Much more exciting than Farming Simulator (LemonChilli Soft)
GameCentral’s latest mobile recommendations includes a roguelite farm simulator, a cross between Balatro and Scrabble, and Turnip Boy Robs A Bank.
It’s another highly varied crop of new mobile games this month, including the sequel to classic free-to-play app Archero, a fully-featured version of console game Sniper Elite 4, and a number of intriguing new puzzle title that will keep your interest for much longer than just a bus ride.
Sniper Elite 4
iOS, free – full game £19.99 (Rebellion)
Originally released for PC and consoles in 2017, and just as playable today, Sniper Elite 4 delivers a full complement of stealth-based Nazi shooting from a distance, complete with the series’ trademark X-ray killcam shots.
Unfortunately, as with plenty of triple-A ports, its touchscreen controls don’t work well enough, their complexity making it all too easy to squeeze off shots when you don’t mean to, which for a silent assassin is a problem.
Still, with a controller this is the unabridged Sniper Elite experience, and has its complete list of DLC available, although none of it is included in the initial purchase price.
Score: 7/10
Archero 2
iOS and Android, free (Habby)
Released five years ago, Archero had you moving an archer around its single screen levels, pausing to fire arrows, moving to avoid incoming fire, and acquiring buffs and health bonuses to prolong your run.
Bar a graphical makeover, Archero 2 is practically identical in terms of its content. There are a few new power-ups and extra events to play, and a truck load of inducements to spend money or watch ads, but its mechanics remain the same.
If you didn’t play the first game this may be worth a look, but we feel as though we’ve already had a lifetime’s dose of Archero.
Score: 6/10
Letterlike – will it be as big as Balatro? (Puzzelike)
iOS & Android, £4.99 (Puzzlelike)
Letterlike’s pitch is simple: it’s Balatro but with words. And anyone who’s played what was for many 2024’s game of the year will find that an alluring concept.
As well as substituting Scrabble rules for poker, it also comes with a little more humour than its inspiration and requires at least as much thought, given that you’re forming words rather than poker hands, as well as farming high scores.
It never feels quite as exponentially open-ended as Balatro did, and its landscape mode doesn’t work well on iPad, but it’s still a cracking word-based roguelite.
Score: 8/10
Dungeons Of Dreadrock 2: The Dread King’s Secret
iOS & Android, £7.99 (Christoph Minnameier)
Using the same top-down style and swipe-to-move controls as its predecessor, Dungeons Of Dreadrock 2 manages to add a few new complications to its dexterity-heavy puzzles.
The most important of these is the ability to move amongst different floors to solve puzzles, with actions taken above or below the level you’re on sometimes essential in unlocking a way to its exit.
We found many of its challenges abstruse to the point of virtual impossibility – with in-game hints the only way we could figure out what it wanted from us – but fans of the first game may be more forgiving.
Score: 6/10
LOK Digital
iOS & Android, free – full game £5.99 (Draknek)
Originally a paper book of puzzles, LOK has you finding sets of letters in increasingly convoluted crossword-style grids, as it layers on additional rules that you’ll need to infer for yourself with only minimal assistance.
Although initially quite simple, it’s astonishing how quickly complications arrive, its series of puzzles feeling like a set of systems that have been endlessly laboured over before being put in front of you.
There are hints to help prevent mental blocks ending your progress, which given the game’s refusal to explain itself is at least fair, and its puzzles strike an elegant balance between challenge and satisfaction.
Score: 8/10
Skate City: New York
iOS, included with Apple Arcade subscription (Apple)
From Snowman, the developer behind the wonderful Alto’s Adventure and its sequel, comes a minimalist side-scrolling skating game presented in 2.5D, so you can grind rails, kerbs and planters that aren’t perfectly aligned.
Its predecessor, Skate City (also available on Apple Arcade), had levels all over the world, from Miami to Tokyo, while all you get here is three parts of New York, but your skater’s motion remains pleasingly realistic, and its laidback hip-hop soundtrack is just as funky.
The touch controls work well, and while it’s not particularly complex or involving, it’s a nice bit of snack-sized phone Entertainment to while away a few minutes.
Score: 6/10
Super Farming Boy
iOS, £7.99 (LemonChilli Soft)
If you thought all farming games were twee, cosy and relaxing, buckle up. Super Farming Boy eschews peaceful crop cultivation in favour of a more kinetic, combo-based take on farm management.
Presented in a superbly offbeat cartoon art style, your farm labourer spends his days planting, clearing debris, and triggering chain reactions in his carefully positioned plantation, while at night the corporate ‘man’ descends on his dreams, buying out his crop yields and selling new tools to grow even more of them.
Its initially subsistence-focused gameplay loop slowly opens up as you buy permanent power-ups, in this tremendously satisfying and entirely original game.
Score: 8/10
Turnip Boy Robs A Bank
iOS & Android, £4.99 (Plug In Digital)
Sequel to the splendidly entitled Turnip Boy Commits Tax Fraud, our root vegetable anti-hero’s criminal enterprise this time turns to bank robbery, in a pixel art roguelite whose character driven mechanics owe a minor debt to Hades.
Each run sees Turnip Boy battling through different zones of the bank, twin stick shooter-style. You need to help him steal as much as possible, then head to the exit before the law arrives. Initially that’s quite a short process but runs get longer as you purchase better equipment.
The relatively compact map and swiftly (for a roguelite) acquired list of upgrades are nicely suited to mobile play.
Score: 7/10
Best new mobile games on iOS and Android – February 2025 round-up
