Crossgrams, Free – [Game of the Week] – [Forum Thread] – If you want a word game that will absolutely break your brain, look no further than Crossgrams. It’s a hybrid of a crossword puzzle and anagrams, with all of the letters already revealed at the start of the game. You need to slide them into place, which is easy on small puzzles and absurdly difficult on big ones. IAP packs buy additional levels, but you could probably just play the daily mode for free for eternity, provided you’re up to the challenge of the hyper-difficult daily puzzles. -EH

Crush the Castle: Siege Master, Free – [News] – [Forum Thread] – Long before Angry Birds took the world by storm, a popular Flash game called Crush the Castle was doing the whole physics destruction thing. It never reached the type of popularity those birds saw, but fans of the game noted that its unique trebuchet-launching mechanic was a lot more fun than slingshotting. Now all these years later and developer Armor Games has created a true sequel to Crush the Castle, and not only does it bring the series into the modern era with 3D visuals but the game itself works in three dimensions which means the structures you’re trying to topple can fall towards and away from you, not just left or right. This added wrinkle, along with tons of levels to complete, makes this old relic feel completely fresh again. – JN

Evergarden, $4.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Evergarden is a perfect example of one of those puzzle games that’s super difficult to describe but you immediately understand once you play a bit of the tutorial. Effectively it’s a plant-based match four, where you’re combining different flowers to then cultivate other flowers. It sounds simple, but like any good puzzle game, they throw loads of wrenches into the mix both through different obstacles and by changing the size of the hexgrid that each level takes place on. The developers revealed in an interview that the game is a homage to their late mother, and holy moly did they nail this tribute. -EH

Fidel Dungeon Rescue, $4.99 – [Forum Thread] – You’d be forgiven for admitting you’d never heard of Fidel Dungeon Rescue, but prior to its extremely low-key mobile launch this year it was also very stealthily building up a fan base and earning critical acclaim from the gaming world with its desktop launch last year. This challenging puzzler has you guiding an adorable doggo through a dungeon, carefully planning your route one move at a time. One of the coolest parts of Fidel Dungeon Rescue is that it doesn’t try to explain pretty much anything to the player, and instead leaves you to find things out on your own. That might sound harsh but the game is built around a rewind mechanic that encourages experimentation, and as you work your way through the game many new mechanics and tricks are brought to light. It’s extremely satisfying and is a great game to pull out of your pocket and chew on for a few minutes or a few hours at a time, making it a perfect fit on mobile. – JN

holedown, $3.99 – [Announcement] – [Forum Thread] – The App Store has become home to a weird amount of these “launch balls at blocks with numbers on them that count down with each hit until they’re cleared" games, whatever the actual genre name is for them, for whatever reason. Holedown is the latest really good one of those, that comes with the added benefit of actually being a game that costs money so you’re not constantly inundated with ads and other garbage while you play. It’s also really hard to put down, as a really cleverly designed upgrade loop keeps you constantly playing until you’ve maxed everything out. I randomly got so sucked into this game that I actually needed the battery saver mode featured in the menus to keep my iPhone from dying. -EH

Homo Machina, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – You may not know 20th century German physician Fritz Kahn by name, but you’ve no doubt seen his work at some point before. He was the one that pioneered those clever infographics that showcased the human body as a factory with tiny people running it on the inside. Those infographics are iconic, and Homo Machina takes those classic illustrations and turns them into an interactive puzzle adventure. The developers actually worked with Kahn’s family to ensure their work was authentic to his own, and there is so much detail and charm bursting at every seam of Homo Machina that it’s hard to play this game and not have a huge grin on your face. – JN

Layton: Curious Village in HD, $9.99 – [News] – [Forum Thread] – The Professor Layton series of puzzle adventures always seemed like a great match for mobile, so it’s wonderful to finally see the games come. This is the first title in the series, and it’s quite a good one. All the head-scratching puzzles, annoying villagers, and weird story elements are here, all wrapped up in a shiny HD package. -SM

Pivotol, $1.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Radiangames got their start releasing awesome premium games on the App Store, but like many other developers shifted gears to free to play games recently. Pivotol is one of those, and it’s surprising how developers are still coming up with cool matching mechanics to try. In the case of Pivotol, you’re rotating groups of four blocks to create matches and it’s wild how much this breaks your brain and how you think of forming matches- Even if you’ve played a ton of puzzle games that might look similar. We also dig the Lumines vibe, but the neat matching mechanic is the star of the show for sure. -EH

PIXEL PUZZLE COLLECTION, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – If there’s one thing that gets my motor humming, it’s a good old Picross puzzle. I know, I know, maybe not the most exciting thing in the world, but it’s one of my favorite puzzle genres. Basically you use numbered clues that border a gridded playing field to determine which squares on the grid need to be filled in, similar to Sudoku, and once the puzzle is complete that grid with its filled in squares should resemble a picture. One way to improve on that formula is to include all sorts of well-loved classic video game characters and music, and that’s exactly what Konami’s Pixel Puzzle Collection does. Not only is it one of the better Picross games on the App Store, but it’s totally free with no IAP and only occasional ads to deal with. – JN

The Room: Old Sins, $4.99 – [Review] – [Game of the Week] – [Forum Thread] – You probably already have played an entry in Fireproof Games’ The Room series by now. If you haven’t, I don’t know what you’re doing but you need to fix that immediately. The Room: Old Sins is the fourth and newest entry in the franchise. While it isn’t a numbered entry, this puzzle box experience is definitely worth your time with creative puzzles that are built for touch and great audio design to complement the gorgeous visuals. -MM

supertype, $1.99 – [Game of the Week] – [Forum Thread] – The App Store is stuffed with word games and physics puzzlers, but I’ve never seen a physics puzzler that’s literally made out of a word game. That’s Supertype, and it tasks you with beating all sorts of physics challenges by typing a word and letting them fall into the playfield, with each letter’s unique shape playing a part in completing the goal. The best part is that in many instances there is no just one way to solve a level, leaving you to experiement by choosing whatever words you like or even gibberish words to see which one can get the job done. – JN

Tiny Bubbles, $3.99 – [Game of the Week] – [Forum Thread] – It really surprised us that 2018 seemed to be the year of matching games that somehow still manage to feel new despite color matching being one of the most overdone mechanics on the App Store. It is straight up absurd how much content Tiny Bubbles has packed into this premium match three, with additional gameplay elements being added every few levels that don’t seem to ever stop. A physics engine powers the whole thing, and the fluid dynamics of the bubbles makes interacting with the game itself feel like something you just want to touch and fiddle with because it all seems so real. -EH

Twinfold, $3.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – If you thought there wasn’t any room left in innovation of the genre of “It’s like Threes but," well, Kenny Sun proved us all wrong. Twinfold takes that familiar block sliding and combining mechanic but applies it to a dungeon crawling roguelike. It sounds like the craziest combination imaginable but it seriously blew us away how well it works- Particularly with the variety of gameplay as you choose between different abilities when you level up. Twinfold is a must-play. -EH

Valleys Between, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – This is yet another premium puzzler that came out in 2018 that had it been released in 2011 or 2012 would’ve blown everyone’s minds instead of just getting lost in the shuffle. It takes place on a hex grid, and the idea is to combine existing tiles in the back of the board which then expands down the bottom of the screen. Dirt grows into grass, grass grows into trees, and when you combine trees it creates new land. Combine a clever mechanic with an absolutely beautiful art style and you’ve got a real winner. -EH

Where Shadows Slumber, $2.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Where Shadows Slumber combines inspiration from two fabulous sources: Helsing’s Fire and Monument Valley. The out of the box experience is absolutely fantastic, but the puzzles do get a bit same-y over the course of the game. When powering through this game to review, this got a little tiring, but after revisiting it and playing it at a more normal pace we found it to be quite enjoyable. -EH

Zero/Sum, Free – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – With what might be one of the weirdest premises for a puzzle game, Zero/Sum has you solving math puzzles to … cure cancer. The numerical puzzles will have your brain in knots, and honestly, would’ve been enough, but Zero/Sum also has this ridiculously elaborate 80’s action movie inspired story with real human actors doing the cinematics? That’s the exact kind of overkill I can get behind. -EH

7 Billion Humans, $4.99 – [Review] – [Forum Thread] – Human Resource Machine brought us puzzles that stealthily taught players the basics of programming, and 7 Billion Humans expands on that formula in basically every way imaginable. This game was reviewed incredibly well on every other platform it was released on, and in our opinion plays even better on a touch screen. Prepare to have your brain twisted in every direction, as if you’re not used to the logic that goes into computer programming you’ll be thinking in new ways you might not have before. -EH