From beautifully written sci-fi adventures to dizzying, action-packed races, there's something for everyone in this month's pick of the best games for iOS – get stuck in today!
Hadean LAnds
Andrew Plotkin
£3.99
Hadean Lands is a work of ‘interactive fiction’, or IF – otherwise known in the old days as a ‘text adventure’. In this type of game, there are no fancy graphics or animations to distract you: the story and puzzles are presented to you as prose, and you need to type in your actions and responses in order to solve puzzles and advance the plot.
As gameplay goes, this approach is practically prehistoric – so what makes Hadean Lands worth playing in 2016?
Well, first there’s the setting. You’re cast as a trainee alchemist aboard a magic-powered starship, recently crashed into one of the nightmarish ‘Hadean lands’ of the title. Your crewmates are mysteriously frozen in time, and you’re tasked with figuring out what the hell happened. Thankfully, the story’s blend of fantasy and sci-fi avoids tired steampunk clichés. The world is drawn with the skill and subtlety of the very best fiction writing, and the descriptions of characters, locations and objects are a true pleasure to read.
The real stars of the show, though, are the puzzles, which mostly involve various alchemical ‘recipes’ that you’ll need to tweak and modify in order to make progress. IF games regularly require a certain degree of experimentation to find the right solution – and here, you really are doing experiments! While undoubtedly tricky, the puzzles have a consistent internal logic and provide a lot of subtle hints and feedback – I’m no IF master, but found I was able to make steady progress. By the standards of the genre, it’s a remarkably frustration-free experience.
But the real triumph here is how well theme and puzzles are integrated. You’ll never feel like you’re picking verbs and objects from a list: you really are messing around with alchemical gear and observing the strange results. Before long, you’ll be uttering words of sealing and imbuing the air with mystic scents as if you’d been doing it all your life.
All told, Hadean Lands is one of the most innovative and surprising games I’ve played this year – IF or otherwise. If you’re willing to forgo the graphics and embrace your literary nature, hours of compelling plot and truly satisfying puzzling await.
Six!
GramGames
Free
Six! is a rather challenging game of balance, in which a hexagon is perched upon a tower of tetrominos and you must remove the blocks without disturbing the hexagon. It's rather like a blend of Tetris and Jenga – yet completely different!
You are rewarded points for each block you remove from the tower, but you'll need to be strategic about which blocks to remove, and in which order – or you could end up tipping the entire column over and losing your hexagon.
There are two game types in Six! to enjoy: the 'infinite' mode, in which the only limit is your skill, and the 'challenge' mode, which sets you an objective to reach. The challenge mode is probably the most rewarding to play, but if you're the kind of person who just wants to get stuck into it without limits, you'll certainly find the infinite mode a lot of fun too.
For such a straightforward game, things can get suprisingly tense when your hexagon is swaying right on the edge of the tower: removing the right block could drop the hexagon back into the centre, but you might remove the wrong block and collapse your supports without intending to! As such, you'll want to take your time plotting your moves, but time is a factor when your tower is toppling and making the right choice isn't always easy.
A perfect game to play when you have a couple of minutes free – and if you can make a game last longer than five minutes, please leave your tips in the comments section below!
Vertigo Racing ((
Chillingo
Free
There are plenty of racing games to enjoy on your iPhone, from realistic rally races to drag or drift racing. ButVertigo Racing stands out from other racing games, being one of the few that doesn't let you steer your car!
Instead, you control your vehicle in a similar way to a Scalextric car, controlling only your brakes and accelerator. This means you'll have to pace yourself as you drive, taking each corner as smoothly as possible so you don't lose your momentum before you hit the checkpoints.
Like most driving games, you're tasked with racing against the clock to complete increasingly more challenging courses. Reaching a checkpoint refuels your car, which gives you a higher chance of reaching the next checkpoint – and furthering your score for the level.
While the gameplay can seem simple at first, trying to stay at the optimum speed while sliding around corners is more challenging than it sounds. You'll often find yourself sliding out too far and clipping a tree – or worse, sending your car flying off a cliff and ending your run!
What I like most about Vertigo Racing is the graphics, which are truly gorgeous. Each course feels very three-dimensional, and you do feel a kind of vertigo when your car veers too close to the edge of the road. Another good feature is the ability to unlock and customise many more cars than just your starting vehicle, giving you a much needed boost with some of the higher levels. You can also spend some of your earned cash on new paint jobs for your car – and while this won't affect your handling or scores, it does give you a chance to really personalise your game.
Check it out on the App Store today – and see if you can find the perfect racing line.
That's it for September's round-up of the very best iOS games – but why not share your favourites with our readers in the comments below? And for more great articles from our Agents straight to your inbox each month, get your name down below for the Geek Squad newsletter!