Do you like iPad games? How about free iPad games? Great, because our list includes 40 top-notch gaming experiences for iPad – none of which cost a penny.

We’ve taken care to play every game to death, so you know it’s definitely worth a download; moreover, our selection is geared towards titles optimised for (or that just play better on) Apple’s tablet, and so there’s little crossover with our free iPhone games selection. Fire up your thumbs and get playing!

New this month: Dungeons of Dreadrock, Linia super, Sparrows and Mosaic Chronicles.

A quick note on IAP: Most free games feature IAPs, or in-app purchases. Our reviews outline key ones for each game and note whenever IAP hampers the title in question.

1. Super Cat Tales 2

Platform games on the iPad are something of a mixed bag, mostly because they tend to be so difficult to control. Given the difference in size between an iPad mini and the largest iPad Pro, on-screen controls only tend to work on all iPads if they’re fully configurable (rare) or you have banana fingers (hopefully more rare). Super Cat Tales 2 sidesteps all this by streamlining the entire control system to two buttons.

As you belt through the game’s vibrant world, you grip your iPad with two hands. Hold the left or right side of the screen to head in that direction. Double-tap to start running, and automatically leap on reaching a platform’s edge. Two thumbs are also all you need to clamber up vertical surfaces, wall jump, and obliterate enemies using giant yellow tanks they’ve carelessly left lying about the place.

The system is tricky to grasp at first, and you might initially hanker for a jump button. But Super Cat Tales 2 revels in its perceived limitations, offering levels that require clever choreography to crack. Combine that with a slew of secrets, plenty of variety (underwater sections; a level set on a speeding train), and you’ve one of the finest mobile platforms you’re ever likely to see.

IAPs: The £4.99/$4.99 premium option removes ads that occasionally appear. You can also pay to unlock sections of the game if you’ve not yet found all the collectables required to proceed.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Super Cat Tales 2

2. Asphalt 9: Legends

The Asphalt series long ago left behind any indication that it was particularly concerned with reality. Instead, you know you’re going to be served with high-octane larger-than-life races, where your car’s regularly catapulted through the air, in a manner that would make the average mechanic shriek in terror.

Asphalt 9, though, heads towards the bizarre in a decidedly different manner, with a ‘TouchDrive’ control scheme that streamlines careening around a race course, largely by letting the game itself deal with steering. Although there is a ‘manual’ alternate system buried in the settings, you by default tap and swipe to switch lanes, perform stunts, drift and boost.

For long-time racing-game fans, this probably sounds horrendous. Surprisingly, though, it turns out to be a slice of genius. Sure, what you get is somewhat removed from a ‘proper’ racing game; but the end result manages to marry speed and adrenaline with a kind of puzzling, as you work out the moves required to grab the chequered flag. And when it clicks, there’s a ton of content to work through, and some of the most eye-poppingly dazzling visuals to grace an iPad racer.

IAPs: It’s an Asphalt game, which means a boatload of IAPs. However, if you’re prepared to grind a bit, no payment is really necessary.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Asphalt 9: Legends

3. The Battle of Polytopia

Initially, The Battle of Polytopia (originally Super Tribes) was akin to a stripped-back early entry in the classic Civilization series. To some extent, it still is.

You get an isometric world and attempt to dominate in a turn-based manner. By making good use of resources, you can research new technologies, thereby unlocking more powerful units. The winner is the tribe with the highest score after 30 turns – or who unsportingly kills everyone else.

However, Polytopia soon gained its own personality. It always looked different, with its low-poly visuals. And the speedrun mode forced very different tactics from Civilization. But new and unique tribes with their own tech and distinct units shook things up further; and the game’s relatively intuitive nature made it a good fit for iPhone.

With version 2, Polytopia now makes more sense for iPad as well. Maps can optionally be much larger, making for a more epic feel and demanding lengthier sit-down games. The ability to build configurable maps affords flexibility and furthers long-term interest. What’s perhaps most surprising, though, is that even if you have Civilization VI on your iPad, Polytopia might win your heart, through its mix of immediacy, fun and charm.

IAPs: New tribes can be bought for 99p/$0.99 or £1.99/$1.99 each. You’ll need to buy some if you want to play on the largest maps, but the base game is free (and also ad-free).

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download The Battle of Polytopia

4. Super Mombo Quest

The evil King of Nightmares has threatened the lands of Subrosa with annihilation! Yikes! Fortunately, a prophecy states a saviour will rock up any time now and partake in evil-doer butt-kicking. However, said saviour turns out to be a burbling purple buffoon with a ridiculously massive tongue.

Still, you work with what you have, right? And it turns out that tongue is useful. It can stick to walls and help Mombo zoom along zip lines. Mombo also likes to get stompy, squishing monsters by jumping on their heads. Perhaps this prophecy might have something in it after all.

That’s the starting point for a side-on platform game that is equal parts Metroid, Super Meat Boy and strange slobbering beastie, making for a compelling concoction that’s among the best games of its kind on mobile. If you want to explore, you can take things easy. Keener on blazing around? Dispatch every enemy before a timer runs down and you get a combo. Amass enough of those and you unlock more of the expansive map.

On iPad, the game looks gorgeous and there’s less chance of your thumbs covering up something important when you’re leaping about. Customisable controls, gamepad support, upgrade paths, a unique sense of character and a big game world make this an unmissable freebie you won’t lick in a hurry.

IAPs: Tap the trunk button for payment options. £2.49/$2.99 removes the ads, but the £4.49/$4.99 premium tier is better, because it adds offline play and gives you other goodies. You can also spend 89p/$0.99 on 5,000 crystals to speed along upgrades if you wish.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Super Mombo Quest

5. Dungeons of Dreadrock

The problem with a game like Dreadrock is that you immediately think you’ve seen it all before. There’s a cartoonish intro to a story that’s been told many times. Dungeon! Unfair sacrifice! Sibling that resolves to save the day! And then there are tile-based dungeons, where you’re tasked with reaching an exit without getting horribly killed. Yawn.

But wait. Because it turns out Dungeons of Dreadrock is something really special. Mostly, this doesn’t come from any one aspect of its design. Sure, it looks great, in an old-school manner. There’s a script peppered with humour (if, at times, a little too much profanity). And there are enemies to avoid and puzzles to solve. What sets it apart is mostly that it’s smarter.

In other words, it’s what Dreadrock does with its overly familiar pieces that makes it compelling. Early on, an ogre stomps after you, and you’ll cunningly make your escape. What you might not expect is the monster continuing to pursue you across several single-screen levels. Elsewhere, sneaky details and devious design set the game apart from its contemporaries and give the game life of a kind you absolutely weren’t expecting when you first fired it up. Not a game to dread, then, but definitely one that rocks.

IAPs: Pay £1.79/$1.99 to remove momentum-sapping ads.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Dungeons of Dreadrock

6. Super Fowlst 2

This third entry in the Fowlst series is the best yet – although you have to feel for a solitary chicken that’s taken on the responsibility of saving the world from an endless demon incursion. The basics remain much the same as in Fowlst and Super Fowlst – flap left or right by tapping the relevant half of the iPad’s display, dispatch demons by headbutting them, and grab coins you can use between games to upgrade your chicken.

Yes, you read that right. This heroic hen can be kitted out with all kinds of weapons, including explosive eggs and heatseeking missiles expelled from its bottom. And you’ll need all the help you can get, because the demons you face quickly evolve from doddering dimwits occasionally sending a fiery projectile your way to demented bosses that blaze around the screen, flinging all manner of horrible death in your general direction.

On iPad, Super Fowlst 2 really shines: the retro-oriented visuals are vibrant and beautifully detailed; and the larger screen ensures enemies never lurk beneath a digit. The entire production comes across like an old-school arcade game perfectly reimagined for the touchscreen, and it’s not to be missed. And that’s before even taking into account your chicken sometimes being able to stomp about in a giant mech suit.

IAPs: A one-off £3.99/$3.99 headbutts the adverts into oblivion.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Super Fowlst 2

7. First Strike

Like the mutant offspring of Missile Command, Risk and a megalomaniac’s ultimate fantasy, First Strike has you do battle in a world where every superpower has their finger on a terrifyingly dangerous trigger.

Things kick off with each power limited to a small patch of territory, little ordnance, and technology rooted deep in the previous century. The aim is to balance expanding your domain, building weapons, researching new kit, and wiping out your foes – before you’re wiped out yourself.

This isn’t easy. Even when taking the role of a major superpower, a lapse in concentration can result in half your land being obliterated when you fail to respond rapidly enough to a devastating nuclear first strike. Even when you’re equipped with stealth bombers and long-range nukes, it’s easy to over-extend and leave your territory open to attack.

During solo play, First Strike is a simultaneously fascinating, compelling and chilling slice of real-time strategy. But should you want to take on warmongering humans rather than the bloodthirsty AI, there’s a built-in multiplayer mode.

In its previous guise as a premium title, First Strike was smart but overlooked. Now it’s free, you’ve no excuse to not dig into a game that invites you to blow up the world, while never letting you forget about the horror of what it means to do so.

IAPs: No IAPs at the time of writing. Ads can be used to speed up research or pick up a game where you left off.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download First Strike

8. Void Tyrant

Your initial moments with Void Tyrant may not present the game in the best possible light. It pits you against a cartoon enemy, in what appears to be a greatly simplified take on blackjack. Cards are dealt, and if you end up not going bust and have a higher score than your opponent, you get to whack them with your weapon. Rinse and repeat until someone’s dead.

But there’s a lot more going on in Void Tyrant beyond these basics. The underlying story is simple, but provides varied adversaries to battle and environments to explore. And you also get to gradually build a battle deck, which is where the real strategy lies. These cards provide the means to cast spells, power-up attacks, and… eat a potato.

There is some grind. Void Tyrant’s cycle is built around you getting killed, using your spoils to kit out your successor with better starting equipment, and repeating the process. Even so, bar the odd moment where you really question quite why a boss enemy is getting quite so perfect hands (or perhaps we’re just bad losers), even the churn is fun; and taken as a whole, Void Tyrant is one of the nicest freebie strategy surprises on the platform.

IAPs: You can pay for individual warp rifts (stage skipping) and spirits (power ups); but if you enjoy Void Tyrant and don’t want to be interrupted, grab the £4.99/$4.99 premium game IAP. Along with removing ads, this nets you various benefits to help you progress more rapidly.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Void Tyrant

9. SpellTower+

The magic in SpellTower+ comes from marrying traditional word puzzles with something that’s more recognisably a video game. You start off in Tower mode, facing a stack of letters that resembles a scrambled crossword. On dragging out and submitting a word, its tiles pop off the screen, and any left hanging fall down into the gaps. Rinse and repeat until you can submit no more words – and hope your score is worth bragging about.

When you venture into other modes, new lines of letters appear for every move submitted – or on a timer. If your letter stack hits the red line of doom, your game is over, just like in Tetris. A Daily Search mode adds another variation, giving you a single opportunity to form a word that utilises a starred tile – and preferably including as many gold double-score tiles as possible.

Most of this probably sounds familiar if you played the original SpellTower, released back in 2011. And, indeed, the free version of SpellTower+ is effectively that game, albeit polished a bit for modern devices, and with the new Daily Search. But also, SpellTower for iPad is no longer a bit of an oddball, with its own formatting and leaderboard. Now, you can play the entire world – for free. And should you wish to partake in the ‘plus’ bit, a one-off IAP unlocks the rest of this superb game.

IAPs: A single IAP of £4.99/$4.99 removes the ads, provides you with ongoing statistics, and unlocks several additional modes: Search; Zen; ExPuzzle; Double Puzzle; Bubble Puzzle; Blitz.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download SpellTower+

10. PewPew Live

Years back, the iPad was the place for vibrant old-school twin-stick shooters, where the aim was to blast everything to smithereens until you ended up atomised yourself. Minotron: 2112! Infinity Field! Mutant Storm! Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved! Those titles have all gone now, and the App Store’s a poorer place for that, but PewPew Live keeps the flame alive for high-octane blasters in a shoebox.

Five shoeboxes, actually, because PewPew Live has that many distinct modes baked in, each of which provides a unique twist on claustrophobic arcade fare. Waves finds you fending off against walls of enemy craft. Asteroids is a souped-up take on the arcade classic. Fury combines twin-stick blasting with bullet hell, demanding you dodge projectiles from explosions. Eskiv recalls the dearly missed Bit Pilot, packing its tiny arena with rocks to dodge. And Hexagon finds you playing in a six-sided arena, blazing about to grab bonus pick-ups.

PewPew Live is brutal – games are short and not for the faint of heart. But on iPad, the dazzling neon visuals get the chance to shine and your thumbs rarely cover up anything important. Also, despite the ridiculously tiny 6MB download, there’s a lot of game here. So if you fancy having a blast on your iPad, in an old-school arcade game manner, this one’s a must-have.

IAPs: Generously, PewPew Live is completely free, and there aren’t even any ads.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download PewPew Live

11. Dashy Crashy

You might initially consider Dashy Crashy yet another lane-based survival game, where you swipe to avoid traffic, getting as many points as possible before your inevitable smashy demise. But this game’s smarter than the average endless runner. It looks and sounds superb. There’s a breezy soundtrack and chirpy voiceover (apparently an excitable sat-nav), and dazzling visuals. The crisp cars look great, as does the day/night cycle as you belt along a suspiciously long and straight road.

But what sets Dashy Crashy apart is the variety within what’s ultimately a quite basic game. As you play, new cars are randomly dished out as prizes, but these aren’t just new skins – they bestow bonus powers. Drive a school bus and you get extra points for completing sums. A cement mixer surreally has a fruit machine lurking within. And a ‘Dinotaur’ jeep pursues green giants stomping along the highway.

Further treats await discovery: multitouch support enables you to quickly move across multiple lanes; you can boost for extra speed; and special events force you to quickly react to anything from a pile-up to a TARDIS knocking everything out of its path. All these twists make Dashy Crashy strategically superior to – and deeper than – its contemporaries; it’s also a lot more fun to play.

IAPs: You can buy a specific vehicle rather than hoping to win it at some point – they’re 99p/99c each. Want to test-drive one for a bit? Watch an ad.

For iPhone and iPad (Universal) | Download Dashy Crashy

12. Power Hover: Cruise

Much of the magic and mystery of the original Power Hover sits within its brilliantly choreographed set piece levels, which find you scything across futuristic deserts and oceans, trying not to turn your powerboarding robot into a heap of scrap metal by directing it into a rock. But that game also finishes each section with an exhilarating boss battle, which pits you against psychotic androids in cartwheeling tunnels of death.

Power Hover: Cruise takes those endless survival bits and transforms them into an entire game. Presumably the hero android is now a masochist, given that instead of a mission, it’s ‘continue until you get horribly blown up’. Still, for you, the player, Power Hover: Cruise is a dizzying, exciting ride.

The variety within is particularly impressive, given that you’re basically just moving left and right to avoid obstacles. Each stage feels distinct, whether you’re deep inside a laser-infested pyramid, atop a gigantic pipe snaking through the clouds, or zigzagging through blocky obstacles and spiked contraptions in the oddly named Metro (in the sense it has pretty weird design for even the grubbiest, least welcoming city imaginable).

With levels being randomly generated but based around pattern recognition, there’s plenty of scope for long-term play. Do particularly well and you unlock robots with better manoeuvrability and multiple lives, to further boost your high scores.

IAPs: You can buy characters for 49p/99c and up if you don’t fancy winning them through high scores. A one-off £8.99/$8.99 IAP unlocks everything at once.

For iPhone and iPad (Universal) | Download Power Hover: Cruise

13. Shadowgun Legends

First-person shooters aren’t a genre anyone tends to associate with touchscreens, unless it’s in a sentence like “first-person shooters are generally rubbish on touchscreens”. And that’s fair enough – a slippy pane of glass can’t compete with the precision afforded by a gamepad or keyboard, when you’re stomping about shooting things. However, Shadowgun Legends manages the improbable, bringing a high-octane FPS to your iPad in fine style.

Mostly, this game succeeds because it realises the limitations of the device. Controls are streamlined to a two-thumb system for moving and aiming. Autofire blasts projectiles at enemies daft enough to get in your firing line. Buttons are then used to trigger actions like punching door controls, or setting up special kit like sentry guns.

Everything else feels streamlined, too. Missions are linear, enemies are identikit angry aliens, and what passes for a storyline is instantly forgettable. But, my, is this game a blast, as you run around, blowing up everything in sight, or dabble in multiplayer shooty larks during your character’s supposed ‘downtime’.

You will, unfortunately, hit a fairly brazen IAP wall at some point, and have to decide whether to splurge on inventory slots. But otherwise Shadowgun Legends is the best game of its type on iPad, which is all the more impressive when you remember that it’s free.

IAPs: Loads of IAPs here, including one with a ridiculous £99.99/$99.99 price tag. Just grab the cheapest IAP to unlock extra inventory slots, and then save your pennies.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Shadowgun Legends

14. Sticky Terms

‘Farpotshket’. That’s Yiddish for trying to fix something, thereby ruining it. There are 149 other broadly untranslatable terms to piece together in this tactile word game, which feels especially at home on the iPad. We mean ‘piece together’ in a quite literal manner, too. Each puzzle in Sticky Terms begins life in fragmented form.

Early puzzles are akin to someone having carefully sliced the solution into two or three parts, and then glued them back together in a very different arrangement. Parts separate by way of a satisfying pop when dragged, spin with a tap, and make a handy click when correctly joined. Success comes with a celebratory drum riff – along with an explanation of what the word means and where it’s from.

As you progress, though, Sticky Terms delights in stripping the letters of as much context as possible. You end up staring at abstract shapes, almost like an art canvas, trying to make sense of it, searching for recognisable letterforms you can join back together.

From the start to the very last puzzle, Sticky Terms is a delight. The iPad’s larger display and aspect ratio gives the puzzles space to breathe, and the textural visual design almost fools you into thinking you’re manipulating real-world objects atop a canvas.

IAPs: The game has no IAP. To unlock a word set, you must watch a video. This limitation can be removed by entering a code found in the credits of the creator’s own see/saw (£2.99/$2.99) or supertype (£1.99/$1.99), both of which happen to be great.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Sticky Terms

15. ElectroMaster

ElectroMaster first rocked up in 2010, zapped its way around countless iPhones and iPads, and was defeated by the deadliest of foes: Apple. Due to 2017’s 32-bit ‘appageddon’, the game ceased working. Happily, it resurfaced in 2021. To say we’re delighted is an understatement, because ElectroMaster is fantastic.

The basic premise is… Actually, we’re not sure. Something to do with saving a sibling, as ‘explained’ in odd storytelling on between-level screens; but you mostly spend your time doddering about arenas jam-packed with enemies, holding down to charge your weapon, and then letting rip. The aim is to 1) not die, and 2) use your blasts to push every foe off the screen. Both objectives become progressively harder as you hit higher levels, and a smattering of power-ups and an alternate game mode keep things fresh.

Visually, ElectroMaster resembles an ancient arcade title, complete with chunky characters and scan lines. But the touch controls are very iPad – and the tablet’s size makes it a better bet than playing on an iPhone, because covering a couple of critters with a finger would spell instant death. That said, do play with your tablet flat on a table, to avoid the thing flying across the room when you whizz your digit all over the place, blasting away at enemies.

Now here’s hoping the game doesn’t randomly disappear for four years again…

IAPs: This one appears to have electro-blasted ads and IAPs alike to oblivion.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download ElectroMaster

16. sugar (game)

The creator of sugar (game) – which we’re going to call Sugar from this point, so our copy editor doesn’t explode – is Bart Bonte. He’s best known for a set of brain-thumping think-outside-the-box puzzlers, all of which are great. But they’re also geared towards a phone’s smaller display. Sugar, though, revels in the iPad’s screen acres.

The premise is to get the sugar into the cups. On each level, you get a few seconds to clock the layout before sugar starts pouring from a spout. You then draw channels for the sugar to flow along, and make use of on-screen objects to further help the sweet stuff to its goal.

At first, this is simple, although you almost instantly realise you cannot delete the channels you draw. But you’re soon faced with levels that require you to split your sugar in multiple directions, contend with wraparound screens and reverse gravity, and send sugar through coloured gates and into matching cups.

On a phone, it’s fiddly; yet on an iPad, this game’s a treat. Its repetitive nature means you perhaps shouldn’t guzzle every level in a single sitting. But as a dip-in puzzler where you tackle a few levels at a time, Sugar’s very tasty indeed.

IAPs: For £1.79/$1.99, you can be rid of ads that show up every few levels.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download sugar (game)

17. Casual Metaphysics

There’s a bunch of waffle on the Casual Metaphysics App Store page about spirituality and reaching a higher state of consciousness. We’re not sure what that’s all about, because the entire game comes across more like a surreal fever dream.

At its core, Casual Metaphysics is a match game – but it’s a long way from swapping gems to make a row of three. Instead, shapes float in space, and you combine them to create a new shape. If you can then combine that object with another match, you get a chain. Keep going and you can rack up big points.

Once you’re done with your turn, things get weird. A vividly coloured hand on the other side of the screen acts as your opponent. You trade blows but will at first chalk up a few victories. However, as you progress through the game’s levels, the shapes increase in complexity and finding matches becomes tougher – a problem, since if you linger, your score is gradually eroded.

On iPad, the larger display makes for a more dazzling visual experience and helps accuracy when dragging between shapes. But also, defeat the computer player enough times and you unlock local multiplayer, which proves a much better experience on the bigger screen.

IAPs: You can casually remove the ads for £1.99/$1.99 – a good idea if you enjoy the game.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Casual Metaphysics‬

18. Little Alchemy 2

Alchemy is best known for transmutation: the dream of turning base metals into gold. That’s a whole lot less wacky than what’s going on in Little Alchemy 2. Here, you start with four classical elements – air, earth, fire and water – and set about combining them to fashion anything from cities to spaceships.

The means of doing this are simple. Discoveries sit at the right-hand side of the screen, and you drag them to the canvas. If nothing happens when you drag one on top of another, try a different combination. If something new appears, momentarily feel smug before realising you’ve many dozens of items left to find. As you might expect, this works particularly well on the iPad’s large touchscreen display.

Little Alchemy 2 plays fast and loose with the laws of the world. Some combinations have logic at their core – for example, drop ‘pressure’ on a volcano and you end up with an eruption. Others are more fanciful, such as an airplane being a bird combined with metal.

There are moments of frustration, not least when you’ve been sitting there for ages, unable to unearth a new discovery. But it’s always a pleasant surprise when you find a new object, and Little Alchemy 2 is ideal for dipping in and out of.

IAPs: You can buy research points to purchase hints. These start at 99p/99c for two. Video ads provide a free alternative when you’re stuck.

For iPhone and iPad (Universal) | Download Little Alchemy 2

19. Linia super

Imagine Fruit Ninja, but rather than you maniacally slicing away at half a supermarket’s fresh produce aisle being hurled into the air, you instead take out your fury on arty geometric patterns. At which point, you might also chill out a bit, because although Linia super is clearly inspired by the aforementioned fruity title, it’s far more thoughtful and considered.

The aim of each individual level is to match a set of colours by swiping through whatever you see on the screen. The snag is that most of the patterns are animated. You must therefore time your swipe with the utmost care, and in some cases be extremely precise to win. Fail too often and you’ll have to start the level set again – or splash out on in-game currency for a continue.

On iPhone, this is a fun game, but it really comes into its own on Apple’s tablet. The larger screen affords you more flexibility when making your moves, and also does justice to the game’s visuals. With each group of challenges having its own sense of character, it almost feels like you’re methodically slicing up a gallery of modern art. (Macworld top tip: don’t use a sword to slice up paintings in an actual gallery. That never ends well.)

IAPs: Go Super (£2.49/$2.99) and you unlock paid chapters, remove the ads, lower the number of Liniacoins required to retry levels or save progress, boost rewards, and get 5,000 Liniacoins into the bargain. You can also buy packs of coins, which max out at 10,000 for £4.49/$4.99 for 10,000.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Linia super

20. Sparrows

X meets Y is a construction we regularly see in mobile games. By mashing together two well-known gameplay styles – even two overly familiar and tired ones – you can come up with something new and compelling. That’s the case with Sparrows.

Honestly, we’d happily never see another Mahjong or Scrabble knock-off on iPad, but combining the two? That works. Here, you have piles of letters, depicted as colourful lozenges. By using them to construct words, you unlock further letters to use; and by bringing your Scrabble brain, you can ramp up your points by making use of bonus tiles.

In its free incarnation, Sparrows generously gives you two and a half modes. Timed pits you against the clock, giving you 60 seconds to rack up a high score. Moves adds tension in a different way, dispensing with a timer and instead limiting you to 15 moves. Puzzle lets you select from a small number of layouts and tasks you with using as many tiles as you can.

It’s all quite sedate but should engage word-game buffs. The presentation is also first-rate, from the bold tiles, which look lovely on the iPad’s larger display, to the minimalist sparrows that adorn the menu screen. One to tweet yourself to, then.

IAPs: £4.49/$4.99 gets you the ‘full game’, which adds an endless mode (no timers/move limits), word search mode (clear the board by finding specific words from a list) and more puzzles.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Sparrows

21. Empty.

Are you of the opinion that life is better when your world is more minimal? Empty. allows you to apply such thinking to a virtual environment – and to an extreme degree.

Each of the game’s hand-crafted levels starts out as a simple room you can manoeuvre with a finger. Within the room are various objects, drawn in a stripped-back style that makes them resemble silhouettes. The idea is to merge objects into flat planes (walls; ceilings), whereupon they disappear.

This isn’t a game of brain-smashing challenge. Instead, Empty. comes across almost as a meditative experience. A gentle soundtrack serenades your ears as you play, and the game’s lack of timers suggests you should be in no hurry to blaze through everything.

The biggest tests are figuring out in which order to remove objects as the rooms become more cluttered and complex. Sometimes, you’ll find there’s not quite enough flat colour behind an item you’d singled out, and therefore have to try an alternative.

This might not sound like much, but Empty. is far from empty. With stylish design, smartly conceived controls and an inviting manner, it’s an excellent way to spend a few hours being entertained on an iPad.

IAPs: Free means free. There are no IAPs and no ads.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Empty.

22. Builderment

Earth has run out of resources, so humankind has set up shop on another planet, to plunder its goodies instead. Way to learn lessons, guys! But how to get all the lovely items home? Teleportation! Only creating a teleporter isn’t easy – and the automated system doesn’t appear to know how.

You therefore begin with something more basic, building extractors to rip up trees and move logs on conveyor belts to a research lab. Once enough have reached the brains of the operation, new tech is unlocked. By ferrying raw materials through workshops and machine shops, they can be combined into new items, which prompts further research.

In effect, it’s like a real-time take on a Civilization tech tree combined with Mini Metro map ‘rewiring’ when you discover inefficiencies. And at first, you might find the game opaque. Getting to grips with the interface takes time, as does getting your head around the game’s central premise.

But understand Builderment being a no-risk game you’re supposed to experiment with and note the small details (such as directional arrows on buildings you’re about to plonk down) on the iPad’s large screen and things will soon start to click. Whether you’ll manage to put in the hours to manufacture ‘Earth tokens’ from a vast factory spanning a continent, who knows? But you’ll have a lot of lean-back fun trying.

IAPs: You can buy gems, starting at 100 for £1.99/$1.99 and going up to 3,500 for £28.99/$29.99. These are solely used to build decorative items, so IAP here is just about rewarding the developer if you like the game.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Builderment

23. Mosaic Chronicles

In all honesty, it takes an awful lot for a jigsaw puzzle on a screen to grab our attention. Traditional ones don’t cut it, lacking the tactile feel of the real thing. We’d sooner wrestle with real pieces on a table than digital equivalents on an iPad. Mosaic Chronicles, though, has puzzles that resemble stained glass – and that alone makes it a far more intriguing prospect.

The conceit is that you’re working your way through a story inspired by Olga Gromyko. Said tale is nice enough, but the images are the interesting bit. You get to peer at a completed one, before it’s smashed to bits. It’s then down to you to work with these pieces, which can be manipulated in free-form fashion in the main canvas area.

This is a game that needs an iPad. The thought of working through the puzzles on even an iPhone Pro Max fills us with horror. On a tablet, though, you can experiment, group pieces, and – hopefully – start snapping them into place. Fortunately, the game doesn’t require extreme precision regarding positioning, and so provides a helpful hand of sorts. But the odd nature of the pieces makes Mosaic Chronicles feel different from a traditional jigsaw, and should keep even aficionados of the form captivated for a fair few hours.

IAPs: Given that games are lengthy, ads aren’t intrusive here; nonetheless, you can remove them for £1.79/$1.99.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Mosaic Chronicles

24. Puzzle Dino – Egg Adventure

This one features a chunky dinosaur with an egg obsession. Alas, the gluttonous reptile is unable to seek out these surprisingly large and spotted delicacies alone. That’s where you come in.

Each of the game’s 40+ levels provides you with a bunch of actions you can drag on to the landscape – which is helpfully divided into an isometric grid. Press play and the dino dodders along, its route changing when stepping on any of the arrows now littered about the place.

Long-term gamers might suggest this sounds a lot like Dreamcast classic ChuChu Rocket! – and there are similarities. But Puzzle Dino is a more thoughtful game; and, notably, whenever the hungry dino walks over a guide piece, it vanishes.

This change significantly alters your approach, not least when levels demand you construct labyrinthine pathways that have the dino double back several times prior to reaching the goal. You’ll often run out of arrows and sit there baffled about how to proceed – doubly so when trampolines, switches and teleporters enter the equation.

If you get stuck, there are hints, which outline in which direction the dino should head. But this is a game you’ll want to complete on your own, to prove you’re suitably evolved and not some old dinosaur yourself.

IAPs: If you want to remove ads, unlock all hints or get a set of five ‘premium dinos’, each of those will cost you 99p/$0.99. Alternatively, a very reasonable £1.99/$1.99 gets you everything.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Puzzle Dino – Egg Adventure

25. I Love Hue Too

When you think of a tile-swapping match game, Bejeweled or Candy Crush Saga may spring to mind. Such games force you to think at speed or against a moves limit, and can frustrate by lobbing plenty of randomness into the mix. I Love Hue Too is essentially the polar opposite of such titles, instead inviting you to relax while tackling puzzles at your own pace.

Each challenge begins life as a harmonious whole – a number of joined tiles painted with a single gradient. Those that aren’t pinned then vanish, and reappear in scrambled fashion. It’s up to you to swap pairs of tiles, with the aim of making everything harmonious once again.

This kind of thing works particularly well on the iPad, its large display making it easy to manipulate tiles (especially when they get smaller in later levels) and also to spot subtle differences in colour.

It’s a simple concept, but one that really sucks you in. Get hooked and there are more than 900 levels to work through, and six ambient soundtracks to keep your ears entertained while your eyes and fingers are busy. And if you hanker for a little competition, you’re informed on completing a level how you did compared to the rest of the world – and the fewest possible moves you could have taken.

IAPs: You can remove the ads for £4.99/$4.99.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download I Love Hue Too

26. OCO

With games like Oddmar, the iPad shows it can stand shoulder to shoulder with ‘proper’ games consoles when it comes to platformers. And elsewhere on this list, Super Cat Tales 2 offers an alternate slant, where platform gaming is stripped back for a heavily touch-screen-oriented approach. OCO, apparently, doesn’t think that goes far enough, and provides a minimalist experience that’d make even Jony Ive do a double-take.

Each circular level in this sleek world spins about its centre, with your auto-running block only able to leap when you tap the screen. Timing is everything, in your mission to scoop up every gold ‘bit’. Do so fast enough, or using few enough jumps, and you’re rewarded at level’s end.

It doesn’t sound like much, but OCO’s sense of style and precision is a winning combination. Sure, you can brute-force your way through much of the game, but reward here comes in matching OCO’s elegance – in figuring out how a level in which you just jumped a dozen times can in fact be completed in a mere two leaps.

Beyond the game’s 135 levels, there’s potentially endless fun on offer, too, through the built-in editor. Use it to create your own OCO delights – or delve into the many thousands created by the online community.

IAPs: OCO’s minimalist approach doesn’t exactly gel with ads that pop up now and again between levels. Remove them for £1.99/$1.99. You can also buy gold bits for various sums, although doing so is unnecessary if you’re happy to progress through the game by actually playing it.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download OCO

27. Williams Pinball

There are two sides to Williams Pinball – the authentic and the fantastical. This app seeks to recreate classic pinball tables, offering realistic lighting and physics. As you bat a metal ball about, it flies along ramps at dizzying speed, and you must figure out the table’s rules and secrets, in order to crack the high score table. (Or you could read the instructions, but who does that these days?)

But also, this app is by Zen Studios – and if you’ve played any of that developer’s tables, you’ll know they’re animatronic treats. Here, you can optionally add such effects to famous Williams fare, resulting in an optimistic army guy taking pot-shots at UFOs in the sublime Attack From Mars, or a grumpy dragon belching fire in Medieval Madness.

At least, eventually. To get to that stage, you must play a lot of pinball, due to the unlock mechanism. This is XP- and currency-based, with you levelling up and winning coins on completing daily challenges on unlocked tables. The balance is arguably a bit off – it takes an _astonishingly_ long time to get tables to the fully animated level four. By the same token, you’re grinding by playing classic pinball, which is pretty great; and the challenges are often score-attacks with unlimited balls, helping you learn a table’s secrets.

Just make sure you pick wisely for the initial solitary unlocked table: Attack From Mars, The Getaway, and Medieval Madness are good bets.

IAPs: Coins cost 99p/99c for 25, up to 5,000 for £99.99/$99.99. Fully unlocking a table costs 250 coins, which is expensive compared to other systems, but two stars is enough for unlimited (albeit online) play. Zen also offers a £19.99/$19.99 limited all-tables purchase to newcomers. If you don’t see it, contact Zen through the app and the developers may activate it for you.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Williams Pinball

28. Salvagette

Bullet hell shooters, where your ship is tasked with weaving between countless projectiles, work surprisingly well on touchscreens. This is down to the precision with which your digit can manoeuvre your tiny vessel. That said, the sub-genre can be overwhelming for newcomers – and frustrating when a finger inevitably ends up covering something deadly during a vital moment.

Salvagette deftly deals with these issues by reimagining the bullet hell shooter as a single-screen, level-oriented turn-based strategy effort. Each level takes place on a grid. Enemy ships telegraph their intention to attack by way of a blue glow that gradually subsides. Presumably due to cutbacks, you’re lacking in bullets yourself and so must ram enemy ships while avoiding whatever they send in your general direction.

The ‘time stops while you do’ trick is reminiscent of the one Time Locker pulls, only Salvagette goes heavier on the strategy, because there’s no time limit on the moves you make. That said, there’s still tension as levels become increasingly packed with foes, leaving you trying to think several moves ahead, in order to avoid a pummelling. This makes the game ideal for iPad, the larger screen giving you the space to play and think. Add in a per-game upgrades path and multiple endings and you’ve an essential iPad freebie.

IAPs: There aren’t any. With Salvagette, free means free. No ads either!

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Salvagette

29. Golf Skies

There are no endless greens disappearing towards the horizon in this golf game. Instead, courses have been deconstructed and wrapped around tiny planetoids that hang in the air. Although the basic aim remains the same as in traditional golf – get your ball in the hole in as few shots as possible – the oddball nature of the courses demands a very different approach.

In normal golf, smack a ball into the air and it comes back down again. That’s easy to picture in your head. Here, each of the floating orbs has its own gravitational pull. Handily, the ball isn’t traditional fare either, and you can guide it left and right during its flight towards the putting green.

There are plenty of complications to make your job harder. Windmills, trees and other hazards inconveniently stick out of many planetoids, fish leap from lakes, and courses have a strict boundary around them. You must also be mindful that your ball can only fly for a limited time.

Success relies on memorising courses, figuring out the best route to the hole, and executing that sometimes labyrinthine path to the best of your ability. In that regard, Golf Skies is conventional. But the unique elements within make this one worth a download, even if you think you’ve had your fill of iPad golf games.

IAPs: You can remove the ads for £2.99/$2.99. Coins are available in batches of up to 1,000 (£3.99/$3.99), used to buy more powerful/manoeuvrable balls with which to lower your score. If playing friends on Game Centre, avoid new balls for best results, but the ads IAP is worth grabbing.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Golf Skies

30. Time Locker

Vertical shooters tend to be frenetic affairs, marrying your ability to dance between showers of glowing bullets and blast everything in your path to smithereens. Often, death comes by way of momentary distraction, and you’ll wish you could go all Matrix and temporarily slow everything to a crawl.

Time Locker suggests this wouldn’t necessarily help. In its abstract minimal world, everything moves only as fast as you drag a finger. Stop and the world freezes. Drag and everything comes back to life, whether that’s you blasting away, or your many foes homing in on your position.

A further complication comes by way of a universe destroying darkness that pursues you from the moment you set off. Lift your finger and your enemies halt, but the inky blackness won’t, eventually ending your journey through this surreal world. Successful ventures therefore combine short breaks to figure out a next move, followed by frantic scrabbling to eradicate nearby enemies and move yourself onwards at speed.

Last long enough and colossal bosses appear, making it clear this isn’t your day if survival was your goal. To counter this, green enemies drop credits you can spend on boosts during your next game, and blue foes ditch pick-ups that augment your critter’s arsenal – initially a rubbish pea shooter – with multi-directional shots, massive rockets, and more.

IAPs: You can buy characters for 99p/99c each, and ramp up your boost credits for £2.99/$2.99.

For iPhone and iPad (Universal) | Download Time Locker

31. Pico Rally

A perceived problem with gaming on mobile is the lack of tactile controls. Although some developers have got around this with clever use of tilting, swiping and virtual D-pads, others reduce everything down to players prodding the screen. Such one-thumb controls might seem reductive, but in the hands of canny creators, this system has breathed new life into tired genres.

One-thumb racing games, though, are rare, and yet Pico Rally shows how a single digit provides plenty of commands as you belt along. Your car automatically steers, and you press the screen to slam your foot down on the accelerator. You must time this carefully, so as to navigate the track efficiently, zoom ahead of rivals and take the chequered flag.

The overall effect is like classic slot-car racing, except your car isn’t restricted to a single lane. Instead, cars in Pico Rally jostle for the lead, not least when you’re careening along being pursued by cops more interested in beating you to the finish line than pulling you over for speeding.

The 60 tracks are diverse in terms of hazards and course design, and the physics feel suitably solid, yet keeps you on your toes as new surfaces arrive. The two-player mode is disappointing (no split screen, meaning you often find cars vanish off-screen), but there’s loads to keep the solo racer engrossed.

IAPs: You can remove the ads for a one-off £3.99/$3.99 payment.

For iPhone and iPad (Universal) | Download Pico Rally

32. Missile Command: Recharged

Although not lodged as firmly in the public consciousness as Pac-Man and Space Invaders, arcade classic Missile Command remains memorable for the right reasons. Fighting off an endless hail of ballistic missiles was exhilarating. And when your inevitable demise came, the game avoided a traditional ‘game over’, instead ominously stating ‘the end’.

So how has Missile Command been ‘recharged’ for iPad? Although it still has the same basic setup, this modern take replaces strategy with immediacy. Rather than choosing which silo to use, missiles are randomly dispatched from one as you tap the screen to aim. There’s also an upgrade path, so you can gradually improve your weaponry.

Old hands might grumble, but unless you’re dead set on slavish recreations, Recharged hits the spot. Its high-octane thrills are geared towards the touchscreen, rather than the physical controls of a real arcade cab. It works well on iPad, with the larger display dazzling your eyes with neon visuals, and giving you a fighting chance of accurately placing shots that trigger chain reactions.

Entertainingly, the game does offer one slice of 1980s authenticity, in the form of an AR virtual arcade cab you can project into the room. It’s fun, but a gimmick – holding your iPad in front of your face and playing is tough. In its more standard mode, though, Recharged is a blast of old-school cool.

IAPs: By default, the game gives you limited game ‘charges’ that are gradually replenished. A one-off £2.99/$2.99 IAP blows them to smithereens.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Missile Command: Recharged

33. The King of Fighters ALLSTAR

Traditional brawlers don’t tend to fare well on mobile, hence a tendency for developers to create one-thumb fare like Beat Street or stripped-back tappy fighters like Transformers: Forged to Fight. ALLSTAR is an exception – a game that while not an equal to console brawlers nonetheless brings across enough from the genre to pack a punch.

Based on the famous titular series, this game mostly features side-on scrapping, in the vein of classics Double Dragon, Final Fight and Renegade. At any given moment, you’re surrounded by thugs who are in need of a good kicking. Defeat them without getting walloped yourself, and you get to take on a boss.

Although robbed of the traditional joystick-fired combos associated with King of Fighters, ALLSTAR has plenty of nuance. The touch controls enable you to execute eye-popping special moves; and players can switch between a more automated system or manual control, depending on their preference and level of skill.

Like most brawlers on iPad, there’s grind, and the menu interface and currency system are both needlessly complex. But when you’re on the streets, battling for survival, the iPad’s big screen ensures the touch controls work well, and the visuals and action alike combine to make for arguably the best fighter on the system.

IAPs: This is a gacha title with the usual slew of IAPs. There are various deals, and virtual currency purchases all the way up to an eye-watering £99.99/$99.99. But if you’re happy playing for free, keep your wallet shut.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download The King of Fighters ALLSTAR

34. Kitty Q

You’re likely familiar with Schrödinger’s cat – a thought experiment featuring a moggie that can be considered both alive and dead. In this game, you meet a literal take on said feline, when it shows up on your doorstep. One look and it’s clear all is not normal, since this cat is half skeleton. It’s your job to help Kitty Q escape her peculiar quantum superposition.

This plays out as a cartoonish take on a room-escape game. You swipe around, looking for clues to help you solve puzzles. There’s a science bent to many of them, which is augmented further by a quantum physics ‘Kittypedia’ app on an in-game phone – just the thing to make you feel dumb seconds after considering yourself a genius for cracking a tricky challenge.

Given the game’s tactile nature – arguably almost to a fault, since inventory objects are retrieved from the cat’s stomach by tickling its belly – it feels tailor-made for the iPad’s display. It looks great on a large screen, and you get a clear view of what’s going on, whether you’re swiping about the room or digging into the phone’s other apps (including a handy messaging system and a means to accessorise the cat).

Only the game’s brevity stops it placing higher on this list, but miss this moggie at your peril.

IAPs: No IAP nor any ads here – free means free!

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Kitty Q

35. XOB

Although also available for iPhone, XOB makes most sense on iPad, whereupon it converts your device into a kind of bizarre retro-television experience you physically manhandle to impact the in-game world. In fact, with its lashings of CRT fuzz and visual glitches, you suspect XOB would be happiest beaming forth from an old-school telly; it’ll have to make do with an Apple-branded slab of metal and glass.

The game itself is essentially a path-finding puzzle-platformer. You tilt the screen, and your square block trundles. Tap and it hurtles towards the ceiling, whereupon the world flips 180 degrees. If the square falls on to its side, the screen lurches a quarter turn. Throughout, you must figure out how to get to the exit, first collecting the targets that unlock said doorway.

You might argue there’s style over substance here; and it’s true that in lesser hands, XOB may not have been anything special. This style of puzzler has been done before on iOS, after all. But a great game is a fusion of all its parts. XOB nails the puzzling, with smart design; but it cements its claim to a place on your iPad by way of a psychedelic aesthetic that’s excitingly fresh.

IAPs: Ads show up now and again, but max out at just 24 in total, and you can burn through those in the settings. Alternatively, support the creator for offering such a user-friendly approach by way of a one-off payment.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download XOB

36. A Way To Slay – Bloody Fight

This game’s subtitle – ‘bloody fight’ – is on the mark. Your lone hero begins each challenge surrounded by enemies looking to turn his innards into a bloody Pollock on the minimalist terrain. Your only hope of survival: slice them up before they can get to you.

That probably sounds like you’re in for a fast-paced fighting game, but A Way To Slay is, in fact, a turn-based strategy puzzler. For each move, you can spin and tilt the landscape to get a better look at your surroundings. Double-tap an enemy and you zip towards them and get all stabby – at which point all your other foes make their move.

Success depends on figuring out the order in which to dispatch everyone – no mean feat when you’re facing a dozen or so heavily armed knights, samurai, orcs or assassins. If that’s not challenging enough, A Way To Slay pits you against the clock as well – so once you’ve cracked a solution, you must try to pull it off in a handful of seconds.

Assuming you can stand the blood spatter, A Way To Slay is an excellent freebie, and one that cleverly subverts existing genres.

IAPs: £2.99/$2.99 gets rid of the adverts and completes all levels without delay. For £5.99/$5.99, you can remove ads and unlock all levels, characters and weapons. The first of those is a good bet if the fairly regular ads impact your enjoyment of this frantic and engaging game.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download A Way To Slay

37. Sky: Children of the Light

Although the critically acclaimed Journey now exists on iPad, Sky almost renders it irrelevant, taking that game’s lush 3D environments and exploration-oriented gameplay, and opening it up for massively multiplayer adventures.

In this particular adventure, you are one of a number of children aiming to bring hope to a seemingly abandoned kingdom. This is achieved by returning fallen stars to the skies. That’s quite a lot to lump on a bunch of kids, but they at least get to work together, tackling puzzles as a group.

This aspect of Sky can be frustrating, comical, flat-out amazing, or a combination thereof. You may find yourself before a door, which requires two people to open, and urge a temporary companion to help by way of your limited number of noises and gestures. Occasionally, someone will take your hand and a group of you will soar into the sky together.

This freeform nature and sense of freedom sets Sky apart. Yes, it can be irritating when you’re unsure how to unlock the next barrier, or make a jump when torrential rain and cold are robbing your wings of power; but few games give you such a sense of unbridled glee as Sky, when you’re sliding down hillsides on your heels, or just flying because you can.

IAPs: You can buy bundles of consumables, which start at 99p/99c and top out at £19.99/$19.99. There’s also a £4.99/$4.99 starter pack with wing upgrades, and season passes that let you grab yet more rewards. Our advice: play for free, and just chill.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Sky: Children of the Light

38. Hoggy 2

The original Hoggy 2 was an indie darling at the dawn of the App Store. This sequel is more of the same – only better. You’re a pink blob, figuring out how to munch all of the fruit within smallish levels that take place inside TARDIS-like jars (they’re bigger on the inside). Get all the fruit and you’re awarded a key; collect enough keys and you unlock new portions of a substantial map, in order to reach more jars.

Hoggy 2 impresses on a number of levels. Beyond its bright visuals and jaunty audio, it has an imagination and thoughtfulness about its level design. Although this sometimes results in dexterity-oriented arcade tests (often making use of the game’s ‘jump’ mechanic that flips you between ceiling and floor rather than having the hero briefly leap upwards a bit), most levels have puzzles at their core.

Jars are therefore peppered with hazards, switches, enemies and blocks that temporarily bestow special powers, and you must figure out how and when to make use of each, in order to progress. Add in customisable controls and a level editor, and you have one of the best freebies on the platform.

IAPs: Hoggy 2 has a single £4.99/$4.99 IAP to disable non-intrusive adverts that sometimes appear when you restart a jar.

For iPhone and iPad (Universal) | Download Hoggy 2

39. Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle

There are no happy campers in this sliding puzzler, which features horror flick antagonist Jason Voorhees hacking his way through a campsite and beyond. Each grid finds you swiping Jason around, who slides until he smacks into a wall, comes a cropper due to a hazard, or reaches a victim. In the last case, said unlucky person is dispatched in a flurry of cartoon gore.

For the faint of heart, there’s an off switch for all the red, although all the bloody violence is more South Park than 18-certificate film. After all, this is a game where the decapitated head of the lead’s mother provides helpful advice from the corner of the screen, urging her murdery son onwards.

As the player, your brains also tend to get bashed in, albeit in a rather different manner. As Killer Puzzle progresses, the challenges become extremely tricky. You must figure out labyrinthine routes to targets, in order to avoid drowning in a lake or getting captured by guards.

The mechanics still aren’t really anything you’ve not seen before, but the puzzle design is good to the point that this alone would make the game worth a recommendation. But the absurdist cartoon horror trappings, black humour, and polish make this a killer game in more ways than one.

IAPs: Eight of the 12 level packs are entirely free to play. Four require IAP, ranging from £1.99 to £2.99. Unlocking a level pack prior to completing previous ones also costs £1.99. Alternatively, a one-off £9.99 IAP instantly unlocks everything. Any purchase removes ads from the game.

For iPad & iPhone (Universal) | Download Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle

40. Threes! Free

Every platform needs a perfect puzzle game, and on release Threes! made its claim to be that for iOS. As with all brilliant examples of the genre, Threes! has at its heart a simple mechanic, which in this case involves merging cards within a tiny four-by-four board. But it’s the details that propel Threes! beyond the competition.

The idea is to match numbers. Slide a blue ‘1’ into a red ‘2’ and they combine to become a single ‘3’. Two 3s make a 6. Two 6s make a 12. And so on. The snag is every move you make slides every non-blocked tile on the board as well. If you’re fortunate or have planned ahead, this can result in several merges in one move; if not, you end up with a mess to clear up. And since after every turn a new card enters the board in a random spot on the edge you swiped from, planning is key.

It takes a few games for Threes! to click, but once it does, it never lets go. You’ll be dying to see new cards (each is infused with a unique personality), and will soon spot how reaching higher-numbered cards boosts your score substantially. The free-to-play aspect is also generous: watch a video ad and you get three more games in the bank, which can be built up into a substantial reserve.

This gives the game a fighting chance against a raft of inferior Threes! clones (most of which have 1024 or 2048 in their names) that litter the App Store, and sucked life out of the paid version of Threes! Our advice: stick with the original; you’ve no excuse now you can play for free.

IAPs: This game has no IAP.

For iPhone and iPad (Universal) | Download Threes! Free