20 Android 'hidden gems,' i.e. excellent, mostly free, mostly lesser-known games.

<click the bolded for Play Store links, which includes pics & more info>

• Asterius - Terrific, sprawling, puzzle-ish roguelike, easy to play but with lots of secrets to discover, and a long learning curve to win. (note: I've written a guide with hints, which I'd only recommend using as a last resort)

• Bounty Hunter Space Lizard - Ah, so delicious. It's a fun roguelike, a bit like Pixel Dungeon, but with more condensed runs, and loads of character. As with PD, you'll move through different stages and battle different end-bosses.

• Caves Roguelike - If you're a fan of Pixel Dungeon, but want a different roguelike experience, then here's one with huge amounts of variance upon each run, and devilishly challenging foes the deeper one descends. More than just being a pure 'RL,' it also offers RPG-style levelling up, meaning that even terrible runs can be useful. Indeed, I feel pretty confident in saying that Caves is the most detail-oriented RL that's ever been created.

• Choppa - This is a ridiculously fun, hilarious, physics-style helicopter game in which you set out to rescue disaster survivors amidst annoying obstacles and deadly explosives. It's got a nice leveling-up system so that you can build yourself better whirlybirds over time, and features a small but excellent collection of scenarios to try. Let's face it, tho-- altho it's a real challenge stringing together a series of successful rescues, it's just as much fun getting blown up, drowned, or causing a chain-reaction of explosions, especially when carrying a survivor, who hates getting wet or covered in soot, and will endlessly berate you when that happens. ^ ^

• Daddy Was a Thief is a highly-original, vertical-style, platform-runner mashup. The love & humor are in the little details, in which you'll be trying to avoid a mad scientist's shrink ray and an angry granny trying to kick you to the moon, meanwhile trying to hop in to a bathtub, going for a short, smashing ride, collecting bits of loot. The game is a wild-ride rush of dynamic comic sequences, which will entertain you for a good while before eventually getting repetitive.

• Doug Dug - Probably the best action-drilling game I've ever played, but one that requires both slow & fast decision-making, such as how to handle various rock formations, risks & enemies, and what to do in an emergency. (costs US$1)

• Enyo - And here we have an absolute masterpiece, something of a chesslike game, but with all new pieces, in which you battle the enemy across a paved lava pit (which becomes progressively un-paved). It's fortunate that your small army of enemies aren't very bright, because you only have one piece to play with, which features a deadly grappling hook and (Captain America-style) a flingeable shield. Not only is this a highly-inventive game design, but it's fun, and endlessly replayable.

• Gurk 3 - This is a tile-based RPG, roughly in the style of the classic Ultima series, in which a three-person party explores a vast map, upgrades & levels-up little by little, and ultimately defeats the realm's greatest of evils, i.e. Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Ron DeSantis (just kidding, it's actually just a generic evil villain). This isn't a ground-breaking game in any particular way, but it's good, solid gaming fun, in classic style, that for some reason doesn't have many analogues in Google's Play Store. (it costs US$2, and is well worth the price)

• Hoplite - If I was stranded on Gilligan's Isle, allowed only one digital game to play, I think I might just choose this masterpiece of a tactical/strategic roguelike. The idea is to progress through a number of levels, past archers, bomb-tossers, assassins and spellcasters, in order to grab the fabled Golden Fleece, then step through a portal, returning home. Alternatively, one can choose to play on, encountering tougher and tougher waves, before ultimately succumbing, leaving a huge swath of dead bodies in your wake. At the same time, one can perform minor feats along the way to unlock special abilities. It really is these abilities that you earn that make the game so interesting and long-lasting. For example, stringing together a series of special moves to defeat a gang of enemies can be an artistic, movie-like, dopamine-rush feeling. No joke.

• Life in Adventure - I'm a fan of the 'choose your own adventure' genre, and there are many fine ones out there (such as the excellent Choice of Games series). What makes LIA stand out from the crowd is how much one can customize the experience, for example in choosing which subplots to mix in to your character's main storyline. That's on top of choosing your profession, traits and stats distribution. In addition to the usual text experience, this game adds lovely, retro, 8-bit art to liven things up. All the tokens needed to do unlocks can be earned through watching ads when needed, a perfectly fair deal, I'd say.

• Mind Wall - Another simple, original, action- gaming idea, flawlessly executed. In this one, you're holding a Tetris-like shape, and can choose one (and only one) block to punch out of a fast-approaching wall, in order for your shape to fit through. That may or may not sound like an interesting concept, so I'll let these guys have their say. There's a good number of options and modes to keep this one fresh for a long time.

• Miniature Land 3 [iOS link] - A pleasant, atmospheric little outdoor adventure, but this one uniquely features a doll-house sized landscape. The puzzles are of medium-difficulty and satisfying to solve. Unfortunately, looks like this just got pulled from the Play Store, so you'll have to look for an APK or play it on iOS.

• My Friend Pedro - Yet another cool, stylish game I've never seen the likes of before. In this mafia/assassin-style platformer, you swipe and press to perform n-style (remember that classic Flash-platform ninja game?) acrobatic leaps, but in this case it's in bullet-time, which adds a strategic element to the fight.

• One Epic Knight - Sure, there are plenty of RPG-style endless runners out there, but the personality of the main character really makes this one stand out. He's a Valley Boy (think "Snake" from The Simpsons) dressed in Knight's armor, running through a dungeon, dodging the usual enemies & traps, all the while keeping up a hilarious commentary. But more than just that, the game is nicely balanced in the powerups & upgrades category. It's tough, but fair.

• Retro Highway - Smooth, fun, RPG-ish racing game with lots of challenges to beat over time. Also, there's an impressive amount of technique to be learned, such that simply upgrading bikes won't instantly make you better.

• Rust Bucket - Aaron Steed has dressed up his minimalist-classic Ending puzzle-roguelike with snazzy new graphics & characters. Features all new puzzles with each playthrough, and gets progressively harder. There's endless gameplay here.

• Seedship - You're a sentient AI in charge of navigating a colony ship to a new world on behalf of a crew of frozen colonists. You have an array of sensors to examine each new world, trying to find the best possible one (they all have flaws). Meanwhile, your systems are slowly dying, and the ship will eventually stop functioning one day. What to do, what to do? Finally, after you choose your new planet, time will flash-ahead, and you'll be given a score and a long assessment of how things worked out in the new civilisation.

• Tactikon 1 & 2 - These are some great remakes of the classic Empire strategic wargame. If you're familiar with the Advance War series, these are similar, but without all the talking heads. Note: As usual, Google seems up to its old tricks, so you'll have to hunt down the APK if you want to play.

• Total Party Kill - Very clever puzzle-platformer, in which you coordinate the actions of a warrior, an archer and a wizard in order for one of them to escape each level. That's right-- everything's fair in love, war & "TPK," including ruthlessly snuffing your buddies if it helps one character make it to the exit. For example, in which the warrior kills a buddy and kicks him on to a switch that otherwise isn't accessible, or the archer shoots & pins a buddy against the wall so as to help him climb up. Etc, etc. It's a delightful naughty concept, perhaps best played with a game controller instead of touch screen.

• Lemmings - This one differs in being fairly well-known, but offers a tonne of casual gameplay via thousands of puzzle levels inspired by classic Lemmings. In this version, the levels are very easy at first, but become much harder as one progresses. There's also special challenge levels that can be played at any time. HINTS: I strongly advise hoarding coins & resurrection powerups (you'll eventually need these for near-impossible levels), and avoiding offers of free lemmings. The whole 'collectible Lemmings' concept can similarly be ignored. Drawbacks? Well, there's a micro-transaction system that's completely optional, and voluntary ads for extra items. All in all, there's a load of long-playing value here for the cost of nothing more than letting an ad play when you want a free perk.

--Johnny