Best iPhone and iPad games
ADVENTURE & STORY GAMES
1. Banner Saga
Price: £9.99
Banner Saga blends ingredients from adventure-style text-based decisionmaking and turn-based grid combat. In any given skirmish, you command a squad of up to six fighters, selected from a larger caravan of personnel that ebbs and flows in response to your decisions and performance. The battles play out like Final Fantasy Tactics or games of that ilk, with each turn providing the ability to move a hero a certain number of squares and then perform an action, whether it’s a melee or weapon attack or a magic/support interaction.
Outside of combat, things are just as dangerous. You make decisions about almost everything, and you’ll pay for slip-ups. Even dialogue selections feed into how the storyline twists and turns on the road ahead.
The world-building is breathtaking, drawing inspiration and more than a little of the bleak outlook from Scandinavian mythology and Viking storytelling, to create a set of characters that are totally unlike anything else in gaming – yet surprisingly easy to care about. And once you’ve replayed the game to death, you’ll be delighted to know an equally impressive sequel exists.
2. Bird Alone
Price: £2.99
Although lumped in with adventures for this round-up, Bird Alone sits slightly awkwardly in that genre. Really, it’s more a slice of life the creator calls a “journey of growth and loss with a best friend”. Said friend just happens to be feathered – a lively and sweet-natured but lonely parrot aching for company.
Interactions are straightforward. The parrot will ask basic questions about you, and riff off your responses. Over time, you build up something of a rapport, and are invited to partake in additional activities, such as drawing your fears and writing poetry. What the parrot then does with these things is, in roughly equal measure, very touching and mildly concerning.
Although you can spend as much time as you’d like chatting with your colourful chum, Bird Alone is designed to be dipped into for a few minutes daily over the course of a few weeks. You’ll get notifications when the bird has something it wants to pick your brains about; because these interruptions are infrequent and the episodes endearing, it’s never a chore to return.
What you might not be ready for is the game’s emotional impact. What begins as something akin to a needy and squawking digital pet reveals itself as a production with hidden depths, not least when the seasons start to change and everyone grows older.
3. Device 6
Price: £3.99
It’s safe to say that Device 6 is unlike any other adventure game you’ll play on your iPhone or iPad. The introductory sequence has all the swagger and verve of the sassiest spy movie, but then it dumps you in a mystery, not knowing who you are or how you got there.
The really clever bit, though, is how the game is constructed. The narrative becomes the paths and corridors along which you walk, sentences darting around corners, or taking on the appearance of stairs and ladders. Dotted about are clues and brain-bending puzzles. Arm yourself with a pencil and paper – you’re going to need it.
The notion of a text-oriented game might not appeal, but Device 6 is not to be missed. This isn’t your parent’s (or grandparent’s) adventure – Device 6 is as far from Zork as GTA is from Pac-Man. It’s an essential, unconventional gaming experience like no other, which simply wouldn’t make any sense on a more traditional gaming system. In short, buy it.
4. Far: Lone Sails
Price: £3.99
The washed-out, desolate landscape of Far: Lone Sails suggests a world in which bad things have happened. But there’s also an element of the fantastical and magical as you attempt to cajole a rickety, gigantic vehicle across the barren seabed, littered with the detritus of a dying civilization.
Your ride is discovered almost immediately, and it’s a beautiful, baffling contraption. The massive form is reminiscent of an upturned boat, and yet it has two massive wheels on its sides. You leap about its innards like Mario, smashing switches to make the great beast rumble into action.
The game omits to tell you pretty much anything: it’s down to you to figure out what’s going on and what to do. Fortunately, there are many moments of contemplation as you move through the landscape, taking in its strange sights.
Punctuating this journey are various challenges. The first finds you installing huge sails on to your vehicle, which can sometimes be used instead of fuel. Later on, you’ll need to make repairs.
On iPhone, the controls are cramped (use a physical controller if you can), but in widescreen you do have the advantage of additional seconds to spot upcoming obstacles or rare collectables. iPad is arguably the better option, though, the larger canvas letting the visuals properly wow. Either way, the game’s a delight and suitably different from other arcade adventures you’ll have played before.
5. Five Dates
Price: £5.99
Full-motion video – FMV to its friends – doesn’t have a great reputation in video game circles. But rare titles buck the trend, including Her Story (mentioned elsewhere in this list), which utilizes video in a clever way to construct a twisty-turny plot you gradually unravel by using a search engine to discover and watch clips.
Five Dates doesn’t have that level of innovation nor even interaction. That said, it’s an engaging experience, with you acting as voyeur and occasional decision-maker in the world of Vinny, a London-based millennial who’s joined a dating app.
Things kick off with Vinny setting up a dating profile while chatting with his friend. Decisions made here do impact later conversations during dates, although it’s not a case of choosing wisely – more deciding on aspects of Vinny’s personality. Then come the actual dates, which are lockdown-appropriate video chats. They’re sometimes stilted, but full of humanity, and sporadically have you choose Vinny’s reply.
