I’ll say Beat Hazard is fair value and good for some fun on Android. The control scheme options make it pretty playable in touch. When I think mobile I don’t think “twin stick shooter” but the prospect of shooting things to the music library on your device is still compelling, and the dev has a new autofire/aim mode that makes it palatable (making it optionally a “one stick shooter”). Twin stick shooters are as much about dodging and location on-screen as anything else, and the autofire/aim mode doesn’t feel like cheating. You still get to choose when to trigger the special attacks.
Haven’t seen a shout out to **Game Dev Story **or any of Kairosoft’s legion of retro-styled, casual sim games just yet. I haven’t played one that I haven’t enjoyed at least in some measure. Their Pocket League Story 2 is also a good pick, especially since that one is free to play in the REAL sense, where in-app purchases are not necessary to win and enjoy the game.
Also I’m not always in the mood for it, but Dungeon Raid is a blend of rogue-like and puzzle-game mechanics. You drag your finger to match icons that will attack, heal, gain shield, coins etc in an attempt to destroy skulls that will attack every turn and whittle your HP. These enemies also appear as tiles, but have their own attack and defense stats. It’s not really like Bejeweled or anything so you might like it even if you don’t care for “match #” games. As you play the enemies become more powerful and you level up your stats, spells, and items to see how long you can last. There are a number of unlockable player classes that change some of the game elements. The progression is very similar to Desktop Dungeons though the gameplay itself is not at all similar. I think there are some clones out there now so Dungeon Raid must have made at least a mild splash.
