Hidden Gems: 154 great iOS games that you forgot existed [121-154]

This is the fifth instalment in a five-part series looking at 150 hidden iOS gems. The mathematicians among you will have already worked out that 150 divided by five is 30. That's why there are 30 entries in this instalment. Click on the following hyperlinks for Volumes I, II, III, and IV.

In the five weeks it's taken us to publish this five-part serial unearthing more than 150 hidden gems of the iOS world, several more great games have spilled onto the App Store. Some of these are doomed to become the hidden gems of the future.

In truth, I don't want to write a feature this long again. So, if there's an underlying message to this one, it's that we should try to ensure that no gem ever gets hidden again.

Look beyond the App Store charts and the featured items on iTunes. Take a little time to read the reviews, get involved in the forum conversations, and follow the work of the developers you admire, and you'll be playing your part in the struggle to ensure that the future of the App Store doesn't look like a bird stamping on a pig - forever.

	Space Miner: Space Ore Bust By Venan Entertainment - buy on iPhone or iPad This quietly competent, imaginatively presented story-driven action game came out of nowhere in 2010... and then vanished again.
	SpaceChem Mobile By Zachtronics Industries - buy on iPad You might not think that playing as an engineer designing compound reactors for a corporate entity would be much fun, but you'd be wrong.
	Spirits By Spaces of Play - buy on iPhone or iPad The Spirits in question appear to be the ghosts of Psygnosis's Lemmings in this smart and beautiful take on the 16-bit classic.
	Squareball By Drömsynt - buy on iPhone It may look basic, but Squareball is an ingenious and perfectly balanced mash-up of platformer and Pong that's as singular in 2013 as it was in 2009.
	Star Defense By ngmoco - buy on iPhone Back when ngmoco was the hippest developer on the App Store, it released this highly accomplished, and still fairly unusual, spherical tower defence game.
	Starfront: Collision By Gameloft - buy on iPhone or iPad Gameloft gets a lot of stick for ripping off console and PC games, but there's no StarCraft on iOS, so this highly creditable imitation will have to do.
	Super QuickHook By RocketCat - buy on iPhone Traversing pixel-art levels with a grappling hook and a pair of rocket boots is exactly as fun as it sounds in RocketCat's bracingly tricky platformer.
	Surveillant By Recluse Industries - buy on iPhone Recluse Industries's stripped-back puzzle-platformer is both a haunting dystopian satire about state surveillance and a fun game about hiding from laser cameras.
	Sword & Poker 2 By Gaia - buy on iPhone In Sword & Poker 2, Gaia mashes poker and RPG together to form a singular and highly addictive blend of character development, magical stuff, and straight flushes.
	Swordigo By Touch Foo - buy on iPhone and iPad There's no twist: Swordigo is simply a big, robust, good-looking, and totally authentic side-scrolling RPG in the Adventure of Link mould for your iPhone.
	Tentacles By Microsoft - buy on iPhone and iPad Only with the advent of the touchscreen has it become possible to experience the world from the perspective of a horrible monster with three tentacles and a terrifying eye.
	The Big Big Castle! By Beep Games - buy on iPad This game enables you to see what architecture would be like if being able to reach floating coins were more important than structural integrity and the preservation of human life.
	The Glowing Void By Assyria - buy on iPhone This Qix-inspired casual game has a lot in common with fellow gem Just Fillin', but it also boasts a flip mechanic, extra modes, and fancy glowing balls.
	The Great Jitters: Pudding Panic By kunst-stoff - buy on iPhone or iPad The surprising thing about this polished, cartoony puzzler - in which you adjust a spooky roller coaster in motion - is that it's even more fun to play than it is to look at.
	The Incident By Big Bucket Software - buy on iPhone and iPad "Incident" is putting it mildly. A constant barrage of large objects are falling from the sky, for some reason, and you have to avoid them by tilting your handset.
	The Last Rocket By Shaun Inman - buy on iPhone and iPad The Last Rocket is a retro game in look and feel, its pixel-art charm belied by a spartan challenge that few developers would dare to inflict on their customers.
	The Mirror Maze By Assyria - buy on iPhone There are lots of iOS games about getting a thing through a maze. In this one, you have to get two things through a maze, one mirroring the movements of the other.
	These Robotic Hearts of Mine By Alan Hazelden - buy on iPhone and iPad Reminding us that arthouse games have a place on the App Store, this stark and affecting puzzler will make you think in more ways than one. (Two.)
	Tiki Towers 2: Monkey Republic By GameHouse - buy on iPhone and iPad Before World of Goo arrived on the App Store, we had to content ourselves with Tiki Towers 2: Monkey Republic. Fortunately, it's the same.
	Tobe & Friends Hookshot Escape By Secret Base - buy on iPhone The maker of Tobe & Friends Hookshot Escape embellishes on the Doodle Jump formula with pixel-art graphics, an array of unlockable in-game items, and, of course, a hookshot.
	Tongue Tied! By Mojo Bones - buy on iPhone and iPad Tongue Tied! is a platformer with impeccable cartoon presentation, a robust physics engine, and a truly horrific central mechanic involving two dogs joined at the tongue.
	Toy Bot Diaries By Iugo - buy on iPhone Robots don't keep diaries. They have logs. But if you look past this conceptual absurdity, this demanding tilt-controlled puzzle-platformer is worth a download.
	Trainyard By Matt Rix - buy on iPhone and iPad This inventive puzzler from indie developer Matt Rix is a pleasant reminder that there are people out there dedicated to making clever games about trains.
	Trism By Demiforce - buy on iPhone and iPad One of the earliest entries on this list, 2008's Trism is a matching puzzler with an ingenious triangular twist and a generous suite of modes and features.
	UFO on Tape By Revolutionary Concepts - buy on iPhone and iPad UFO on Tape isn't an AR game. It's just a very authentic simulation of one, in which your pretend girlfriend calls you an idiot for failing to follow a UFO with your camera.
	Unify By Zach Gage - buy on iPhone With this creative and ingenious twist on Tetris, indie supremo Zach Gage bravely banks on your being sufficiently interested in his game to persist towards a high score.
	Unstoppable Gorg By Futuremark - buy on iPad There's retro and there's retro. This '50s B movie-themed real-time strategy game is big, rich, stylish, funny, and brutally tough.
	Virtual Villagers 2: The Lost Children By Last Day of Work - buy on iPhone Following the travails of a group of castaways on a desert island, this gentle-paced god sim features neither a polar bear nor an unfortunate boy called Piggy.
	Warfare Incorporated By Spiffcode - buy on iPhone As its name suggests, Warfare Incorporated is a real-time strategy game in which you're rewarded for careful financial stewardship as well as wholesale slaughter.
	Wimp: Who Stole My Panties By Flexile Studio - buy on iPhone and iPad If this were a just world, charming and polished platformer Wimp would have been a smash hit. The world isn't just, but you can make it 'juster' by downloading this game.
	Wire Way By Konami - buy on iPhone This Konami-published touchscreen experiment involves your pinging a little creature called Wiley around on wires. It's surprising that it hasn't been ripped off more.
	Zen Bound 2 By Secret Exit - buy on iPhone and iPad This pretty and serene casual game showed the world that looping some rope around a bit of wood is much more fun than it sounds.
	Zombie Gunship By Limbic Software - buy on iPhone and iPad Would the eerily clinical gunship sequences in the Call of Duty games be less disturbing if the targets were zombies rather than people? See for yourself.
	ZombieSmash By gamedoctors - buy on iPhone Zombies? Yawn. Tower defence? Double yawn. But look past the concept and the name and you'll discover a surprisingly enjoyable, tactile take on a tired genre.