Best 40 free Android games

Best 40 free Android games

Pinball Deluxe

Pinball Deluxe is an actually decent pinball sim for Android, and it's free. At the moment it comes with four tables - Wild West, Carnival, Space Frontier and Diving for Treasure. Ball movement is convincing,

and although a bit of the magic is lost thanks to having to use on-screen buttons, it's a smooth enough experience. It's ad-supported. Don't press those. You don't get a bonus.

1. Winter Walk

Winter Walk is madness. You play the part of a gentleman, out for an evening walk. From time to time the wind picks up, so you have to hold on to his hat to stop it blowing away.

While this is happening, the chap's internal monologue appears on screen, giving you an entertaining and distracting read in the process, too. Very simple, but a perfect little high score challenge game for the touchscreen era.

2. Colosseum Heroes

Publisher Gamevil takes a break from churning out the role-playing games to give dumb action a go here. Colosseum Heroes is a 2D slasher, where you simply try to survive for as long as possible, building up your armour and weaponry to make yourself tougher and meaner.

Technically this is a "freemium" game paid for with in-app purchases, but if you're prepared to spend a while building up your character's skills manually, there's no need to pay out.

3. Stardash Free

Developer Orange Pixel has a knack of creating excellent retro titles, withStardash a fine example.

Designed to look like a Game Boy game from before many of you younger readers were born, Stardash is clearly a bit of a Mario homage - but it's done exceptionally well and is endlessly replayable. If you like it, and you probably will, there's an alternate paid version that removes the adverts.

4. Scramble With Friends Free

Zynga's latest puzzler Scramble With Friends Free is technically a free game, but in order to get the most out of it and play as it's meant to be played you'll need to use the in-app purchasing system to buy "tokens" to let you access games quicker. Which leaves a slightly bad T-A-S-T-E in the M-O-U-T-H, but at least it's free and perfectly playable at a slow pace if you're just curious.

5. Dead on Arrival

Dead on Arrival is a very impressive looking 3D survival horror game, which dumps you in a hospital infested with zombies. You then try to not get eaten by buying new weapons, boarding up doors to keep the brain-eaters at bay and using wall-mounted weaponry to quicken the zombie mincing process. As with many of today's Android titles, there's the option to pay for stuff within the game to unlock features and remove ads - but you don't have to.

6. Stick Cricket

Stick Cricket is a fantastically simple little game that reduces cricket to its core values - you just smash every ball as hard as you can. There's no worrying about field positioning, just a bat and a ball coming at you very quickly. Initially it seems impossible to do anything other than make a complete mess of things and having your little man smashed upside-down, but it soon clicks.

7. Draw Something Free

Draw Something Free is the new phenomenon that's taking the world by storm (at the time of writing, at least). It's basically a mobile version of Pictionary, where you're given a choice of three words of varying difficulty, then tasked with drawing them so someone can tell what it is. Syncs with Facebook, too, for easy cross-platform play. If you like the free trial, there's a paid accompaniment with more content.

8. Fragger

The popular web-based Flash game Fragger is now on Android. It's pretty much a clone of Angry Birds, mind, offering simple physics-based challenges based around chucking grenades all over the place to make stuff blow up. It comes with some rather intrusive ads, but that's the price you (don't) pay for sticking with the free version.

9. The Sims FreePlay

Global mega-corporation EA has gone literally mad, giving away its Android version of The Sims for nothing in the form of The Sims FreePlay. In return for sitting through some full-screen adverts every now and again, players get a decent mobile version of The Sims, complete with pets, plants, lifestyle points and all the usual mundane activities that make the series popular. It's not perfect, but does fit in most Sims core features.

10. Super Bit Dash

About as far away from The Sims as you can get. Super Bit Dash is a retro-style 2D platform game, with controls as simple as its pixel art design. The game runs at a constant pace, so all the player has to do is jump and super-special-jump at the right time in order to avoid smashing into the scenery. Obviously it's a lot harder than that makes it sound.

11. Chrono&Cash Free

Chrono&Cash Free is very hard and sweet little one-screen platform game, where players jump about collecting bags of cash while avoiding enemies. And that's all there is to it, aside from some mini challenges to boost your score multiplier and online sharing of your scores to goad friends into trying to beat you. Looks cool, is a tiny download and a great laugh to play.

12. Autumn Walk

A weird little gem, Autumn Walk sees players controlling a man and his dog as they stroll through a Victorian park landscape. The challenge here is dog management, with the hound either running ahead or hanging back - both precarious scenarios that could cause the lead to snap. It's basically a high score challenge, to see how long you can stand the weird experience. Worth it for the awesome comic dialogue that accompanies your stroll.

13. Meganoid 2

Meganoid 2 is an insanely difficult 2D scrolling platform game, once again presented in developer Orange Pixel's awesome pixel art style. The levels are rather short, with the challenge here being to simply play them again and again and again so you can get through them without death. Might drive you mad. Might be your favourite game of the year. Close call.

14. Pitfall

Developer Activision has updated one of its oldest and most fondly remembered classics, turning the ancient platform game into a posh, 3D infinite running thing. Pitfall uses swipe and tilt controls like the famous Temple Run, including power-ups, vehicles and changing camera angles to add a bit of variety to the look and feel of it all.

15. Bad Piggies

A shock move from developer Rovio, in that this one isn't a simple take on the Angry Birds style. Bad Piggies is a clever building game, which dumps you at the beginning of a big map with a pile of component parts. You then build a flying machine using the given elements, then try to fly it to the end of the level. A really nice, original little idea from the physics game specialists.

16. Pocket Planes

Pocket Planes puts you in charge of an airline. You potter about the world looking for paying jobs, whether that's passenger or freight routes, then send off your planes to do the little delivery tasks. As things progress the complexity increases, until you're eventually flying customised jumbos with hundreds of passengers around major international cities.

It works in real time in the background, so you can minimise it and do other things while all your birds are finding their way home, then pop back in when the game notifies you that something's arrived and needs attention.

17. Neon Blitz

Neon Blitz is a kind of a posh tracing game, where you use your finger to draw over the shapes on the screen. You're rated on accuracy, with scores compared against the world on its global leader board. There are power-ups and stuff like that, but it's all about having a jazzy, bright experience, that works perfectly on a touchscreen.

18. Agent Dash

Agent Dash is another take on the infinite runner genre that's come to dominate the smartphone gaming landscape, only with a comedy spy angle. As well as swiping to dodge objects, Agent Dash incorporates weaponry and spy gadgets, making it more of an interactive and action-based experience than most of its "Step Right" peers.

19. Whale Trail Frenzy

Whale Trail Frenzy is an updated version of the iOS original, with the developer heaping in more levels for the Android release of its bonkers flying game. You just fly a little whale around the sky (for reasons never explained), collecting things, avoiding bad clouds, building up a multiplier and generally being wowed by its unique and gorgeous style. A really sweet experience.

20. Radiant Defense

Radiant Defense is a fantastic tower defence game, given a dazzling modern look. You do all the usual tower defence stuff like building up your weapon strengths and deciding how best to stop the endless marching enemy, with some "super weapons" to unlock and hundreds upon hundreds of waves to beat. And it all looks astonishingly pretty on a big screened device.

In this age of austerity and scrimping, we've all long since sold our last set of dominoes and melted down our Monopoly counters for scrap.

So where's a frugal gamer to go for fun that won't break the bank? Why, straight to the TechRadar top 10 free Android games of course

21. Temple Run 2

The original Temple Run made staring at a man's bottom on public transport a wholly acceptable pastime, and this sequel augments the endless-running fun with slicker graphics, more power-ups, obstacles and achievements – plus a bigger monkey hot on your heels.

22. CSR Racing

The best cars require in-app purchases, but there's plenty of free fun to be had with this fast and furious racer. Console-quality graphics show off the mean machines (from Audi, BMW, Bentley and others), and gameplay blends strategy as well as speed.

23. Mini Golf MatchUp

Putting (putt-ing, geddit?) the crazy into crazy golf, the five courses in Mini Golf MatchUp take in dinosaurs, sharks and pirates across 70 holes, with realistic physics to temper the unreal environments. Facebook integration is par for the course, while in-game chat keeps things swinging.

24. SongPop Free

A bit like Never Mind The Buzzcocks' intro round, SongPop Free is the handy alternative to carrying Phill Jupitus and someone you've never heard of in your pocket. Guess song clips from loads of genres, then challenge your friends to do better.

25. Dead Trigger

That zombie shooter Dead Trigger is set in the dystopian future of 2012 is testament to its lasting appeal. Frantic first-person missions set in realistic 3D environments are sure to get your heart racing (unless you're a zombie), even on smaller screens.

26. Cut the Rope Full Free

Cute critter Om-Nom in Cut the Rope is the Daniel Day-Lewis of puzzle games, with a BAFTA amid his haul of gaming awards. The simple premise (cut the ropes to release Om-Nom's lunch) sustains 350 well-pitched levels, packed with character and cartoonish charm.

27. Lexulous

Scrabble by another name (its second, after "Scrabulous" proved a tad too copyright-infringing), Lexulous has all the social gaming options you'd expect, but beats its many rivals with its antisocial options: three AI opponents ranging from the simple to the sesquipedalian.

28. Pac-Man + Tournaments

Fed up of 3D, HD, 360-degree action? This authentic recreation of a arcade classic Pac-Man is the kind of good, clean pill-munching fun they enjoyed in the 1970s. A tournament mode offers regularly updated mazes, but the retro original is hard to beat.

29. Scrabble

Yes, the proper Scrabble, not some copyright-infringing clone that'll be pulled by the time you read these words. EA bought the license, tidied it up and stuck it out on Android, where it's a remarkably advert and in-app purchase free experience.

It's been beefed up with a few new modes, but stuff like the ability to sync with Facebook and play multiple matches is actually exactly what you need. A classic that's not been ruined. Hooray.

30. Blip Blup

Blip Blup is the kind of original little idea we love stumbling across. It's a sort of geometry-based puzzle game that has you pressing squares on the screen to fill in areas of colour.

Your light beams are limited in the directions they can travel, so, once you're through the troublingly simple tutorial levels, it soon becomes insanely tough and will soon have you scratching through your skull's skin and bone until you actually itch your BRAIN in confusion.

31. Doodle Jump

Doodle Jump is ancient, but there's a reason it's down here at the newer end of the Triple-A Android freebies list. It's recently been reworked, updated for today's higher resolution displays and, better still, been stuck up on Google Play for free. If you haven't played it, or played it four years ago on iOS, give it another spin. It's a timeless bit of upwards bouncing action.

32. Super Stickman Golf 2

Super Stickman Golf 2 is one of the recent big-hitters of Android, with the superb 2D puzzle golf game doing insane business. It's free, albeit propped up by in-app purchases, with heaps upon piles of golf courses to whack yourself around, challenging your knowledge of physics and angles as much as your sporting abilities.

Looks great and even manages to head online to offer turn-based multiplayer against friends or randoms.

33. Real Racing 3

Extremely controversial thanks to its use of in-app purchases to buy your way to better cars, quicker play time and much more, there's one reason you really ought to give Real Racing 3 a go - it's the best looking 3D racer on Android by a mile.

If you want something that gives both, all four, or even the full eight of your phone's cores a full workout, this is the one. And you don't have to pay for anything, as long as you don't mind staring at timers and waiting a lot.

34. Gunslugs

Another awesome little 2D pixel art classic from developer OrangePixel,Gunslugs is your standard sort of action platformer given a gorgeous old fashioned retro look.

It's been optimised for play on Sony's old-but-popular Xperia Play buttoned Android model, plus the Moga controller and Green Throttle systems will also let you experience it with proper, physical buttons. A random level generator makes it different every time, too.

35. Nun Attack: Run & Gun

Frima Studios' popular battling nun series has been transformed into the modern trend that is the "runner" game in Nun Attack: Run & Gun where your favourite of the four available nuns smash though levels, equip weaponry and, inevitably, earn the gold coins that can be used to unlock extra features. Or you can pay real money to buy coins. Real nuns wouldn't approve of that.

36. Guardian Cross

Famed developer Square Enix has created this highly regarded fantasy card battle RPG, with, so it claims, some input from developers involved in building the legendary Final Fantasy series. But it's not like those games.

Guardian Cross is all about collecting a powerful deck of card characters, which are then used to battle both in-game fights and real human friends online. There's a bit of mindless grinding and waiting if you want to avoid in-app purchases, but none are compulsory purchases.

37. Flatout: Stuntman

Supposedly a spin-off from the home console racing titles, Flatout: Stuntman takes one of the more shocking elements from the driving games – the crash dummy physics of drivers thrown from their cars – and turns it into a whole game.

The idea is you have a crash, trying to ensure as much damage is caused to your little ragdoll character. Possibly the sort of tasteless thing that might trigger a 'Ban All Games' campaign, but... fun. And free. So your wallet won't get hurt.

38. Pocket League Story 2

Mobile developer Kairosoft went down the "freemium" route with this sequel to its superb man-managing football business sim, so Pocket League Story 2 is playable for free if you don't mind suffering a little more than those who pay for upgrades. It's still a great little game, in which you take charge of managing the ground, scouting for players, coaching matches, building facilities and much more.

39. GYRO

GYRO is exactly the sort of thing we like - a clever new idea that makes the most out of today's touchable devices. It's a bit abstract. You are the circle thing in the middle, and you rotate yourself to absorb the incoming spheres, matching the balls with the right coloured segment.

Shields and score multipliers then fire in, and, inevitably, it all gets quicker and harder. Perfect even on older phones and tablets of modest performance.

40. Galaxy on Fire 2 HD

Galaxy on Fire 2 HD is one of the most visually impressive 3D shooters to be found on Android, Galaxy on Fire 2 also chucks in some trading and exploration play to add a little more depth to the combat, making it into something similar to having your own little portable Eve Online. You also get to play as a lead character called Keith, which is quite an exciting rarity.