Bottle Cap Blitz is a specific kind of game. It's fast, friendly, and free of the bells and whistles and constraints seen in a glut of App Store releases. And without a gorgeous exterior or extraneous additions, it still manages to reel you in and hook you with simplistic, addictive gameplay that channels the likes of Paper Toss, while combining the nature of the hit Fruit Ninja.

Aquascapes is an aquatic hidden object game with just a touch of aquarium management thrown in. It's almost like a simplified spin-off of the Gardenscape series, though instead of complicated time management interludes you can just sit back and stare at your virtual aquarium. It might be a little thin on features, but it's a clean and relaxing game that's perfect for the younger crowd.

War of the Fallen, Zynga's latest entry into the free-to-play collectible card game milieu, is precisely what you would, or at least should, expect from a Zynga game: it's accessible, very highly polished and has one hand on your shoulder while the other slowly reaches for your wallet.

What’s better than a cute baseball semi-sim  (look ma, I coined my own genre) for iOS devices? That same game with real MLB players and uniforms, that’s what. Hothead Games has its first fully licensed sports title on its hands with Big Win MLB, which is just like Big Win Baseball, except… realer.

18 Cadence is the latest work from interactive fiction writer Aaron A. Reed, creator of Blue Lacuna.  While not a game in any standard sense of the word, this “story kit” is an interactive experience that allows you to send more than just a high score to the world: you are enabled and encouraged to share your own story or poem with other reader-creators, and to explore what they have shared as well.  It’s a potentially endless cycle of inspiration and creation, originating from Reed’s own offerings.

I knew from a pretty early age that I wasn’t meant to be a golfer. Nothing against the sport or anything: I just seemed to be much better at finding all the sand traps and water hazards than getting holes in one. But now I may have finally found a way to enjoy the game without all of that constant walking around to retrieve my ball, as GolfStar by Com2uS is the closest I’ll ever come to playing a real live game of golf right from my living room sofa.

No sense beating around the bush about it: Epic Pirates Story, the first game from indie studio Epic Devs LLC, borrows heavily from the popular Kairosoft model, with colorful pixel art graphics, cute, chatty characters and simplified combat and city management mechanics. In fact, the game's description on Google Play specifically mentions that it will remind you of Kairosoft's work and if you're familiar with that particular oeuvre, it will.

On paper, a lead character named Mr. Bulb and gameplay that isn’t far removed from Angry Birds doesn’t scream automatic purchase, but underneath familiar objectives is a challenging and aesthetically arresting game. Despite its miniaturized world, Stay Alight! stands tall among the best iPhone titles, refusing to skimp on polish, creativity, or style. The trickiest bank shots may give many a player pause, but few games demand continued dedication just to see their next stage.

Endless runners have a tendency to be rather same-y, even despite aesthetics. Sure, a few twists may be integrated, but they tend to run into the same general problems. And while Ninja Slash may not successfully evade all of them, at least it makes an honest effort to keep things fresh.

Feeling a bit logy after crunching up all those sweets in Candy Crush Saga? Maybe it’s time for you to get a little bit of fresh air and healthy food down on the farm. Farm Heroes Saga is a new match-3 game from King that plays like its hugely popular predecessor. In other words, it’s cute, and it’s highly addictive. Here’s something new, though: Farm Heroes Saga might be the only game where ducklings and flowers are capable of sending you into a murderous rage.

If there’s one thing that should be added to life’s list of certainties alongside death and taxes, it’s the fact that dungeons are going to have monsters that need slaying. Three Dungeon Hunter games didn’t get rid of them, so Gameloft is giving it another go with Dungeon Hunter 4, a free-to-playaction-RPG that takes the series back to its roots while attempting with mixed success to add some new ingredients to the monster-fighting stew.

Fruit Blast Mania from TeamLava combines two of gamer’s biggest interests to make for quite the juicy equation: block-matching games, and tons of delicious fruit. But while the game’s gleaming presentation and fun core mechanics could have made this one an easy App Store favorite, a ridiculous freemium model transforms the game from that shiny red apple displayed on the kitchen counter, to the old bruised banana that fell behind my desk over a week ago.

An ancient house and a group of strangers brought together under mysterious circumstances: that's the set-up for any number of horror movies, but it's also the backdrop for something less sinister and more intellectually stimulating in The Time Tribe. This free-to-play, point-and-click adventure is suitable for all but the youngest gamers, and it uses a variety of means to tell a pretty engrossing story.

The name “Pocket Village” evokes an image of a peaceful hamlet with sunny mornings, rolling hills, and close neighbors (and closer cousins, cough cough). A nice place to visit, perhaps, even if you’re just rolling through to grab a hamburger before hitting the Interstate and gunning it to Disneyland. However, wooga’s Pocket Village is actually an iOS town-building game that demands some pretty hardcore labor from its adorable population. It’s easy to feel bad for the little guys, but don’t worry; Pocket Village moves so slowly that it won’t be long before you abandon its population, anyway.

As movies like The Silence of the Lambs have melodramatically shown us, being an FBI agent is no picnic; still, we love being party to the danger this singular profession invites. New hidden object game Strange Cases: The Faces of Vengeance gives us the chance to once again join the ranks of the armed-and-trenchcoat-ed as they pursue a vengeful villain. Sadly, due to a game concept and story that feel incomplete, the experience is largely underwhelming.

Playing multiplayer card games can often be a mixed bag. For example; great artwork and fun mechanics are sometimes easily forgotten when squaring off against an opponent with a seemingly infinite supply of powerful cards. This is the main reason I can appreciate Might & Magic: Duel of Chamions. Even the toughest cards can be brought down with some careful planning.

Royal Gems initially appears to be a lovely, bright match-three game that will suck away all of your free time like so many other games have been able to do. While the terms “lovely” and “bright” certainly do apply to the final product, Royal Gems unfortunately offers a disappointing experience that feels more like a Facebook game than a PC download title.

Have you ever been hypnotized before? It seems a little scary at first, but it’s also a proven psychiatric method of bringing all those inner demons to light, and working through any hidden issues you may have. Well Maya, the psychiatrist heroine of Hypnosis, swears by this method, and she’s prepared to use it every chance that she gets to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her colleague and ex-boyfriend, Dr. Blanche, in this dreamy and hypnotic point-and-click adventure.

Thanks to the first James Bond novel and the Hamburger Royale (not actually the Royale with Cheese, sorry Vincent), the word “Royale” has a nice pop culture tradition going for it. Developer Three of a Kind is trying to add to it with Poker Royale, a free iOS poker app designed to get you playing poker, preferably with friends, with as little hassle as possible. It does that admirably, but not a whole lot else.

I love nice surprises, and indie racer/shmup Pressure is certainly one of those. With enemy vehicles all around you, all guns blazing in your general direction, you'd think that picking bullets out of your teeth would be all that's left of your career in living.