Best new mobile games on iOS and Android – January 2025 round-up
GRID Legends: Deluxe Edition – a console game on your phone (Feral Interactive)
Political satire, a triple-A racing game, and a host of intriguing new puzzle games are amongst the most intriguing new smartphone games this month.
There’s a puzzle theme to this month’s collection of new mobile gaming apps, from Boggle to Wobble, but the most interesting new releases include the portable version of Codemasters’ GRID Legends, a lavish new tower defence game, and the very short but very timely The Undeclaration Of Human Rights.
Number Salad
iOS & Android, free (Bleppo Games)
Join sets of numbers together to equal a series of target totals, the twist being some numbers are positive, some negative, while others act as multipliers. Also, you can only connect adjacent values, so forethought is needed.
If all that sounds like going back to school, you may well find the long-dormant parts of your brain – those associated with mental arithmetic – getting booted back to life, which feels like the puzzle-solving version of going to the gym for the first time in 20 years.
The game has no sound effects and you’ll need to watch ads to get fresh hints (which you absolutely will need) but for puzzle fans with a light mathematical inclination this will be catnip.
Score: 6/10
The Undeclaration Of Human Rights
iOS & Android, Free (Planet Jone)
You’re recruited by the General as his head of Human Rights Violations, to help get rid of those irksome, boring UN articles that get in the way of real progress.
Each one comes with its own simple mini-game, so trampling rights to justice, equality, and the ban on slavery happen with a pithy interaction spurred by some cynical words from the General – until he’s also deposed.
It’s about 10 minutes’ worth of light interaction that also craftily gets you to read the simply stated and utterly reasonable Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Or at least the first few, because it ends promising more episodes will be coming soon. While undoubtedly a timely piece of satire and a polished mobile app, it might be a bit of a stretch to call it a game.
Score: N/A
Nightfall: Kingdom Frontier TD
iOS & Android, free (Fansipan)
With a simple but polished art style, Nightfall is a tower defence game where instead of just building turrets, you’ll also be manoeuvring a hero around the map, attacking mobs, and rallying freshly spawned troops.
As is traditional for the genre, enemies come in waves, giving you time to build and shore up your arsenal in anticipation of the next onslaught. You can also spend gold on upgrading your HQ, defensive turrets, buildings that generate more income, and barracks to train soldiers.
Despite its high production values it’s hamstrung by a free-to-play structure that ensures you’ll either have to keep paying or watch at least one ad after every level to stay competitive, in a process that swiftly becomes more exhausting than fun.
Score: 5/10
Boggle: Arcade Edition
iOS, included with Apple Arcade subscription (Apple)
Based on the popular board game, Boggle presents you with a randomised four by four grid of letters, from which you need to make as many words as possible in three minutes.
Its lacklustre single-player modes offer no perceptible increase in difficulty, making them feel a bit dull and formless, but multiplayer’s asynchronous matchmaking is addictive.
On a purely petty note, the fact that after each match it says TIMES UP with a missing apostrophe rankles every single time, and spotting endless sequences of RAT, RATS, ART, TAR, STAR does eventually get repetitious. But in a community where there’s always someone better to beat, those might well be tolerable downsides.
Score: 6/10
Wobble wants you to play every day (Daniel Earle)
Wobble: Daily Word Puzzle
iOS & Android, free with no IAP (Daniel Earle)
More word puzzling, this time of an entirely more thoughtful variety. Wobble gives you a daily puzzle in the form of a small, blank crossword layout, and the ability to use each letter of the alphabet only once.
With Scrabble-style scoring that makes hard-to-use Q and Z more valuable than E or I, you’re incentivised to find solutions that include as many tricky but high scoring letters as you can.
There’s no time limit and it’s all completely free. If you enjoy wordplay Wobble’s daily challenges are a neat mobile conundrum to be unpicked at your leisure, your results rated from beginner to legendary.
Score: 6/10
GRID Legends: Deluxe Edition
iOS & Android, £9.99 (Feral Interactive)
At close to 10GB, if you want high resolution textures, GRID Legends demands either a high-end phone or iPad to make it viable. But provided you’ve got the hardware and the storage for it, this is a fully featured triple-A racing game on your phone.
Real, rather than CGI actors, feature in its cut scenes and do a solid job, elevating moments that could easily have been toe-curling, although obviously what happens on the track is more important. Originally developed by Codemasters, GRID’s handling model and vehicle physics are never less than spot-on, favouring a very slightly arcade-y feel.
The on-screen controls work okay in a pinch, and you can also drive by tilting your phone like a steering wheel, a system we’ve never found all that comfortable. As ever, it’s best with a controller.
Like its console older brother, the ‘nemesis’ inter-driver rivalry system doesn’t quite come off as intended, and it does drop the odd frame, but the port to mobile is another remarkable achievement for Feral Interactive.
Score: 7/10
Best new mobile games on iOS and Android – January 2025 round-up