Fortunately, the App Store offers loads of gaming greats for you, even if you’ve forked out your last bit of cash to buy the iPad itself. If you’ve got some cash spare, you can also check our our full guide to the best iPad games, which include paid options, and those with in-app purchases.
And should you want more, one-off IAP payments let you remove the ads, unlock a speed-oriented Pro mode, and explore additional pattern packs.
But Mr. Traffic adds character and flair rarely seen in this kind of game, from its gorgeous cartoon visuals to random incidents where you’ll see UFOs blaze across the screen or ghosts being pursued by a famous station wagon.
On iPad, it’s particularly good, with the squarish display affording you more warning regarding vehicles appearing from the side, and the larger screen area helping with accuracy when you’re dealing with a dozen impatient virtual drivers. The game’s speed, odd control method, and level design – peppering the landscape with explosive crates full of bees, spike-filled corridors, and literal pinball table components – make for frenetic and chaotic play.
There’s longevity, too, in being able to upgrade your chicken (so it can poop bombs and gain a downwards-smash move), and procedurally generated levels that ensure you never quite get the same game twice. Astalo finds your tiny fighter atop a square hunk of land with sheer drops at every edge. But story and endless modes alike provide plenty of replay value, and the game works especially well on iPad due to your finger not covering up half the screen while you swipe for your very survival. Oddman is a high-intensity brawler, set in a world of strange bouncy protagonists, floating islands, and instant death.
Although you’re hardly equipped with a wide range of moves – nor any real semblance of subtlety – Oddman attempts to add variety to your life. You can pit your swiping digit against a friend, on same-device two-player brawls that make good use of the iPad display’s relative acres.
Free iPad game The King of Fighters ALLSTAR comes across like a restless take on Double Dragon or Final Fight. On iPhone, this game’s button-mashing is fiddly, but it works well on the iPad’s larger display, which also lets the lovely visuals shine.
There are three modes to pit your tubular terror against: Classic allows endless respawns so you can learn the ropes and build tactics; Gold Rush is all about obliterating other snakes to turn them into gold to grab; and Battle Royale has you take out the opposition while the arena gradually shrinks to a tiny island surrounded by lava.
Only the controls and physics – like in Colin Lane’s other games – make for an anarchic experience where characters bounce around like they’re on trampolines.
Through daily challenges, you’ll then slowly acquire the parts to gradually unlock other tables – unless you fancy splashing out on IAP to buy them outright. But whereas the older title was an endless test that relentlessly ramped up the panic, this newer game feels more strategic and bite-sized.
Beat Street is a love letter to classic scrolling brawlers, where a single, determined hero pummels gangs of evil-doers and saves the day. In Beat Street, giant vermin are terrorizing Toko City, and will only stop when you’ve repeatedly punched them in the face.
The iPad’s large display shows off the great pixel art, but the fighty gameplay’s the real star – from you taking on far too many opponents at once to gleefully beating one about the head with a baseball bat. The speed and snap twists make for a disorienting experience, but the game’s design is extremely smart where, most notably, each challenge is finite and predefined. It’s not often you’re frantically directing a burger in an abstract fever dream of milkshakes and ketchup bottles, nor a skull in a world of flames, lava, and guitars. Silly Walks is a one-thumb arcade game, featuring wobbling foodstuffs braving the hell of nightmarish kitchens (and, later, gardens and gyms), in order to free fruity chums who’ve been cruelly caged.
Although early levels only require you to not fall off of tables, pretty soon you’re dealing with meat pulverizers, hero-slicing knives, and psychotic kitchenware in hot pursuit. It’s admittedly all a little one-level – Silly Walks reveals almost all in its initial levels – but smart design, superb visuals, and a unique control method make it well worth a download.
Top 25 best iPad games you can play for free in 2023
From classical games, such as Jetpack Joyride (which takes us back more than a decade), to new and exciting action-packed creations like Apex Legends Mobile and more, there is surely something out there for you to enjoy. In CRK you can, of course, choose to spend as much real-life money as you want, but you won’t actually need to in order to progress, make upgrades, and enjoy the gameplay because you’ll get a ton of Crystals for free from the redeem codes as well as by clearing out the levels. The rest applies to all the other titles we’ve picked here, so we recommend that you check them all out, and find one that you can enjoy solo or together with your friends.
Dive into anything
I’ve played hundreds of hours on my old 6th gen iPad and I loved it, I’ve never had such a great mobile gaming experience. I already playe a lot of Vampire Survivors, which is a great game but it was pretty good even on a phone.
I was looking for something that can really utilize the big screen as good as PUBG does without the need for thrill from the FPS game.
I stumbled upon MtG game that looks fun, even though the reviews are saying it’s pay to play, I want to give it a try.
Fun things to do on your iPad
Fun things to do on your iPad Peter · Follow Published in iPhone and Gadgets · 4 min read · Feb 5 — Share Ipad’s are amazing handy devices and it’s usability is more versatile than you might think.
In this article i want to share some fun things with you which you can use your iPad for. It has been a long time since i left college, but I still take notes.
You don’t waste any paper when you use your iPad to take notes. You do need an Apple pen to make notes, but trust me it’s very handy.
The best note-taking app for the iPad to make the perfect notes are listed here;
What To Do With an Old iPad? 10 Clever Ways To Reuse It
If you want to repurpose your old iPad, you can mount the Apple tablet to your dashboard and monitor the traffic while driving. Dashboard cameras have become increasingly popular because users can protect themselves from fraud during traffic incidents. Maybe you prefer to have your music library inside the device, or you may mount the iPad so your kids or other companions can watch a movie, play video games, or listen to their favorite songs while you drive. Or, it can be used as an entertainment/navigation system in the car, and you can mount it near the driver’s seat to access the navigation feature on a big screen. The most important thing to turning an old iPad into a home security camera is finding a power source and protecting it from natural elements. The sidecar can be used wirelessly and accessed by clicking the AirPlay icon in the menu bar on your Mac and selecting your iPad.
Another way you can repurpose your old iPad into a monitor is by using a Wi-Fi connection and Apple’s Air Display. It works with a free desktop client (available for both PC and Mac) over a Wi-Fi network to turn your iPad into a second (or third or fourth) monitor.
Don’t forget to browse and download a cooking app to help elaborate your favorite dish with built-in timers, check conversion charts, and quickly swipe through information without dealing with paper cookbooks or notes. The good news is that e-books are much more affordable than physical copies, and you can find books that are not available on paper anymore.
The iPad can also enhance your experience with features like highlighting, annotations and uploading your favorite passages to the cloud for later reference. As you may know, Apple has robust parental controls to track how much time the kids spend on the device and restrict the content they can play, watch, or listen to.
Start by cleaning your iPad and arranging it upright on your nightstand with the aid of a stand or case. Once you’ve downloaded your app of choice, tweak the settings to your liking, ensuring that the iPad’s brightness is suitable for nighttime use and that Do Not Disturb is activated.
Lastly, keep your iPad plugged in overnight so you’re not greeted with a dead battery come morning. With these simple steps, your old iPad gets a second life as a modern, customizable nightstand alarm clock, proving old tech can indeed learn new tricks.
If you cannot find a way to repurpose your old iPad—or if we didn’t convince you—then the best option is to trade it for a new or refurbished iPad. A trade-in is an excellent way to put your efforts into reducing the overflowing e-waste and boosting the circular economy while getting a fully working product at a discounted price. 2020 release Excellent condition, by Apple Store $269 new $329 -18% View deal iPad Air 1 Wi-Fi + Cellular 2013 release Fair condition, by Back Market $60 new $829 -93% View deal Compare all Refurbished iPad
The best free games for iPhone and iPad
To help you find your next mobile obsession, we outline our new favourites below and then group older choices into sections, starting with racers, ending with puzzlers and taking in pretty much everything you can imagine on the way. The trick is to rack up massive scores by chaining packages, which means never throwing a letter back into the stack. And if you like it, the same creator offers an equally tasty treat in the form of the similar but deeper Coolson’s Chocolate Alphabetfor iPad. Asphalt isn’t bothered by trivial concerns such as an actual car’s inability to fly hundreds of metres through the air, or drift endlessly around gloriously sweeping bends; instead, it’s all about zooming around beautifully rendered and inventive courses, occasionally smashing rivals into a wall, just because you can. But it works wonderfully, providing many hours of exhilarating racing, making it one of the best free games without you having to dip into your wallet. And yet it all seems so simple at first – a top-down racer, where you zoom about minimalist circuits, gaining speed from scraping track edges. But the racing’s only part of what’s soon revealed as an expansive neon-infused adventure, featuring a deranged AI, a world that exists beyond the screen, and gravity-battling sections that recall classic 8-bit title Thrust. One course features a beach with giant crabs you can send flying with a bash; another has a huge dragon keen on turning you into a flambé special. You get up to two swipes per turn, and some handy boost power, to blaze past your foe, and then wait a bit to see how they respond. And for those moments when you just want to barrel along for a bit, rather than waiting for someone else to take their turn, there are speedrun challenges and daily collect ’em up races. The gameplay’s side-on now, with one or two rocket-powered cars on each side blazing around an arena, aiming to smack a gigantic ball into huge goalmouths. It’s hugely compelling and, at the time of writing, devoid of the skeevy garbage usually found in mobile games of its ilk.
Some mean-spirited cut scenes are a mis-step, but otherwise it makes you grin with absurd pitch customisation (mud pits; meteor strikes) or the manner in which game have almost as much violence as Speedball 2, with the refs surprisingly reticent to hand out cards. It’s a larger-than-life side-on mini-golf extravaganza, with you thwacking balls about giant forests, space stations distinctly lacking in gravity, and strange fortresses with a suspiciously high deadly laser count. The single-player game’s fun, but SSMG 3 comes into its own in multiplayer, whether you’re taking the more sedate turn-by-turn route or ball-smacking at speed in the frenetic race mode. Note that the free version has some restrictions (limited courses; fewer simultaneous turn-based games), but there’s still plenty of genuinely crazy golf here to take a swing at.
Its zen-like action takes place deep underground, on procedurally generated cartoonish courses as you swing and putt your way to the centre of the Earth. Pumped BMX Flow Play Following on from previous entries in the Pumped BMX series, Flow finds your frantically pedalling protagonist soaring into the air by way of ludicrously high ramps, in order to perform all manner of show-off stunts – and then ideally landing safely (i.e. not on their head) to do it all again and again.
In gaming, the experience is often ruined by the computer opponent, given that its ‘brain’ can calculate perfect shots in a fraction of the time it takes you to blink. Pocket Run Pool deftly deals with this by eradicating opponents entirely, leaving a solo effort based on maths, strategy, and quite a lot of aiming.
If that’s not weird enough, spooky between-level areas involve cryptic chats with spectral folks – and bring yet more opportunities for death.
Having broken out from its cage, the leapy hero finds itself blazing through single-screen obstacle courses full of jerboa-killing hazards. You get the sense this speedy platformer isn’t taking itself seriously on realising its madcap hero can stick to walls using its massive tongue. With its chunky retro pixels and old-school platforming action, you might initially think a hitherto unknown 16-bit classic has scrabbled into your iPhone.
Best of all, you can dash, leap, wall-jump, and blow up aliens using massive yellow tanks, all by using the clever two-thumb control system. Add to that a level editor, procedurally generated audio, and eye-popping visuals reminiscent of modern art, and you’ve got yourself a winner.
Complicating matters is a trio of coloured buttons, used to toggle hazards, bridges, and helicopter rotors that can help and hinder.
This is a tense, fast-paced, frustrating, and entertaining platform game that arrives on your device with a bang – and whose spark won’t die until you’re done. Fortunately, this pigeon can do pretty amazing things in the air, slipstreaming chums, obliterating drones, and weaving through tunnels and between buildings. But once it clicks, and you master the wonderful tilt controls, this one will stay even more welded to your device than pigeon poop to the roof of your car.
Whether you’re racing after a demented machine in an underground tunnel, or soaring above the clouds on a trap-infested snake-like road, Power Hover: Cruise is a compelling, essential game. If you were around at the dawn of the smartphone revolution, you’ll recall how Doodle Jump had countless iPhone users glued to the screen, as devices were tilted left and right in an effort to help a strange four-legged protagonist climb endless heights. That it’s still compelling is testament to the original game’s elegance and smarts, although you’ll need to go all-in to amass the ridiculous number of collectable stars required to unlock the later levels. But although the songs are jolly and the visuals cartoonish, this title has the smile of a demon, ready to tear you throat out with sheer ferocity.
Stick with it and you’ll find a grin-inducing title perfect for fitting into odd moments, along with confirming without doubt your reactions aren’t what they used to be. More importantly, this game layers on madcap extras, like in developer Dumpling’s superb avoid ’em up Dashy Crashy.
It’s a hugely entertaining experience and also works across platforms, meaning your Android-device-owning chums needn’t sit out and wear a glum expression. There’s some IAP, but only for entirely optional challenges and aesthetic enhancements, and those are primarily designed to support the indie who made the game in the first place. Get past the whiff of freemium grind, and you have hours of fun beating the tar out of the anthropomorphic vermin that have decided to take over your city. And just like in the good old days, you can unsportingly cave in someone’s face with a baseball bat or brick if you’re lucky enough to chance upon such a weapon during your travels. Wrestle with the controls and you’ll eventually elevate yourself to stabby mastery in a range of free-for-all scraps and one-on-one bouts. And when you hanker for bling rather than glory, you can partake in some pilfering and murdering, leaping about castles and unsportingly slicing unsuspecting guards up from behind.
Shoot ’em ups are an exception, a single digit affording you the precision to weave between projectiles and merrily obliterate everything in your path. Pixel Shooter Infinity draws from Japanese bullet-hell classics, but distils everything into single-screen rounds and dresses them in monochrome garb.
It’s constantly intense and exhilarating as you blow away enemies, temporarily halt to let your gun cool, and grab gems to power up your weapons.
Recharged rethinks the game for mobile, and is a rare retro remake that doesn’t muck things up.
Sure, purists might gripe about the lack of a cursor and an inability to control where your shots come from – here, you tap and launches are blasted from a random silo. But it’s fast-paced and frenetic stuff as you try for chain reactions and over time gradually build your defensive clout with power-ups and an increasingly deft tapping finger.
ElectroMaster Play Imagine for a moment the terrifying claustrophobic shooting action from Robotron: 2084 combined with an unhinged Japanese cartoon, all reimagined for the touchscreen. What this means for you is holding down a finger to charge up your blaster and then zapping foes off the screen, like a cross between a wannabe Marvel supervillain and a sumo wrestler. Periodic power-ups keep things interesting, letting you blaze around as a ball of energy – or just winning extra points for snarfing oversized fruit.
Nuggets of Asteroids are dotted about another of the five modes, and the entire game recalls that seminal title’s gorgeous vector graphics. Plus, if the thing kills you within 30 seconds, that makes it a good bet to fill an odd and otherwise dull moment with a splash of colour and buckets of adrenaline. Should you murder your way through the entire production, there’s a level editor too, for fashioning custom carnage and sharing it with similarly bloodthirsty friends. Palindromic sequences, though… That’s where Otteretto heads, coming across like a turn-based Tetris or Columns that has you select strings of coloured tiles to net the points you need to smash through each level’s target. There’s a whiff of the familiar about Dreadrock, which dumps you in a bunch of single-screen dungeons and has you set out to save a sibling who’s about to be inconveniently sacrificed.
Beyond the game’s cracking pixel art, you get compelling and smart level design, and plenty of surprises – such as when a seemingly defeated enemy pursues you through subsequent (and then very tense) bite-sized challenges. The original Linia caught Stuff’s eye some years back, with a mix of game styles we likened to “Fruit Ninja, as reimagined by a lover of precision geometry”. This follow-up’s in similar territory, having you slice your way through pulsating minimalist works of art, aiming to match a colour pattern at the top of the screen. When you need a break, instead restart the app and bob your head to the funky intro music and cool-as title screen flamingos.
Sticky Terms Play Plenty of mobile games have you fashion words from random stacks of letter tiles. The other snag is you’re playing against opposition – either a human in single-device mode, or a freaky glowing computer-controlled hand ‘inside’ the screen. Along with the standard mode, you get several unique variations on the theme: in Butterflies, you must carefully consider every move, to ensure your winged creatures aren’t eaten by a deadly spider; and in Diamond Mine, you battle against the clock to dig ever deeper into the ground, blasting away at the rock with explosive special gems.
But many are humorous (meat from a livestock and a sword – ouch), or require lateral thinking (merging a car and bird to make a plane).
But it’s engaging stuff, whether you’re trying to blaze through a ‘daily mini’ or tackle the much trickier puzzles that rock up towards the end of each week. The Battle of Polytopia Play Civilization’s a great free game, but there are two tiny snags on mobile: first, Civ games take forever, which isn’t good when playing on an iPhone; secondly, mobile Civs are rubbish on the tiny screen of an iPhone. In this distilled, compelling and surprisingly tense take on becoming a world-conquering despot, there’s a real sense of focus: you’re by default up against a moves limit, and the maps are tightly packed. Yet it’s not reductive: you still get tech trees, cities to found and expand, and a range of enemies to administer a jolly good thrashing to. Salvagette Play Bullet-hell shooters are tricky enough, let alone when some wag has nicked your guns and you’re in a battlezone that’s barely bigger than a shoebox. Fortunately, Salvagette plays out in turn-based fashion, giving you time to consider your every move, en route to ramming the opposition to pieces. And despite time only moving when you do, the game can become surprisingly tense as you plot a path to survival – or at least the in-game store, where you can grab handy upgrades paid for with the cash you get for blowing up your enemies. I also pen opinion pieces when the editor lets me, getting all serious about accessibility and predicting when sentient AI smart cookware will take over the world, in a terrifying mix of Bake Off and Terminator.
Best free iPad games 2023
Fortunately, if you’re into gaming there are plenty of titles available on iOS for free, so you don’t have to spend any more money to play them. Play quick rounds of a popular social deduction game with friends or random players online. Welcome to the world of Teyvat, where elemental magic is common, dragons exist, and there are gorgeous locations to discover. You find yourself playing as either a young man or woman with magical abilities who is out to uncover their past.
That’s because it took the basic mechanics of a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), but kept it simple for players of all ages to enjoy. This is a twin-stick shooter that requires plenty of skill to get rid of those shapes without getting injured.
The best part is, there aren’t any hidden in-app purchases and no frustrating ads to detract from the game. The art style is vibrant and pleasant to look at and there’s enough variation between night and day to keep things interesting.
While some games are all about moving fast and fighting, others are more relaxing and offer puzzles like Casual Metaphysics.
This “spiritual puzzle” game gives you interesting challenges that you can solve on your own or in two-player mode. With its gorgeous-yet-simple visuals, OCO provides a minimalist platforming experience where players must guide a small white square through an available pathway on a circular level. You’ll learn to strategize while listening to a chill soundtrack and can even create and upload your own levels for others to play through.
This minimalist game combines vibrant round levels with simple to play but hard to master platforming elements. Angry Birds Ar Hero (Image credit: Rovio Entertainment Corporation)
Nowadays, these are more like classics from the early mobile period, but fortunately, there’s a new version of the game that takes it into the modern era. Angry Birds AR: Isle of Pigs uses your phone camera to see levels in locations you’re currently in.
Angry Birds AR: Isle of Pigs Free with in-app purchases at App Store Try a new spin on the classic Angry Birds game by bringing the levels into augmented reality.
Unlike other Asphalt games, Xtreme is all about that off-roading experience, whether that means sliding through sandy dunes, racing past forest ruins, or tearing up an old industrial road. Take control of your favorite cars, unlock new ones, and level up their handling stats.
You’ll find your way racing through several different locations and will need to get the hang of your car’s performance in order to do well. It’s also a battle royale where 99 players drop into a large space, grab weapons, and attempt to be the last ones standing.
PUBG Mobile has a more realistic art style than Fortnite but it’s still a whacky experience for anyone who likes battle royales. You play as a piece of food with legs like a hotdog, bowl of noodles, or pizza who’s out to save his friends from the evil blender.
To do this, you’ll need to make your way past baddies, collect items, and complete level challenges. Take on the role of a piece of food who must travel from one place to another in order to save his friends from the evil blender. It takes the basic elements from this genre and boils them down into turn-based combat that only lasts for 30 turns. Use that time to explore the map, level up, and advance your society before engaging in combat with other tribes.
The Battle of Polytopia offers simple visuals with strong geometric shapes surrounded by vibrant colors. As we said in our The Elder Scrolls: Legends review, this game breathes fresh air into a stale genre.
Our team of Apple experts have years of experience testing all kinds of tech and gadgets, so you can be sure our recommendations and criticisms are accurate and helpful. The best iPads can help you entertain yourself without needing to spend any money thanks to these free iOS games.
Angry Birds AR: Isle of Pigs takes the original 2D game and brings it into 3D with Augmented Reality.
Best free iPad games 2022
Two thumbs are also all you need to clamber up vertical surfaces, wall jump, and obliterate enemies using giant yellow tanks they’ve carelessly left lying about the place. But Super Cat Tales 2 revels in its perceived limitations, offering levels that require clever choreography to crack. Combine that with a slew of secrets, plenty of variety (underwater sections; a level set on a speeding train), and you’ve one of the finest mobile platforms you’re ever likely to see. Instead, you know you’re going to be served with high-octane larger-than-life races, where your car’s regularly catapulted through the air, in a manner that would make the average mechanic shriek in terror.
Asphalt 9, though, heads towards the bizarre in a decidedly different manner, with a ‘TouchDrive’ control scheme that streamlines careening around a race course, largely by letting the game itself deal with steering. Although there is a ‘manual’ alternate system buried in the settings, you by default tap and swipe to switch lanes, perform stunts, drift and boost.
Sure, what you get is somewhat removed from a ‘proper’ racing game; but the end result manages to marry speed and adrenaline with a kind of puzzling, as you work out the moves required to grab the chequered flag. And when it clicks, there’s a ton of content to work through, and some of the most eye-poppingly dazzling visuals to grace an iPad racer. Initially, The Battle of Polytopia (originally Super Tribes) was akin to a stripped-back early entry in the classic Civilization series. But new and unique tribes with their own tech and distinct units shook things up further; and the game’s relatively intuitive nature made it a good fit for iPhone. What’s perhaps most surprising, though, is that even if you have Civilization VI on your iPad, Polytopia might win your heart, through its mix of immediacy, fun and charm. On iPad, the game looks gorgeous and there’s less chance of your thumbs covering up something important when you’re leaping about.
Customisable controls, gamepad support, upgrade paths, a unique sense of character and a big game world make this an unmissable freebie you won’t lick in a hurry. This third entry in the Fowlst series is the best yet – although you have to feel for a solitary chicken that’s taken on the responsibility of saving the world from an endless demon incursion. This heroic hen can be kitted out with all kinds of weapons, including explosive eggs and heatseeking missiles expelled from its bottom. And you’ll need all the help you can get, because the demons you face quickly evolve from doddering dimwits occasionally sending a fiery projectile your way to demented bosses that blaze around the screen, flinging all manner of horrible death in your general direction.
On iPad, Super Fowlst 2 really shines: the retro-oriented visuals are vibrant and beautifully detailed; and the larger screen ensures enemies never lurk beneath a digit. Like the mutant offspring of Missile Command, Risk and a megalomaniac’s ultimate fantasy, First Strike has you do battle in a world where every superpower has their finger on a terrifyingly dangerous trigger.
Things kick off with each power limited to a small patch of territory, little ordnance, and technology rooted deep in the previous century. Even when taking the role of a major superpower, a lapse in concentration can result in half your land being obliterated when you fail to respond rapidly enough to a devastating nuclear first strike. Even when you’re equipped with stealth bombers and long-range nukes, it’s easy to over-extend and leave your territory open to attack. Now it’s free, you’ve no excuse to not dig into a game that invites you to blow up the world, while never letting you forget about the horror of what it means to do so.
Void Tyrant’s cycle is built around you getting killed, using your spoils to kit out your successor with better starting equipment, and repeating the process. Even so, bar the odd moment where you really question quite why a boss enemy is getting quite so perfect hands (or perhaps we’re just bad losers), even the churn is fun; and taken as a whole, Void Tyrant is one of the nicest freebie strategy surprises on the platform.
And, indeed, the free version of SpellTower+ is effectively that game, albeit polished a bit for modern devices, and with the new Daily Search. Years back, the iPad was the place for vibrant old-school twin-stick shooters, where the aim was to blast everything to smithereens until you ended up atomised yourself.
Those titles have all gone now, and the App Store’s a poorer place for that, but PewPew Live keeps the flame alive for high-octane blasters in a shoebox. Five shoeboxes, actually, because PewPew Live has that many distinct modes baked in, each of which provides a unique twist on claustrophobic arcade fare.
Eskiv recalls the dearly missed Bit Pilot, packing its tiny arena with rocks to dodge. But on iPad, the dazzling neon visuals get the chance to shine and your thumbs rarely cover up anything important. You might initially consider Dashy Crashy yet another lane-based survival game, where you swipe to avoid traffic, getting as many points as possible before your inevitable smashy demise. All these twists make Dashy Crashy strategically superior to – and deeper than – its contemporaries; it’s also a lot more fun to play. Much of the magic and mystery of the original Power Hover sits within its brilliantly choreographed set piece levels, which find you scything across futuristic deserts and oceans, trying not to turn your powerboarding robot into a heap of scrap metal by directing it into a rock.
But that game also finishes each section with an exhilarating boss battle, which pits you against psychotic androids in cartwheeling tunnels of death.
Each stage feels distinct, whether you’re deep inside a laser-infested pyramid, atop a gigantic pipe snaking through the clouds, or zigzagging through blocky obstacles and spiked contraptions in the oddly named Metro (in the sense it has pretty weird design for even the grubbiest, least welcoming city imaginable). And that’s fair enough – a slippy pane of glass can’t compete with the precision afforded by a gamepad or keyboard, when you’re stomping about shooting things.
However, Shadowgun Legends manages the improbable, bringing a high-octane FPS to your iPad in fine style. But, my, is this game a blast, as you run around, blowing up everything in sight, or dabble in multiplayer shooty larks during your character’s supposed ‘downtime’. There are 149 other broadly untranslatable terms to piece together in this tactile word game, which feels especially at home on the iPad. Early puzzles are akin to someone having carefully sliced the solution into two or three parts, and then glued them back together in a very different arrangement.
Parts separate by way of a satisfying pop when dragged, spin with a tap, and make a handy click when correctly joined. You end up staring at abstract shapes, almost like an art canvas, trying to make sense of it, searching for recognisable letterforms you can join back together. The iPad’s larger display and aspect ratio gives the puzzles space to breathe, and the textural visual design almost fools you into thinking you’re manipulating real-world objects atop a canvas. ElectroMaster first rocked up in 2010, zapped its way around countless iPhones and iPads, and was defeated by the deadliest of foes: Apple.
Something to do with saving a sibling, as ‘explained’ in odd storytelling on between-level screens; but you mostly spend your time doddering about arenas jam-packed with enemies, holding down to charge your weapon, and then letting rip.
Both objectives become progressively harder as you hit higher levels, and a smattering of power-ups and an alternate game mode keep things fresh.
Visually, ElectroMaster resembles an ancient arcade title, complete with chunky characters and scan lines. But the touch controls are very iPad – and the tablet’s size makes it a better bet than playing on an iPhone, because covering a couple of critters with a finger would spell instant death.
That said, do play with your tablet flat on a table, to avoid the thing flying across the room when you whizz your digit all over the place, blasting away at enemies. You then draw channels for the sugar to flow along, and make use of on-screen objects to further help the sweet stuff to its goal. There’s a bunch of waffle on the Casual Metaphysics App Store page about spirituality and reaching a higher state of consciousness. At its core, Casual Metaphysics is a match game – but it’s a long way from swapping gems to make a row of three.
However, as you progress through the game’s levels, the shapes increase in complexity and finding matches becomes tougher – a problem, since if you linger, your score is gradually eroded. On iPad, the larger display makes for a more dazzling visual experience and helps accuracy when dragging between shapes.
But also, defeat the computer player enough times and you unlock local multiplayer, which proves a much better experience on the bigger screen. Here, you start with four classical elements – air, earth, fire and water – and set about combining them to fashion anything from cities to spaceships.
Imagine Fruit Ninja, but rather than you maniacally slicing away at half a supermarket’s fresh produce aisle being hurled into the air, you instead take out your fury on arty geometric patterns. At which point, you might also chill out a bit, because although Linia super is clearly inspired by the aforementioned fruity title, it’s far more thoughtful and considered. With each group of challenges having its own sense of character, it almost feels like you’re methodically slicing up a gallery of modern art. By using them to construct words, you unlock further letters to use; and by bringing your Scrabble brain, you can ramp up your points by making use of bonus tiles.
The presentation is also first-rate, from the bold tiles, which look lovely on the iPad’s larger display, to the minimalist sparrows that adorn the menu screen. A gentle soundtrack serenades your ears as you play, and the game’s lack of timers suggests you should be in no hurry to blaze through everything.
With stylish design, smartly conceived controls and an inviting manner, it’s an excellent way to spend a few hours being entertained on an iPad.
You therefore begin with something more basic, building extractors to rip up trees and move logs on conveyor belts to a research lab. By ferrying raw materials through workshops and machine shops, they can be combined into new items, which prompts further research. In effect, it’s like a real-time take on a Civilization tech tree combined with Mini Metro map ‘rewiring’ when you discover inefficiencies. But understand Builderment being a no-risk game you’re supposed to experiment with and note the small details (such as directional arrows on buildings you’re about to plonk down) on the iPad’s large screen and things will soon start to click. Whether you’ll manage to put in the hours to manufacture ‘Earth tokens’ from a vast factory spanning a continent, who knows?
Fortunately, the game doesn’t require extreme precision regarding positioning, and so provides a helpful hand of sorts. But the odd nature of the pieces makes Mosaic Chronicles feel different from a traditional jigsaw, and should keep even aficionados of the form captivated for a fair few hours.
Each of the game’s 40+ levels provides you with a bunch of actions you can drag on to the landscape – which is helpfully divided into an isometric grid. This change significantly alters your approach, not least when levels demand you construct labyrinthine pathways that have the dino double back several times prior to reaching the goal.
You’ll often run out of arrows and sit there baffled about how to proceed – doubly so when trampolines, switches and teleporters enter the equation. Such games force you to think at speed or against a moves limit, and can frustrate by lobbing plenty of randomness into the mix. I Love Hue Too is essentially the polar opposite of such titles, instead inviting you to relax while tackling puzzles at your own pace. This kind of thing works particularly well on the iPad, its large display making it easy to manipulate tiles (especially when they get smaller in later levels) and also to spot subtle differences in colour.
And elsewhere on this list, Super Cat Tales 2 offers an alternate slant, where platform gaming is stripped back for a heavily touch-screen-oriented approach. OCO, apparently, doesn’t think that goes far enough, and provides a minimalist experience that’d make even Jony Ive do a double-take.
Each circular level in this sleek world spins about its centre, with your auto-running block only able to leap when you tap the screen. Sure, you can brute-force your way through much of the game, but reward here comes in matching OCO’s elegance – in figuring out how a level in which you just jumped a dozen times can in fact be completed in a mere two leaps.
Here, you can optionally add such effects to famous Williams fare, resulting in an optimistic army guy taking pot-shots at UFOs in the sublime Attack From Mars, or a grumpy dragon belching fire in Medieval Madness.
This is XP- and currency-based, with you levelling up and winning coins on completing daily challenges on unlocked tables. By the same token, you’re grinding by playing classic pinball, which is pretty great; and the challenges are often score-attacks with unlimited balls, helping you learn a table’s secrets. Just make sure you pick wisely for the initial solitary unlocked table: Attack From Mars, The Getaway, and Medieval Madness are good bets.
Fully unlocking a table costs 250 coins, which is expensive compared to other systems, but two stars is enough for unlimited (albeit online) play. Bullet hell shooters, where your ship is tasked with weaving between countless projectiles, work surprisingly well on touchscreens. That said, the sub-genre can be overwhelming for newcomers – and frustrating when a finger inevitably ends up covering something deadly during a vital moment. Salvagette deftly deals with these issues by reimagining the bullet hell shooter as a single-screen, level-oriented turn-based strategy effort.
Presumably due to cutbacks, you’re lacking in bullets yourself and so must ram enemy ships while avoiding whatever they send in your general direction. That said, there’s still tension as levels become increasingly packed with foes, leaving you trying to think several moves ahead, in order to avoid a pummelling. This makes the game ideal for iPad, the larger screen giving you the space to play and think. Although the basic aim remains the same as in traditional golf – get your ball in the hole in as few shots as possible – the oddball nature of the courses demands a very different approach. Windmills, trees and other hazards inconveniently stick out of many planetoids, fish leap from lakes, and courses have a strict boundary around them. Success relies on memorising courses, figuring out the best route to the hole, and executing that sometimes labyrinthine path to the best of your ability. But the unique elements within make this one worth a download, even if you think you’ve had your fill of iPad golf games. If playing friends on Game Centre, avoid new balls for best results, but the ads IAP is worth grabbing.
Vertical shooters tend to be frenetic affairs, marrying your ability to dance between showers of glowing bullets and blast everything in your path to smithereens. Lift your finger and your enemies halt, but the inky blackness won’t, eventually ending your journey through this surreal world.
To counter this, green enemies drop credits you can spend on boosts during your next game, and blue foes ditch pick-ups that augment your critter’s arsenal – initially a rubbish pea shooter – with multi-directional shots, massive rockets, and more. Such one-thumb controls might seem reductive, but in the hands of canny creators, this system has breathed new life into tired genres.
One-thumb racing games, though, are rare, and yet Pico Rally shows how a single digit provides plenty of commands as you belt along. You must time this carefully, so as to navigate the track efficiently, zoom ahead of rivals and take the chequered flag.
The overall effect is like classic slot-car racing, except your car isn’t restricted to a single lane. Instead, cars in Pico Rally jostle for the lead, not least when you’re careening along being pursued by cops more interested in beating you to the finish line than pulling you over for speeding.
The 60 tracks are diverse in terms of hazards and course design, and the physics feel suitably solid, yet keeps you on your toes as new surfaces arrive. The two-player mode is disappointing (no split screen, meaning you often find cars vanish off-screen), but there’s loads to keep the solo racer engrossed. Although not lodged as firmly in the public consciousness as Pac-Man and Space Invaders, arcade classic Missile Command remains memorable for the right reasons. It works well on iPad, with the larger display dazzling your eyes with neon visuals, and giving you a fighting chance of accurately placing shots that trigger chain reactions.
Entertainingly, the game does offer one slice of 1980s authenticity, in the form of an AR virtual arcade cab you can project into the room. ALLSTAR is an exception – a game that while not an equal to console brawlers nonetheless brings across enough from the genre to pack a punch.
Based on the famous titular series, this game mostly features side-on scrapping, in the vein of classics Double Dragon, Final Fight and Renegade. But when you’re on the streets, battling for survival, the iPad’s big screen ensures the touch controls work well, and the visuals and action alike combine to make for arguably the best fighter on the system.
You’re likely familiar with Schrödinger’s cat – a thought experiment featuring a moggie that can be considered both alive and dead. There’s a science bent to many of them, which is augmented further by a quantum physics ‘Kittypedia’ app on an in-game phone – just the thing to make you feel dumb seconds after considering yourself a genius for cracking a tricky challenge. Given the game’s tactile nature – arguably almost to a fault, since inventory objects are retrieved from the cat’s stomach by tickling its belly – it feels tailor-made for the iPad’s display. It looks great on a large screen, and you get a clear view of what’s going on, whether you’re swiping about the room or digging into the phone’s other apps (including a handy messaging system and a means to accessorise the cat).
Although also available for iPhone, XOB makes most sense on iPad, whereupon it converts your device into a kind of bizarre retro-television experience you physically manhandle to impact the in-game world. In fact, with its lashings of CRT fuzz and visual glitches, you suspect XOB would be happiest beaming forth from an old-school telly; it’ll have to make do with an Apple-branded slab of metal and glass. XOB nails the puzzling, with smart design; but it cements its claim to a place on your iPad by way of a psychedelic aesthetic that’s excitingly fresh. Your lone hero begins each challenge surrounded by enemies looking to turn his innards into a bloody Pollock on the minimalist terrain.
That probably sounds like you’re in for a fast-paced fighting game, but A Way To Slay is, in fact, a turn-based strategy puzzler. Success depends on figuring out the order in which to dispatch everyone – no mean feat when you’re facing a dozen or so heavily armed knights, samurai, orcs or assassins. If that’s not challenging enough, A Way To Slay pits you against the clock as well – so once you’ve cracked a solution, you must try to pull it off in a handful of seconds. Assuming you can stand the blood spatter, A Way To Slay is an excellent freebie, and one that cleverly subverts existing genres.
Although the critically acclaimed Journey now exists on iPad, Sky almost renders it irrelevant, taking that game’s lush 3D environments and exploration-oriented gameplay, and opening it up for massively multiplayer adventures. You may find yourself before a door, which requires two people to open, and urge a temporary companion to help by way of your limited number of noises and gestures.
Yes, it can be irritating when you’re unsure how to unlock the next barrier, or make a jump when torrential rain and cold are robbing your wings of power; but few games give you such a sense of unbridled glee as Sky, when you’re sliding down hillsides on your heels, or just flying because you can. Although this sometimes results in dexterity-oriented arcade tests (often making use of the game’s ‘jump’ mechanic that flips you between ceiling and floor rather than having the hero briefly leap upwards a bit), most levels have puzzles at their core.
Jars are therefore peppered with hazards, switches, enemies and blocks that temporarily bestow special powers, and you must figure out how and when to make use of each, in order to progress. There are no happy campers in this sliding puzzler, which features horror flick antagonist Jason Voorhees hacking his way through a campsite and beyond. Each grid finds you swiping Jason around, who slides until he smacks into a wall, comes a cropper due to a hazard, or reaches a victim. After all, this is a game where the decapitated head of the lead’s mother provides helpful advice from the corner of the screen, urging her murdery son onwards.
The mechanics still aren’t really anything you’ve not seen before, but the puzzle design is good to the point that this alone would make the game worth a recommendation. But the absurdist cartoon horror trappings, black humour, and polish make this a killer game in more ways than one.
The free-to-play aspect is also generous: watch a video ad and you get three more games in the bank, which can be built up into a substantial reserve.
The Best iPad Games for 2023
Though there are only a few iPad-exclusive titles, releases that work on both devices greatly benefit from the tablet’s expanded screen real estate. Apple recently revealed that console heavy-hitters like Assassin’s Creed Mirage and the pricey Resident Evil 4 Remake are coming to iPhone 15 and 15 Pro.
The iPad has a rich video game library that lets you race fast cars, slay monsters, or go on an emotional journey. The new game continues the series’ ability to combine the mechanics of a smooth, endless runner with the breathtaking visuals of skiing. Asphalt 9: Legends $0.00 at Apple App Store See It With their shiny cars and blistering sense of speed, nothing shows off new graphics tech like a racing game. You play a character who must venture out into a post-apocalyptic fantasy world to collect rocks that can help upgrade your new home.
Fortunately, this new Apple Arcade release strips the money grabs, leaving you with all the action-packed, side-scrolling, gothic adventuring you’d expect from the seasoned vampire killers. Civilization VI $0.00 at Apple.com See It The popular turn-based 4x strategy series released a new iteration in 2016, and this time a mobile version came along with it.
Control a nation of people, gather resources, fight your enemies, and build a new empire in Civilization VI. Don’t Starve $4.99 at Apple.com See It Survival games are pretty popular these days, especially ones with random environments, permanent death, and other roguelike elements. Don’t Starve stands above the rest with its deep hunting and crafting systems as well as its sad but lovely gothic hand-drawn visuals. With Euclidean Skies, you to do it again with more levels, enhanced graphics, and an augmented reality mode that lets the game interact with your surroundings.
You may not see Cloud or Sephiroth, but you’ll feel their presence as you and your party travel through future-fantasy landscapes brimming with crystals. There’s an entire cottage industry of teenagers screaming at this game on YouTube, but that can’t compare with checking out the nightmare for yourself. The game takes place in the Forgotten Lands, a magical world where lost things come to life. Even if you’ve never built a deck or played a single session of WoW, Hearthstone will draw you in with its complex but approachable card battling system and not-horrible use of in-app purchases.
As you watch its hundreds of video interviews with a murder suspect, the game only stops the moment you decide to walk away. You’ll be shocked how satisfying this slick series of strategy board games feels as figures move across flat surfaces to take out their targets.
This interactive film challenges you to solve its seductive, decades-spanning mysteries by creating connections between seemingly unrelated clips from lost movies. Shot in live-action, these “fake” movies are more compelling than what Hollywood puts out these days, and are even more engrossing on a tablet screen. It feels just like a true Lara Croft game, with her having to climb up mountain cliffs and maneuver around chasms. Instead of adapting a movie license, this game conveys the pure nostalgic joy of Lego itself as you play through its coming-of-age narrative. Instead of running and jumping, players take on the role of a sentient pile of fuzz named Leo with the power to inflate and deflate himself on command. Looping levels force Leo to carefully control his momentum and size to solve puzzles and escape danger.
Mini Metro $3.99 at Apple.com See It The minimalist puzzle strategy game asks you to construct a rail transit network for a series of rapidly growing cities. Stranded out in the middle of an unknown part of space, you must manage your spaceship and gather resources in order to survive. Only by interacting with alien species can you set your character on a specific path that ultimately determines the game’s ending. Tiny tactical skirmishes require you to not only kill and avoid monsters, but also escape with enough supplies to make it through the next encounter. An interesting game mechanic in Oxenfree is that there are no cutscenes; all dialogue takes place during gameplay, so you can continue adventuring at all times. Shinsekai: Into the Depths (only on Apple Arcade) is a moody Metroidvania where you’ll battle undersea creatures, find secrets with sonar, and keep your oxygen from running out beneath the waves.
Six Ages asks you to manage people, magic, and livestock through various situations, and though gameplay can be punishingly difficult at times, helping your clan survive over multiple generations can be very rewarding. Navigate through dungeons, solve puzzles, and defeat monsters, all with the the touch-screen controls that allow you to attack and use magic.
In Sneaky Sasquatch (only on Apple Arcade), you put yourself in Bigfoot’s big shoes as you wear disguises, steal yummy picnic food, and just chill in the woods. What makes Spaceteam so wonderful is how it turns your phone into a gateway for incredible, in-person socializing, as you and your friends connect over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to become crew members on a spaceship. Stardew Valley $4.99 at Apple.com See It If you’re an old-school Nintendo fan, you might remember a farming simulator game called Harvest Moon. You control five different characters as they explore the town, pick up items, and investigate the secrets around a dead body.
This side story uses the card game Gwent as the gameplay glue for a rich, role-playing experience full of the same great writing you expect from this mythology. TouchTone’s devious data puzzles eventually become so difficult you’ll feel like an actual black hat after solving them. While the game doesn’t control quite as well on the iPad’s touch screen, it’s still a gorgeous, intelligent, and mechanically sophisticated sci-fi action-RPG.
Twilight Struggle $7.99 at Apple.com See It This board game-turned-video game allows you to take control of either the United States or the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Using cards and dice, players navigate historical events, and in the process may end up changing the course of history. The goal of Twilight Struggle is to gain influence over various country and fight for control, while also avoiding all-out nuclear war. Unpacking $8.99 at Apple App Store See It The best simulation games find that divine sweet spot where a tedious real-world task becomes something sublime. Note: Unpacking is published by Humble Bundle, which is owned by PCMag’s parent company, Ziff Davis.
However, there’s a deceptive amount of arcade strategy as you maneuver across the map and acquire more weapons until you fill your iPad screen with whips, knives, and spells to decimate unholy hordes.
Warbits $4.99 at Apple.com See It This Editors’ Choice title allows you to take control of an army and use turn-based strategy to defeat the opponent.
Influenced by the classic Advance Wars tactics games, each unit in Warbits has its own strength and weaknesses, as well as unique power ups. The game includes a campaign, challenge mode, and online play, all wrapped within cute graphics and quirky dialogue.
This melancholic puzzle adventure tasks you with rearranging cards into useful structures for traveling around a world of dreams and memories. Since methodically paced tactical games are a perfect fit on iOS, the iPad version of Enemy Unknown was fantastic as well.
The 8 best free iPad games
Credit: Mashable composite: Screenshots: Apple App Store/Among us/Temple Run 2/Candy Crush Saga You don’t have to pay through the nose to kill time and have fun playing an iPad game. But what you can get for free, however, are fun iPad games that will help pass the time in a waiting room, or on a train, or while you’re mindlessly sitting on the couch. It’s something akin to a classic Mario game, except you’re a character sprinting through ancient temples instead of an Italian plumber descending down pipes.
Basically through astronaut avatars, you attempt to complete challenges with friends, while some players secretly try to kill everyone. Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar famously played in a game of Among Us on Twitch that garnered a truly bonkers amount of viewers. You can download Candy Crush Saga for iPad free in the Apple App Store. Elder Scrolls: Blades is a role playing game with beautiful visuals and fun gameplay that’ll have you clashing in battle in no time.
You can download The Elder Scrolls: Blades for iPad free in the Apple App Store.
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