Miniverse
By Ryt Games - heading to iPad on June 30th

This delightfully odd-looking puzzler sees you shunting around planetoids and their little spaceman occupants. The idea is to transport said humans to their rocket ship, which will require a fair amount of to-ing and fro-ing, as only so many people can fit on a single planet.

There's a pleasantly fresh retro style to the whole thing. It's not quite the pixel-art approach with which we've all grown (over)familiar. Rather, the dev has employed a kind of low-res rendering style that reminds me of early CG cutscenes.

And... look! A solid release date!

VVVVVV
By Terry Cavanagh - heading to iOS and Android soon

Super Hexagon developer Terry Cavanagh recently submitted his next effort to Apple, meaning it'll probably be released some time over the coming weeks ahead of an Android launch.

It's a conversion of hard-as-nails retro platformer VVVVVV, which original debuted on PC way back in 2010. Since then, we've seen a very good 3DS conversion. Now, it's the turn of iOS and Android.

Cavanagh claims to be happy with his virtual control solution, which was always the big question given the super-exacting platforming puzzles at VVVVVV's core.

Framed
By Loveshack - heading to iPhone and iPad in June

This is the third month in a row that we've included Loveshack's Framed on our 'most anticipated games' list.

Partly that's because its vague "May or June" release date now looks to have been shifted to "June, then." But mostly because it looks ace.

It sees you shifting around the panels in a noir comic book in order to create a positive outcome to each story beat. As if it couldn't get any more appealing, there's a beautiful Saul Bass art style to it.

RETRY
By Rovio - heading to iPhone and iPad soon

RETRY is intriguing on a couple of levels.

For one thing, it's the first game from Rovio's LVL11 publishing arm, which has been designed to allow the company's creative talents to flex their muscles in various non-Angry Birds ways.

Also, the game looks to be a potent mixture of Flappy Bird, Mini Squadron, and Whale Trail. It sees you guiding a little propeller-driven plane through various fiendishly arranged levels, diving and looping in a bid to avoid a fiery death.

Of course, you will fail at that task an awful lot. There's a reason it's called RETRY, after all. Hopefully, some moreish flight physics and a classic 8-bit art style will prompt us to do just that.

Rovio has already soft-launched RETRY in Finland, Canada, and Poland, so expect to see a wider release soon.

Midnight Star
By Industrial Toys - heading to iPhone and iPad soon

It's now been a couple of months since our Rob went hands-on with Midnight Star at GDC 2014, so we thought we'd remind you about this ambitious game's charms.

Midnight Star (formerly known as Morning Star) is a lavish on-rails first-person shooter from Bungie co-founder Alex Seropian's studio. Yes, that's the Bungie that created Halo.

Besides featuring plenty of finely tuned sci-fi blasting, Midnight Star features a complementary graphic novel app that cleverly interacts with the action element.

Industrial Toys said that it was close to being ready with an open beta release back at the beginning of April, so we can't be too far off a full launch now. Er, can we?

Godus
By 22Cans - heading to iOS and Android soon

While we're on the subject of massively ambitious games from industry giants who have gone back to their indie roots, Godus from Peter Molyneux's 22Cans studio should be with us soon.

This game is the reason we all spent several months of 2012 chipping away at a giant cube in Curiosity. It's also a sprawling god game in the mould of former Molyneux classics like Populous and Black & White.

22Cans soft-launched the game on the New Zealand App Store a couple of weeks ago, so we could see a general release over the coming weeks.

Seabeard
By HandCircus - heading to iPhone and iPad this summer

HandCircus, HandCircus... where have we heard that name before?

Those of you who have been interested in this iOS gaming lark since the early days of the App Store back in 2008 will remember the studio's Rolando and its sequel. It was arguably the platform's first big signature series, combining a beautiful cartoon world with ultra-polished casual-puzzler mechanics.

Well, the studio is back on iOS with a lavish social freemium adventure game called Seabeard. Think Nintendo's Animal Crossing with a similarly extensive list of charming tasks to perform and quests to complete.

Seabeard is set for a summer release, which means it should be available some time over the next three months.