Best new mobile games on iOS and Android – July 2023 round-up

Lacuna: Sci-Fi Noir Adventure

iOS & Android, £5.99 (Assemble Entertainment)

With a setting and pixel art style that will remind older gamers of the 16-bit iterations of the Shadowrun franchise, this is a cyberpunk noir detective game set in a delightfully dystopian near future.

When a political assassination stokes interplanetary tensions, your hard smoking investigator is called in to unpick what happened, a process that involves talking to everyone and using the game’s investigation mode to highlight easily overlooked clues.

There’s a lot of text to read, from newspaper articles to the majority of dialogue being unvoiced, but its great looking setting and unusual detection gameplay loop make this every bit as engaging as it was on PC and consoles, and just as prone to getting you stuck if you don’t spot the small detail you’re supposed to.

Score: 7/10

Teeny Tiny Town

iOS & Android, Free – full game £2.99 (Short Circuit Studio)

Building Teeny Tiny Town’s buildings requires a series of merges, where three or more tiles of the same variety pop together into an evolved new tile.

Each level has a strictly limited number of squares in which to undertake your merging antics, deploying a small supply of tactical powers – swap two squares, delete a tile – to correct mistakes or reverse bad luck.

You get a small number of moves per day for free, but you can watch an ad to earn more or pay to unlock the full game and all its maps, in this neat little puzzler.

Score: 6/10

What The Car?

iOS, included with Apple Arcade

There aren’t many racing games created by people who’ve never even driven a car, but this is one, its series of surreal automobiles having very little to do with the standard four-wheeled variety.

Instead, they have legs of various lengths and degrees of spindliness, or a jetpack strapped to them, lurching and leaping around imaginatively designed courses, each of which resembles an absurdist mini-game as much as it does a conventional race.

Graphically beautiful and abounding with references and Easter eggs, it’s a not-quite-driving adventure that’s overflowing with charm and wit.

Score: 8/10

Bloons TD 6

iOS & Android, Included with Netflix (Ninja Kiwi)

Bloons has been around since the golden age of Tower Defense games, and this outing – originally released five years ago – amply demonstrates why it’s been so consistently successful.

Chaotic, brightly coloured, and with an immense profusion of power-ups, heroes and abilities, which are gradually unlocked through a series of different levels and one-off events, it’s a long term challenge that’s extremely moreish right from the start.

The upgrade path means you’ll slowly start to take on higher difficulties as you gather more monkey towers to your cause, making for a compelling difficulty curve in this near-perfect genre exemplar.

Score: 9/10

Dungeon Abyss

iOS, Free (CyberMachine Studios)

Currently released on public beta, Dungeon Abyss is a promising roguelite dungeon crawler with cute, procedurally generated levels to be plundered and fought through.

Traps, switch-controlled doors, and various denominations of enemy lurk everywhere – along with treasure chests and breakable barrels. Once you have a successful run, you can spend any loot you secure on mixing potions and shopping with a blacksmith and magic vendor, before plunging back in.

The beta includes two 10-level worlds to try out and is, of course, completely free. For fans of pixelated dungeoneering there’s already a lot to like.

Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon

iOS & Android, included with Netflix (Yacht Club Games)
Although this features the Shovel Knight himself, and levels based on areas from the series, Pocket Dungeon is actually a match-three game, albeit with a few interesting twists.

First, although each move you make drops new blocks from the top of the screen, even without doing anything blocks still arrive of their own volition. Also, rather than simply scoring points, matching three or more squares does damage to enemies or tops up your health, making this a puzzle combat game.

Despite its random elements, it’s still mostly about skill, with progress and rewards earned through diligence and ability rather than waiting for a lucky run. And while it may not be a platform game, it’s still absolutely true to the Shovel Knight ethos.

Score: 8/10

Maze Defenders: Tower Defense

iOS & Android, Free (Johan Lindberg)

It can be tricky to engineer Tower Defense games for compelling microtransactions, because without perfect balance the genre tends to push players towards angry frustration.

Newly released Maze Defenders avoids that trap and gets a lot of other things right, its colourful turrets, characterful graphics, and chunky loot chests reminiscent of Clash Royale and making it a pleasure to look at as well as play.

It supplies a decent game of Tower Defense, even if it isn’t as accomplished as Ironhide’s Kingdom Rush series or Bloons TD 6 – the reigning lords of the genre. Although it’s always nice to see a new contender enter the fray.

Score: 6/10