Best new mobile games on iOS and Android

GameCentral reviews the month's best new smartphone games, including a Little Nightmares spin-off and an auto-battler that's actually fun.

This month's new releases include the excellent Legend Of Keepers, where you manage rather than pillage dungeons; Post Hero, an inspiring addition to Playdate's games catalogue; and the surprisingly playable Archero-insipred Autogun Heroes: Run & Gun.

iOS & Android, Free (Nitro Games)

We make no secret of finding auto battle a strangely self-defeating game mechanic, but there are occasions where it works quite well, as it does in Autogun Heroes.

Rather than being fully automated, this takes a leaf out of Archero's book by aiming and firing for you, while you take care of avoiding incoming rounds and making your way to each level's exit.

Its power-ups feel consequential, skill is absolutely needed, and its touchscreen controls work well enough, which for a free game with ‘auto’ in its title is an unusually strong recommendation.

Score: 7/10

iOS, Apple Arcade (Fingersoft)

Hill Climb Racing originally came out over a decade ago and, graphically at least, the Apple Arcade version is showing its age.

Its gameplay remains savagely addictive however, the simple controls letting you accelerate and brake but also tilt your car left or right as your fly through the air, doing your best to stick landings while saving up cash for upgrades.

Coming complete with all its manifold vehicles, levels, and customisation options, it's horribly grindy but stripped of its microtransactions at least not actively unfair.

Score: 6/10

iOS & Android, Free (Yuzun Technology)

Build a pixel art cyberpunk cityscape out of components ranging from housing units to burger bars, then milk it for resources, each of which has its own countdown timer as it's manufactured by your city's denizens.

Along with resource generation there are missions to undertake, although they’re pretty basic and in most cases turn out to be less fun than waiting for resource timers to expire.

There's also quite a bit of dialogue, but it's not very well written and has clearly been translated into English, making it even harder to decipher what might be trying to pass for humour. It's an interesting idea that falls down in its execution.

Score: 5/10

Playdate, $8 (Scenic Route)

Released last spring, the Playdate console, with its cheerful yellow form factor and wonderfully tactile crank handle is a joy to use, its catalogue of games and ability to side load supplying a steady stream of indie innovation.

Post Hero is an adventure with a wry sense of humour. Wandering its monochrome town, you’ll try and deliver post but also get caught up in the strange lives of the town's residents.

Investigating the outside of a pizza parlour owned by two sisters in the midst of an internecine feud you’re told, ‘It looks like someone has vandalised the menu and increased the price of a slice of pizza to over $100, as well as added some crude anatomical drawings.’

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If that sounds like the sort of adventure you could spend time in, you’re not alone - it's the kind of quality entertainment not readily available elsewhere.

Score: 8/10

iOS & Android, Apple Arcade or £6.99 for Android (Bandai Namco)

Offering a cartoonier and less horror-infused experience than its console older brothers, Very Little Nightmares+ also gets rid of the puzzle platforming in favour of a set of tap-to-move puzzles, predominantly involving hide and seek.

That works okay when you’re under no pressure, but against the clock it's fiddly, with taps often failing to register. Some sections require backtracking and overcoming annoyingly tightly timed puzzles that seem designed to highlight the shortcomings of its controls, and those moments get more frequent as you progress.

The result is frustration, increased exponentially by occasionally sadistic checkpoint positioning. The shape of its isometric puzzles may be reminiscent of Monument Valley, but it lacks that game's inventiveness and refinement, its intrinsic clumsiness imposing upon the difficulty.

Score: 4/10

iOS & Android, £3.99 (Playdigious)

You’re the manager of a dungeon, tasked with keeping no-good adventurers away from its treasure. You do that by placing a combination or traps, monsters, and magic across a succession of rooms.

It's a roguelite, so you gradually earn experience that persists between rounds to strengthen your dungeon's final boss, although you’ll still have to level up minions and traps from scratch every run.

It has quite a lot of substance, and plenty of new units to unlock, as well as complex interactions between their various powers and attributes.

Score: 8/10

iOS & Android, Netflix subscription (Netflix)

Although it sounds as though it might share Legend Of Keepers’ concept, Dungeon Boss: Respawned is actually the microtransaction-free Netflix version of a more conventional dungeon plundering operation.

Assemble a team of upgradable adventurers, then lead them into a succession of brief, turn-based fights which you can set to auto-battle, your heroes triggering their own special moves whenever they’re ready.

Its tiny, incremental upgrades and skill-free gameplay do little to mask a massive ongoing grind, presumably in pursuit of yet more identikit auto-battles against enemies with slightly higher stats. It looks okay in a blocky, Minecraftian way but the gameplay is practically non-existent.

Score: 3/10

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