There are very few motifs out there that haven't been beaten nearly to death by a deluge of games crafting variations of the same story. Zombies. Pirates. Ninjas. And yet, I've somehow maintained a soft spot for the story of the well-meaning robot caught up in something bigger than itself. Whether it's a brilliant point-and-click adventure like Machinarium [$4.99 (HD)] or the frantic puzzling of Robot Wants Kitty [Free], I can't say no to the task of taking care of something cute and artificially intelligent. So it's no great surprise that when I heard Teotl Studios was bringing their well-received head-scratcher Unmechanical [$2.99] from PC to iOS, I had my download finger at the ready.

Set in a mysterious, subterranean expanse, Unmechanical follows a plucky propellor-equipped robot on a mission to bring life back to a place long-forgotten. Armed with only one ability - the power to emit magnetic rays that allow you to carry objects, lift latches, and power switches - you zip through a series of interconnected rooms and pathways, slowly coming to understand what you're doing, and where you are. What stood out immediately for me was the way the game's vague narrative leant itself to a mobile port.

Scenes are shot in a purposefully limited field of view, forcing you to fly slowly outward to the walls of a cavernous room too understand its scope, take in its many machinations, and gain a sense of your surroundings. Looking down on the scene as it rests between your hands within the confines of a phone or tablet screen helps immerse you in the unknown, giving off the sense that you - like your spinning protagonist - are under the microscope.

This oscillation between a sense of both discovery and ambiguity is maintained in the puzzle structure, where Unmechanical truly shines. What seem at first like tenuous, disconnected elements of a sprawling space soon give way to a clear goal, albeit one that seems massively difficult. Yet by testing, investigating, and probing the scene, you see see a small, simple first step. When you take that first step, suddenly the path forward seems a little clearer, a little less uncertain, and a bigger picture takes shape: one that you couldn’t see before. Clever, tangible puzzles based around levers and switches soon take their place in larger, multi-part mind-benders that reveal their scope as you progress. Watch out for a particularly satisfying sequence that seems like it begins with a one-off test of refracting lazers, which comes full circle to deliver a hugely satisfying challenge many screens later.

The whole experience is tied together with controls whose simplicity have me torn. On one hand, the boiling down of the Windows version of the game - complete with its controller control option - to two key gestures, is hugely admirable. Resting your finger on the screen and dragging it where you'd like to go handles movement, while tapping the character turns its magnetic function on and off. The massive diversity that Teotl Studios eeks out of that combination serves as a compliment to the game's overall elegance, and very rarely feels forced. Things do, however, feel occasionally spotty in ways that can frustrate. A demand for precision when it comes to the magnetic field, and some imprecise hit boxing for turning it on and off all result in actions being repeated, or solutions being botched needlessly.

To that end, not all of the game's smaller challenges fall down on the right side of that divide between logic and experimentation. A handful of sequences feel altogether too rote, and the ensuing "puzzling" amounts to a lengthy sequence of carrying and dropping. Meanwhile, a couple roadblocks seem to lack any rhyme or reason, and fall down on the side of tiresome trial and error. Make no mistake: Myst [$6.99 (HD)] junkies will enjoy whipping out a notepad to do some detailed cataloguing, but the sparing nature of these types of puzzles makes them feel out of place and at odds with the game's otherwise consistent tone.

That, ultimately, is what helps Unmechanical rise above the kinks in its own machinery to stand out as a deep, satisfying experience: a tone and game world worth exploring. On a platform focused so misguidedly on "replayability," the game's gorgeous setting, subtle story, and (mostly) wonderful puzzles make it something better - deeply playable. Huge kudos to Teotl for flexing their acrobatic skills with Epic's Unreal Engine here on mobile as well, where even an iPad 1 is able to clunk its way through the entire game without crashes (though it's not advisable given the graphical dip!). Fellow robot sympathizers, players looking for a mental workout, or anyone bitter their iPad still can't play Machinarium: don't let this one pass you by.

Does anyone remember The Conduit? That ambitious Wii shooter that combined mystery and lore with with action fundamentals, and made a run at carving out a core niche on the system? Its developer High Voltage Software seemed primed to make a name for themselves on the back of that game and its sequel. After the tepid reception of Conduit 2 a couple of years ago, however, the talented studio all but disappeared into the contract work they were doing, with big name brands like Toy Story and Star Wars burying their recognition. Now, of all platforms, it seems like it's iOS that has given them a new lease on life.

From first-person shooter to endless runner, High Voltage's Le Vamp [$0.99] puts you in charge of the safety of what may be the world's cutest prince of the undead. Having just escaped from his crypt, the titular character charges headstrong out into the big wide world, obliviously looking for someone to play with amidst the dangers of sunlight, other monsters, and enraged townsfolk. Naturally, it falls to you to keep him out of harm's way...unless you're the real monster, because seriously: who wants to see this adorable baby vamp bite the dust?

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With its large screen and multi-touch controls, real-time strategy titles have had somewhat of a resurgence on iPads (and its smaller iOS brethren, to a lesser extent). Bitmen Studio's Galactic Conflict RTS [$5.99] is the latest such title, with a focus on tons of spaceships on-screen and the requisite massive scale of dogfights. While Galactic Conflict certainly succeeds in that regard, the rest of the game is relatively benign, leading to an otherwise standard real-time strategy game.

Following the last remnants of Earth across space, Galactic Conflict's campaign features a dozen missions that put you in control of the Terran Confederation as they strive to defend themselves from attacks by the Pyros race. Narratively, what little story that exists in the campaign is told through standard in-mission cutscenes. While I found the campaign a good way to get introduced to all the ships and upgrades, from a story standpoint it was relatively bland. Thankfully, a skirmish mode and decent multiplayer offering exist for folks that just want to get into the battle.

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Hacking isn't much of a competitive sport. There are certainly competitions out there like Pwn2Own, but they don't look much like Hollywood's idea of hacking—you know, the bright colours, trippy graphical interfaces and sexy music (and people).

But what if they did?

PWN: Competitive Hacking [$1.99] imagines just such a competition, a tournament that pits Hollywood hacker against Hollywood hacker. They style themselves in cyberpunk accoutrement and have names like Axiom and Cipher. The neurally augmented, the leader of an underground army of hackers, the government agent-turned freedom fighter—these are the sorts of characters that enter the tournament, and that's about all you'll ever know of them.

The colorful cast is a campy treat, but it's just window dressing for the main game: a head-to-head battle for digital territory. The game is played on a grid of linked cubes called nodes. Both players have one node to begin with, and the first to leave the opponent with nothing wins. This isn't a game of manual dexterity—you only need to tap a node to capture it. The time it takes to be captured is dependent on a couple things, namely the number of connected nodes you've already captured and which power-ups you and your opponent have in use.

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There's been a lot of talk lately about Block Fortress [$0.99] and for good reason. Rare have we  ever witnessed a game that manages to combine tower-defense, first-person shooters and creative sandboxing genres all in one game. Foursaken Media's Block Fortress not only successfully accomplishes such a feat, but manages to do it in such a way that truly makes its sum greater than its (individual genre) parts. There's a lot of love about Block Fortress, making it a game that really needs to be checked out.

Simply put, Block Fortress is a game about survival and defense. Players place a barracks on one of several pre-set maps, and are charged with defending it from hordes of enemies. Generally, gameplay is divided into two phases. The build phase tasks you to fortify your barracks with walls, turrets, and a variety of other attachments. This is also the time to purchase and equip weapons and items for your character. This lends way to the attack phase, which starts the enemy waves and puts you into FPS mode, letting you get into the action and supplement the defense of your barracks.

Meanwhile, while Block Fortress features three game modes, I found the most appealing to be Survival, which starts you off with limited resources and challenges players to build up resources while defending against waves of enemies. The other two modes, Quickstart (which starts you off with a ton of resources to instantly build the fortress of your dreams) and Sandbox (which gives you total control of building and enemies) are also great additions and provide entertaining alternatives with emphasis on creativity.

We've seen tower defense games incorporating FPS elements, but nothing to the degree of Block Fortress. The first-person shooter element is fully featured, with a variety of weapons to purchase during the course of gameplay. Meanwhile, the building element is also full featured, with a wide dearth of customizability in both structural choices and defense options coupled with secondary essentials such as power blocks (necessary for anything requiring power), lights (essential at night) and farms (allow you to replenish health). Sure, the FPS controls still suffer from the perpetual issues that seem to occur on touchscreens and the construction menus can be a little obtuse, but the sheer amount of potential and the fact that the game as a whole actually works far outweighs these minor nuisances.

As if the near limitless possibilities for construction weren't enough, Block Fortress's long-term upgrade scheme showcases just how much depth the game can offer to dedicated players. Each weapon and turret (along with certain building blocks) has the potential to be infused with modifications, which can be built with rare minerals that are mined and gathered during normal gameplay. Modifications have the potential to dramatical change the way you play the game, and are an essential component to pay attention to for players looking to truly succeed. One complaint lies in the relatively slow rate of accumulation for rare minerals (particularly at the beginning of the game) but an IAP shop, coupled with the optional nature of mods makes it less of a showstopper.

I'm a huge fan of what Block Fortress has to offer, especially when it comes to the sheer amount of potential strategies that can be employed. While there's obviously some tactics that'll succeed better than others (and with that said, I highly suggest checking out our previous tips postings), a lot of the appeal lies in being able to try whatever you wish. In this regard, Block Fortress has everything needed to offer plenty of replayability. In fact, the only thing truly missing is some sort of co-op multiplayer mode, and it's something that I hope that can conceivably be added at some point in the future.

Of course, if the appeal of Minecraft-like construction (or the controls of iOS FPS titles) doesn't suit your fancy, it's hard to imagine that you'll particularly enjoy Block Fortress. However, for those that are intrigued, Foursaken's latest is a game that simply has to be experienced. With plenty of depth, replayability and a great melding of genres, there's plenty to check out and enjoy.

In my fourth year of university, I took a class called Canadian Experimental Shorts. I wasn't optimistic going in (I mean, that title alone puts you to sleep, right?). On my first day, however, instead of handing out notes or instructions, the professor dimmed the lights and showed us something I had never seen before: a film without cameras. Barely longer than two minutes, it was animated entirely onto physical film strip, and packed with color that danced, twinkled, and exploded to the sound of classic jazz. Its name was Cameras Take Five, and it sold me on Canadian Experimental Shorts. Good news if you're looking for something completely original: Melodive [$2.99] is basically Cameras Take Five: The Game.

Fair warning: like experimental film, this one isn't the most approachable at first blush. Before embracing the game's persistent feeling of being lost, I felt...well...completely lost. Unable to understand the controls, not quite sure what shapes I was looking at, and disturbingly confused as to which way was up. Fascinated by the ambient noises and sea of floating jewels, I decided to re-read the instructions section and give it another go. And another. And then another. And while I can't say I ever fully came to terms with which way was up, it ultimately didn't matter soon enough.

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Liberation Maiden [$4.99] began as part of Level-5's Guild01 compilation, a collection of four downloadable Nintendo 3DS games made by some of Japan's quirkiest and most innovative designers, including an RPG from Yasumi Matsuno (Final Fantasy series, Vagrant Story) and an airport-management game from Yoot Saito (SimTower, Seaman). Goichi Suda's contribution is Liberation Maiden, a free-roaming, 3D shooter about a young woman who becomes president of New Japan, jumps in a mech named "Kamui," and throws off the yoke of some faceless oppressor called "the Dominion."

Better known by his nom de guerre, Suda51 is distinguished by his surreal, tongue-in-cheek, ultra-violent third-person action games, but Liberation Maiden isn't his first shoot-'em-up: that honor belongs to Sine Mora, a 2D horizontal shooter in which all the pilots are anthropomorphic bears. Liberation Maiden is more subdued fare than what we usually expect out of Suda, but the relatively standard anime-girl-in-a-mecha-suit motif is handled deftly in cutscenes by Bones, the animation studio most famous for Fullmetal Alchemist.

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I told myself I'd go get lunch after getting through one more of Bobbing's [Free / $1.99] 86 levels. They're short and sweet, once you know what you're doing. It shouldn't have been a problem. Twenty minutes later, I was finally done. Famished, but finished. I probably should have taken the break I promised myself—Bobbing is not a game to be played on an empty stomach.

It's cute, colorful and quick, but it isn't kind. Most precision platformers eventually let you get by on muscle memory. Repeat a level enough times and you'll know it in your fingertips. Bobbing starts out that way, but it isn't long before it becomes clear that Little Bobby Games has created something more ambitious. Each level becomes a maze, a puzzle that needs to be worked out as you go.

You wouldn't think it would be all that complex. Each level is only half a screen high, and there are only two inputs to work with. Tap the left side of the screen to reverse gravity and the right to swap colors. It's loosely familiar if you've played Polara [$0.99], at least up to that point.

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If you were around in the early 90's, surely you remember the Dream Team. If not, imagine a time when the sport of basketball was flooded with incredible players, and an Olympic team was assembled of among the best men to ever play the sport playing their respective positions. Unsurprisingly, they took home the gold. If an iOS equivalent exists, it has to be the team of guys behind the recently released Ridiculous Fishing. Vlambeer, responsible for Super Crate Box [$1.99], Zach Gage, the man behind our 2012 Game of the Year Runner-Up, SpellTower [$1.99], Greg Wohlwend who have made too many amazing games to list, and Eirik Suhrke, the maestro behind both Spelunky and Hotline Miami responsible for the soundtrack. Put those guys together in a room, and similarly, they're going to produce gold. What started as the Flash game Radical Fishing has since been endlessly refined into a game that I've been unable to put down.

The premise of Ridiculous Fishing [$2.99] is identical to that of its Radical predecessor: You start the game by casting your line into the water, then you tilt your device to control where your lure is in the water. Ideally, you want to get as deep as possible, avoiding all forms of aquatic life. The first time you collide with something, the music gets reversed and you start reeling in your line.

At this point, the goal is reversed in that you want to collect as many fish as possible, similarly by tilting. Anything that hits your lure gets picked up, and once you break the surface of the water things get really crazy- You actually catch fish by shooting them with whatever firearm you have equipped at the time. Each of them behave a little differently, so you might be tapping or sliding your finger around to kill fish.

On top of the basic mechanic(s) of the game rides a persistent upgrade system where you're earning money from your catches and then spending it on different upgrades ranging from new line to fish deeper, new weapons to kill more effectively and more. Of particular interest is the ability to add both a toaster and a hair dryer to your line to negate two accidental collisions to fish even deeper.

You eventually get a, err, chainsaw-type attachment to add to your lure, allowing you to dash through fish to get even further underwater. The way all of these upgrades build on top of each other feels great, as Ridiculous Fishing totally gives off almost Doodle Jump-like "I could play this forever" vibes while providing the whole "Aww man, I only need $1,000 more for this next item" to keep you playing even more. The combination is incredibly dangerous for your spare time.

I won't spoil it, but the game even has a plot of sorts told through a in-game faux Twitter feed called "Byrdr." There's even an ending to work towards, which then unlocks an endless mode where you can compete for high scores. Ridiculous Fishing is such a complete package that it's an effortless recommendation. It totally captures that gameplay niche of a game you can load up and play for a few minutes while providing a feel of progression that also makes the title suitable for substantially longer play sessions- Especially once you start to discover some of its secrets and other particularly effective techniques for maximizing your score.

There's no IAP to speak of, and the whole game feels like a cohesive whole. You need to download Ridiculous Fishing, that's really all there is to it.

There are a lot of themes that have been overdone in iOS -- zombies and retro-themed visuals, to name a few. However, one area that hasn't been fully explored is Greek mythology. Chillingo's Fury of the Gods [$0.99] looks to address that by combining well-known ancient mythology thematics with interactive tower-defense gameplay. While Fury's difficulty curve seems to lend itself a bit too much towards IAP, the core game is enjoyable and adds some nice touches to the traditional tower defense genre.

Putting you in the role of three ancient gods, Fury tells the tale of the human race rebelling against their former saviors. As mankind rises up and attempts to attack the gods, you'll utilize various powers and mythological creatures to repel the attacks and put humanity back in its place. Narratively, Fury sounds very much like a certain blockbuster movie series. However, originality aside, I still enjoyed the overall theme. The same goes for the visuals, which do a great job utilizing the Unreal engine to create some decent mythological environments. I only wish the game had more than just three locales, as each one looks great.

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Don’t cringe next time you’re gifted a bad sweater for Christmas – those adorable knitted trees and animals have feelings, you know. That’s if Forest Moon’s iPhone-only Knitted Deer [$0.99] is anything to go by, anyway. This runner brings a, well, knitted deer to life, prancing whimsically through purl-stitched meadows of floating skulls and circular saws. It’s deliciously delightful, in the same way as an awkward holiday dinner with extended family can be.

As far as controls go, you know the drill. Tap the left side of the screen to make our bipedal, antlered hero jump (or double-jump); spam-tap the right side to shoot-shoot-shoot. Various obstacles will keep coming at you, and your only goal is to either clear them or kill them. It takes awhile to get used to this deer’s super-high leaps and bounds, but once you’re familiar with it, Knitted Deer is rather engaging. You’ll pick up coins from fallen monsters, and these can be used in an upgrade system that feels admittedly under-implemented.

There’s no health bar, and you’ve got just two lives to spare – well, one life and one death, to be precise. When your happy reindeer slams headfirst into a barrier, he’s doomed to sweater hell with limbs flailing pitifully, the pleasant navy-and-cream color scheme giving way to a world of blood-red. Like Dante’s Inferno predicts, it’s a little more difficult down here than it is on mortal ground; hurled spears join the list of things trying to kill you, and the placement of barriers grows only more haphazard.

You’re not likely to last long. Most games will clock in at under a minute, which makes this the perfect timewaster for whiling away dragging moments at the bus stop.

The visuals and blippy music make for a beautiful aesthetic. While the chunky knit-stitch occasionally makes menu titles difficult to read, it’s been employed wonderfully in representing the deer and his danger-filled world – I never thought that watching a deer get his head ripped off by a bat might actually look rather charming.

The whole knit thing is the reason you’re most likely to pick up Knitted Deer, and it’s also the thing that’ll most likely keep you playing. If we’re being honest here, Knitted Deer doesn’t do anything new in the runner genre, besides veneering everything in yarn and adding a dark twist to our yuletide fashions. It does do an amazing job of exploiting its aesthetic, and it’s worth picking up purely because of that. Plus, just imagine the merchandising opportunities – I’m envisioning hell-sweaters, woollen deer plushies, everything.

Ravenous Games' Gravity Duck [$0.99] is the sort of game you already know if you’ve played indie PC gaming favorite VVVVVV – you’ve got happy pixelly graphics, the ability to jump's been replaced with a gravity-reversal mechanic that slings you from floor to ceiling, and even the same treacherous spikes litter the landscapes. Okay, there are a few differences. For one thing, this time around, you’re playing the part of a duck.

Our brave hero Mr. Duck is told, by a talking stone head, to retrieve golden eggs. The same head imbues him with the power to flip gravity. Why are there eggs and why does a stone head want them and why does he feel a duck is his best bet at retrieving them? you may ask, as I did. So this isn’t exactly the Dickens of iOS, but hey – you and I are more interested in the badassery of flipping gravity, right?

First impressions of Gravity Duck are unlikely to fall flat – the interface is delightfully uncluttered, the music chirpy, and the graphics wonderfully styled (small touches, such as our waddling hero’s “shrinking” animation upon collecting an egg, really add to Gravity Duck’s charm). In this altered platformer, the whole gravity-flip thing is initially a breeze for inexperienced players to pick up. Levels are short, and your goal is to navigate the spike pits, get to the end of each to pick up the golden egg, and warp through to the next level.

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I always find that the arrival of a traditionally non-mobile developer on the iOS platform fills me with equal parts excitement and skepticism for their prospects; wondering if we're headed for the next Rayman Jungle Run [$2.99] ...or the next Final Fantasy: All the Bravest [$3.99]. Case in point? Our announcement last week about Uber Entertainment's foray into iOS. The developer of Monday Night Combat is bringing a game to phones and tablets!? And it's based off of that awesome series? Excitement...Oh. It's an endless runner. Skepticism. After diving in and playing the title, I find myself surprisingly caught in the middle.

Set in the same dystopian future as Monday Night Combat, Outland Games similarly lampoons reality TV by introducing players to the latest and greatest bloodsport: combat running. For the amusement of onlooking millions, you're forced to dash through fiery  caverns and hazardous deserts, and battle your way through small armies of deadly robots for good measure. In your arsenal for survival is a mean pair of jumping legs and a handy assassin's blade, controlled with taps on the left and right side of the screen respectively.

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Slot machines and RPGs make good bedfellows, as the King Cashing series has taught us. Dungeon Plunder [$1.99] takes that combination and applies it to the roguelike, creating an interesting pairing. On one hand, the semi-random nature of slots works nicely in the otherwise randomized world. On the other hand, I like my combat to be quick, you know?

If you can get around the speed issue, Dungeon Plunder's slot-based combat is clever, just one of several smart features that make it one of the better roguelike experiences on iOS. It's even welcoming to the less hardcore among us, with a legacy system that means you make progress even when you draw the short end of the permadeath stick. It's lacking in the looks department, but that's just how roguelikes tell you they want to be taken seriously.

Not that Dungeon Plunder is particularly serious. The premise of an evil wizard hell-bent on sending the world into a new ice age is just a good excuse to send your sprite off to fight. That sprite might be a mage, a warrior or a rogue, each one as generic as the last. Frustratingly, you have to buy cosmetic IAP to unlock female sprites, but the lack of consumable purchases more than makes up for that disappointment.

One way or another, after you pick a class and sprite, a name, and a starting rune (a kind of permanent stat boost), you're off to do battle on a randomized map with all sorts of big bads and creepy crawlies. There is nothing turn-based about Dungeon Plunder. Enemies are static on the map until you bump into them, and combat is simultaneous. You spin the reels of the slot machine, then you and your enemy both take whatever damage you need to take. The one with hit points left at the end of the process wins, and the other one retires for good.

The slot-machine combat needs a bit of explanation. There are five reels, and a number of symbols that represent things like damage, healing, money and defense. You spin the reels, select as many as you'd like to hold on to, and re-spin the rest. Two or more of any symbol is a win, with more of whatever it is you matched being granted for each extra symbol.

This might sound like the results of combat are extremely random, but there's strategy at work. You need to pay attention, to focus on damage when your health is high, to keep your shields up, to manage your class's special abilities and so on. You can only control as much as the reels allow, but re-spins make the system surprisingly flexible.

So you toodle around killing orcs and brigands, wandering through random dungeons and collecting treasure. Then, nearly inevitably, you die. You get a final score and that's the end of that character. It isn't the end of the road, however. You can begin your next character with some of the last one's gold and maybe an artifact or life scrolls to heal you in a pinch. If you make it far enough you can unlock a new rune to add to all your future characters' stats. You also begin at level based on the highest one you've reached with that class so far.

Death isn't a total write-off, it's a step in Dungeon Plunder's journey. Eventually you'll make it so far that success will be a foregone conclusion—if not on this attempt, then on the next. It can get old, settling in for game after game of lengthy slot-machine combat, but there's always the thought that you might get a little further to keep you going.

Dungeon Plunder is a bit rough around the edges. Death could be telegraphed more obviously, the interface could be better laid out, and so on. All surface stuff in a pretty deep game. The most important thing is this: if you play, you will die, but you will want to pick yourself up and start all over again when you do. That's the mark of a good roguelike, that incentive to never give up, no matter how stacked the odds.

Kitties are cute and should be saved: this is the premise of Jones On Fire [$0.99], and it's a good one. These kitties are indeed cute, and you, as the intrepid firefighter Jones, really ought to save them. I can say with some certainty that they'd do the same for you.

The woods are on fire, and they're utterly stuffed with kitties. It's a bad combination. So Jones leaves the safety of her fire hall, dives out into the flaming woods, and runs and slides her way through each hazard level collecting every kitty she can. Then, after a brief breather in the hall, it's back out into the hellish flames, this time coming on even faster.

Hazard levels are an effective way to break up the monotony of an endless runner. Each one is tougher than the last, but the rewards are also greater. When you get through one, you pause to tally your kitties, multiplied by the difficulty you face, and then you hop back to it. When you burn through all your lives, the kitties drag you back to Hazard Level 1 to start all over again.

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