This weekend may well be the last weekend this year when you can go outside in shirtsleeves. Do you really want to spend it playing mobile games in your bedroom with the curtains drawn?
Damn right you do! It’s been a week of surprises, with major franchises popping up alongside diverting indie games, so whatever your tastes we’ve got you covered.
Stranger Things: The Game
This one came out of nowhere. We assume it’s just part of the marketing push for the imminent second season on Netflix, but it’s also a great game in its own right.
The graphics are all retro, like the show itself, and the game sees you exploring Hawkins, Indiana in the shoes of the show’s main characters. You have to collect VHS tapes, visit the Upside Down, and presumably run away from a monster at some point. Get it here.
Dragon Project
Are you a fan of Capcom’s world-beating collect-em-up Monster Hunter? Well, it didn’t come out on Android this week, so tough luck.
However, Dragon Project did come out, and it’s the next best thing. The aim of the game is to hunt monsters. After choosing from five different classes you set out to deplete the fictional realm of Heiland of its monstrous fauna.
Kill, acquire, upgrade – the three steps to mobile gaming addiction. Get it here.
Geostorm
Geostorm is a big dumb action movie starring Celtic beefcake Gerard Butler. It’s also a mobile game spin-off starring three different characters as they attempt to avert the weather-induced extinction of the human race.
An isometric puzzler with clean, polished graphics, Geostorm looks for all the world like a new entry in the brilliant GO series from Square Enix. It isn’t, but the resemblance can only be a good thing. Get it here.
Goon Squad
Goon Squad is a card-battler in which you take on rival squads of goons around the world and try to take over their headquarters.
It’s cute, accessible, vaguely Clash Royale-like, and it has lots of modes, including co-op and four-player deathmatch. Get it here.
Batman: The Enemy Within
Though Telltale’s Batman: The Enemy Within has been out for a couple of months, this week saw its arrival on Android.
The Enemy Within is another Telltale adventure, which means it contains excellent storytelling, voice-acting, and atmosphere, but no action to speak of.
The new arrival features the first two episodes of the five-episode series, the first being free and the second costing £4.59. Get it here.
DigimonLinks
DigimonLinks has been out for a while in Japan, and now it’s out in the west as well. It sees you constructing buildings on a farm and training Digimon in them.
Once they’re trained, you take you Digimon out and fight them with other Digimon, which sounds amazingly unethical but presumably isn’t. You can play both with and against other players, with certain actions only available cooperatively. Get it here.
Two Draw
Two Draw is a simple and ingenious puzzle game in which you have to draw lines on the screen in order to help two little dots get together and, we assume, have sex.
The drawing-on-the-screen mechanic is familiar from titles like Scribblenauts and Max & the Magic Marker. It works well on touchscreen, and this looks like a nicely pared down example of the genre. Get it here.
Blocky Bronco
Blocky Bronco is a colour physic-based casual game about trying to stay on a mechanical bull with well-timed taps on the screen.
The main problem with this is that the animations the game treats you to when you inevitably fail are awesome.
Watching a blocky cowboy ragdoll through the air and crunch into a succession of rigid surfaces is more fun than any game, and your impatience to see it is likely to restrict your scoring potential. Get it here.
