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11 best dark and atmospheric Android games
Set the mood with the best hauntingly inviting Android games
When adding more titles to your trusty Android gaming phone, you'll notice no shortage of puzzle and arcade games on the Android platform. Mainstream titles like Angry Birds and Cut The Rope attract a wider range of audiences with their (more) casual gameplay style. However, stumbling upon games with darker psychedelic themes, such as World Of Goo and Badland, brings a mesmerizing, haunting experience like no other. The powerful effects of mixing audio and artistic expression can put forth an entirely different tone to some genres. So, to inspire people to try out another style of Android games, we've created a roundup of the best atmospheric games that will hauntingly stay with you.
Paranormasight is a perfectly crafted horror visual novel from Square Enix
Paranormasight's modern take on a classic ghost story is bound to send chills down your spine
Amidst all the big names announced during February's Nintendo Direct, Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo stuck out thanks to its spooky premise and grisly storyline. A visual novel developed by Square Enix, its trailer suggested an experience full of interesting characters and plot twists. If you're one of the many people intrigued when it was announced, your wait is over. Paranormasight is now available on the Google Play Store.
Quordle starter's guide: How to survive Wordle on hard mode
Multiply the difficulty of Wordle by four with Quordle
Unless you've been living under a rock on social media, you probably have heard of Wordle by now, the 5-letter daily word puzzle game that famously went viral over the web. Once you've begun playing Wordle, you'll understand why it's gained so much popularity over the last year. There's nothing more satisfying than being one of the first to solve the daily puzzle, but once you're done, you are left starving for more. You could install some of the best alternatives to Wordle to quench that hunger, but maybe you're in the market for a game similar to Wordle with a new difficulty spike. Look no further; Quordle is here. No more worrying about outsmarting Wordle and being done within minutes; Quordle is four times the size offering enough gameplay to satiate your hunger for word puzzles.
Google I/O 2021 is officially next month — could the Pixel 5a and new Pixel Buds be in store?
The event was cancelled due to the pandemic last year
Google I/O is one of the high points of any Android fan's tech calendar. Last year the developer conference was scrubbed out of said schedule because of the COVID-19 pandemic, with too little warning to even organize an online replacement. This year it still isn't safe enough for an in-person conference, but Google is prepared enough for a virtual event.
3D puzzle adventure The House of Da Vinci 2 is out on the Play Store
If you like The Room, you'll probably also like The House of Da Vinci
The House of Da Vinci is a well-received, crowd-funded puzzle adventure game that lets you take the role of Leonardo da Vinci's promising apprentice. After your master's disappearance, you have to comb through his house to find clues on what happened to him. Four years after the original title, the Slovakian indie studio Blue Brain Games has now released the aptly-named follow-up on the Play Store, The House of Da Vinci 2. It follows mostly the same successful mechanics from the first title, only this time, you're going to travel through time to observe a "series of mysterious events that led to the greatest discovery in human history."
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Every year at about this time, Google does a cryptic teaser to announce the dates for its I/O developer conference, usually happening in the late spring. Last year, Till Kottmann, one of the developers behind the popular Lawnchair Launcher, cracked the puzzle in record time by circumventing it entirely. This year Google is tweaking the formula a bit, turning the teaser into a forced collaborative effort inside a highly technical puzzle/game.
Anyone familiar with Level 5's Nintendo DS and 3DS puzzle adventure game series Professor Layton should be pretty ecstatic to hear that a full-fledged sequel, Layton’s Mystery Journey, is available on the Play Store today. You'll need to pony up $15.99 in order to download the title, but that's actually a deal when you consider that the 3DS version will cost more than twice as much.
Simple, straightforward puzzle games are du jour on mobile platforms, but that doesn't mean they can't be visually impressive. Shadowmatic from developer Triada Studios is a great example. This puzzler uses basic principles of light and spatial arrangement as elements of its brain-teasers, challenging players to correctly align floating objects and create perfect silhouettes. The game is also visually stunning, using its 3D lighting effects and an essential element of the gameplay.
I have a weakness for adorable puzzlers. Mix some colorful environments, smart gameplay mechanics, and a cute creature that makes hilarious sounds, and I'm smitten for hours. That said, it's a miracle that I was even able to put my phone down to write this post. Splitter Critters is just kryptonite for me. As Alex and Penny would say, "OMG cute, so cute, supa cute(...) Suh cyuht!"
Puzzle games are a dime a dozen these days. While the age-old formula might seem tired at this point, along comes Imprint-X. This game focuses on timing, memory, and pattern recognition to solve its button-based puzzles, which is a nice change of pace. It is receiving a cross-platform release today.
Developer Mediocre knows that science makes for great gameplay. The small team has already produced popular titles such as Sprinkle and Smash Hit that utilize physics in ways to give each title its own unique and compelling experience.
There's nothing more heartwarming in the middle of a snowy winter than getting together with your family or friends to build a snowman. You can always count on the experience to throw you into a time machine and make you feel childish and innocent again. And the snow fights, man the snow fights! The joy of landing a big compact snowball smack in the middle of your target! Is there anything better?
Prune is a game about planting trees, and I'm sure you think that sounds super-duper boring, but it's really not. With a swipe you can plant a tree and watch it grow toward the light. Only with your careful pruning can it grow large enough to sprout flowers and unlock the next botanical challenge.
There was a heist (presumably) and you're on the run. Will you be caught or get away scot-free? That's entirely dependent on how you arrange events in Framed. This game looks incredibly polished and I can't say I've ever seen anything like it.
Puzzle games are a natural fit on mobile devices thanks to their simple pick-up-and-play mechanics and basic controls that actually work better on touchscreens than traditional game controllers. Android gamers looking for their next high-quality fix may be happy to know that Blockwick 2 has made its way into the Play Store.
In Worms, sheep are used as suicidal explosives. The helpless animals run in the direction they're released in, turning around only if their path is blocked. Seeking freedom, their plans are inevitably thwarted when the automatic timer runs out or a player triggers their detonation, bringing their life to an end.
Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our bi-weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we've got an interesting roguelike card game, a slightly insane space fighter, a Very Special adventure game, a much more interesting adventure game, a Ubisoft tower defense title, and a new take on Tetris puzzles. Without further ado:
The Humble people are on a roll. In addition to the Humble Bundle for PC and Android 11 announced just yesterday, they've launched a new Android-only bundle for cash-strapped gamers to enjoy. (You don't have to be cash-strapped, I suppose you might just be cheap and altruistic.) Bundle 8 includes seven games at the moment, with two being "above the average price" purchases and a third unlocking at a reasonable $5.
Sometimes you can look at a game and tell exactly what it's going to be about. Okay, most of the time you can look at a game and tell what it's going to be about. But every now and then a title comes along that really just wants to be different. Kapsula is a cross between a puzzle and racing game set in a futuristic world of Soviet space colonies filled with clones. It's a premise that makes very little sense at first and makes even less the longer you think about it.
Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our bi-weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we've got a classic adventure sequel, a game about pixelated sushi, and a math-based puzzler. Without further ado: