The iPhone’s potential as a games machine was initially dismissed. It lacked traditional controls, so how could it compete with dedicated portable gaming hardware from the likes of Nintendo? But games creators ignored perceived limitations, and took advantage of the iPhone’s touchscreen and accelerometer. The result was a slew of imaginative, unique, exciting multi-touch experiences.
An alternative approach, pioneered by Canabalt, was to strip everything back. That game is controlled with a single thumb or finger, tapping the screen to make the protagonist jump across gaps between rooftops. With mobile gaming often being about short-burst entertainment, Canabalt proved intuitive – yet its speed ensured it was also exciting and kept dragging you back for more.
You still might think reducing controls to using a single digit may feel reductive. But games creators have shown they can revel in such limitations. In this round-up, we’ve scoured the best in one-thumb games for iPhone. Our list offers something for everyone, whether you’re the most casual of gamers, or someone who usually has their hands clamped around a gamepad but fancies trying something a bit different.
Alto’s Odyssey ($4.99/£4.99)
Like predecessor Alto’s Adventure, Alto’s Odyssey is a game about grace and freedom. Alto sandboards across gorgeous desert landscapes, his journeys taking him through villages, jungles and abandoned ruins. Along the way, you grind rails, bounce on balloons, outwit angry wildlife, and perform spectacular mid-air somersaults, all under the direction of a single thumb.
Automatoys (free or $2.99/£2.99)
This one’s like a fantastical take on those plastic toys where you fire a tiny ball into a pachinko-like arena. Only here, the contraptions you face are complex and visually dazzling 3D obstacle courses. Careful timing is required to tease your grinning ball to the goal. Tactile, engaging stuff.
Bacon – The Game (free or $2.99/£2.99)
Putting bacon on anything makes it better, right? This one-thumb title puts that to the test, with you flipping a slice of bacon on to everything from ice cream to the Mona Lisa. We’re pretty sure the latter would get you kicked out of the Louvre, mind.
Badland ($0.99/99p)
Badland finds little winged beasts trying to survive shortish trips through terrifying forests. You tap to fly and must navigate the hostile terrain, making use of multipliers to clone yourself, and other devices to expand or contract in size. Badland also includes a level editor for endless creative fun.
Beat Street (free)
Evil gangs are terrorizing your patch, and it’s down to you to free the city in this love letter to classic scrolling brawlers. Using just one thumb, you move, punch, kick, hurl dazed foes about, and sometimes unsportingly whack your enemies with a baseball bat. But, hey, they’re the bad guys.
Beneath the Lighthouse (free)
Bucking platform-gaming conventions, this nautically themed effort doesn’t have you running and jumping. Instead, you spin a wheel with your thumb to have the rotund protagonist roll about. But watch out: this lighthouse has plenty of secrets – and also walls and floors jam-packed with spikes!
Download Beneath the Lighthouse
Crossy Road (free)
This endless take on Frogger has you guide a blocky character across rivers, through traffic, and safely over train tracks. The gameplay is infused with plenty of character – and, indeed, characters. Collect coins to try your luck with a one-armed bandit that dispenses new protagonists, many of which shake up Crossy Road’s visuals and gameplay.
Donut County ($4.99/£4.99)
Most videogames want you to avoid plummeting down holes. In Donut County, you are the hole. As you roam, you’re initially only just big enough to gobble tiny objects, but soon you’re swallowing mountains. And if you think that’s weird, that’s not a patch on the underlying storyline.
Doug Dug (free + $0.99/99p)
Dwarf Doug likes to dig. He also adores bling. You drag on the screen to guide him about, unearthing gems and avoiding getting flattened by cave-ins. As you dig deeper, monsters enter the fray, which must be spiked or avoided; there’s the odd power-up to discover, too, including an excellent golden spade for super-fast digging, which we reckon would be really handy in the garden.
Edge Extended ($2.99/£2.99)
Edge Extended, like its predecessor, Edge, is a speedrun dexterity challenge set across dozens of minimal isometric worlds suspended in space. Guide your cube by drag-hold gestures, grab glowing gems, and reach the finish line in the shortest possible time. And if you can balance on an edge, you’ll amass ‘edge time’ bonuses!
Empty (free)
This relaxing puzzler is minimalist in nature anyway – but it quickly takes things much further. The idea is to make objects disappear by maneuvering rooms so items match background colors. With the tranquil soundtrack and between-level texts, this is a properly ‘zen’ game – ideal when you need to relax.
Fotonica ($4.99/£4.99)
Essentially Canabalt in 3D, with visual aesthetics from something like Tron, Fotonica has you leaping your way through surreal wireframe scenery. Shapes whirl, and recognizable elements occasionally appear, but mostly you’ll be concentrating on not tumbling into the abyss. Once you master the eight varied levels, there are three endless modes to pit your wits (and thumb) against.
Giant Dancing Plushies ($3.99/£3.99)
The clue is in the name. This game really does feature gigantic dancing cuddly toys, rampaging along city streets. Your aim is to help them survive attacks by human armies while avoiding civilians (they’re not cuddly monsters, after all) and keeping to the beat. The game will even work with your own music collection.
Download Giant Dancing Plushies
Golf On Mars ($2.99/£2.99)
An artillery game stripped back to an almost absurd degree, Golf On Mars finds you in a minimalist Martian landscape boasting a ball and a hole. Drag to aim, let go to swing and (with a little luck) pot and then move on to the next challenge. It seems endless and there’s no restarting, but it’s ridiculously moreish.
Holedown ($3.99/£3.99)
There’s probably a more efficient way to drill down to a planet’s core than firing balls at bricks. But Holedown is a lot more fun than piloting traditional hardware. Precision aiming is the key, along with cunningly making use of upgrades to work your way ever deeper.
Jump Jerboa (free or $1.99/£1.99)
This rodent, having been trapped in a cage, is now making a daring break for freedom. Alas, there are dozens of rooms in its path, packed full of monsters, spikes and cannons. So you need to time jumps right to avoid jerboa splattage in this hard-as-nails claustrophobic platform game.
Look, Your Loot (free or $1.99/£1.99)
The distillation of dungeon crawling, this strategy game has a brave rodent move around a living grid of cards. It’s all about energy levels as you use chess-like thinking to plan several moves ahead, grabbing spells, duffing up enemies, and figuring out how to take down the big bad.
OCO (free or $1.99/£1.99)
This one’s another auto-runner, where you rebound off of walls and tap the screen to jump. But it stands out with its levels being based around tiny spinning worlds depicted as minimalist works of art, all set to a gorgeous procedurally generated soundtrack.
Ord ($1.99/£1.99)
In the intro, we mentioned Canabalt stripping platform games right back. Ord does the same for text adventures, providing you with two choices at each step, along with single-word descriptions and outcomes. Your imagination fills in the gaps. It’s all surprisingly effective.
Ordia ($3.99/£3.99)
There’s a hint of Angry Birds about Ordia, although the aim here is survival rather than destruction. You slingshot a lifeform, having it dart from point to point, in a primordial world packed full of hungry foes and spiky traps. Top-notch goop-flinging stuff.
Pac-Man 256 (free)
The famous dot-muncher from the 1980s is remade in isometric form here. Your endless task is to eat dots, grab bonuses, take out ghosts, and keep ahead of the all-consuming glitch. It’s a great update of a classic, although if you prefer the original, Pac-Man (free) exists on iPhone – and also only requires a single digit.
Pico Hero ($0.99/99p)
Poor Pico is not having a great day. Evil types just stole all their animal chums. Fortunately, Pico is a hero… who happens to be heavily armed. What follows is 100 levels of entertainingly silly one-thumb blasting, animal rescue and, um, tree planting. Odd.
Piffle (free)
The nefarious Doc Block is filling the world with shapes that are menacingly threatening to land, and then presumably do something evil. Blow them all to bits by firing strings of bouncy cats into the air, which ping about and obliterate everything in their path. It’s furry good! Grab it meow! And so on.
Pixel Shooter Infinity (free)
A shoot ’em up in a shoebox, Pixel Shooter Infinity has your tiny craft face off against countless hostile ships. Dodge the many projectiles, blast foes, and then scoop up gems defeated enemies leave behind. You’ll then power up your craft and have a chance of taking on big bosses.
Download Pixel Shooter Infinity
Reigns: Game of Thrones ($3.99/£3.99)
This one mashes up one of TV’s most popular shows, Tinder-style swiping to manage your kingdom, and RPG-lite narrative branching. It’s ambitious, but extremely intuitive – even though it’s tough to balance the wishes of the people, army, bank, and church. Not hot on GOT? Try Reigns: Her Majesty ($2.99/£2.99) instead.
Download Reigns: Game of Thrones
Silly Walks (free)
Your fruity chums are about to be juiced, and only you can save them! Unfortunately, you’re also a bandy-legged pineapple cocktail that dodders one step onwards whenever the screen is tapped, in this comical arcade game featuring deranged kitchen appliances out for blood (well, juice).
Slime and Machinegun (free)
The Pixel Shooter Infinity creator brings their brand of wanton destruction to twin-stick blasting – only in this case, your tiny hero automatically takes aim at whichever foes are nearest. The bite-sized encounters in this one are exhilarating, but there’s progression too as you ramp up your arsenal.
Super Mario Run (free + $9.99/£9.99)
It’s-a-Mario! Only this isn’t your typical scrolling platformer. Instead, you direct Nintendo’s dungaree-clad mascot with a single digit. The concept horrified long-term Mario fans, but the level design here is first-rate, turning each one into a combination of puzzle and choreography to crack should you want to grab all of the bling.
Threes! ($5.99/£5.99)
The best puzzler on iPhone finds you swiping tiles around a board, attempting to merge pairs to form ever-higher face values. The catch: every tile that can move will, and new tiles appear in empty slots where you swiped from. You must therefore engage your chess brain, thinking ahead, staving off the inevitable point when there are no more moves to make.
Time Locker (free)
Most overhead shooters are about reactions as you attempt to blow up all of the things, and weave through bullet hell unscathed. But in Time Locker, everything stops when you do, allowing you to plan your next room. Don’t dawdle, though – a world-eating void is in hot pursuit.
Tiny Wings ($1.99/£1.99)
A sweet-natured one-thumb effort about the joy of flying, Tiny Wings has you control a little bird that slides down hills when you hold the screen, then hurls herself into the air on reaching the next apex. Careful timing is required to fly fast enough to outpace the setting sun. Further delights are found in the Flight School race mode, featuring the bird’s chicks.
Vectronom ($2.99/£2.99)
This captivating game has you guide a cube through a world of geometric shapes that shifts and changes to the beat. You’ll need to swipe to the rhythm, understanding the clockwork nature of how the landscape moves. Tricky but rewarding stuff.
Yeah Bunny 2 (free or $2.99/£2.99)
Another platformer with a sprinting animal pinging back and forth. This one features the titular bunny, a cartoonish hero who leaps on enemies, grabs coins and rescues chicks. With vibrant visuals, varied levels and an endearing lead, this one will keep your thumb tapping away for weeks.
Subscribe to Apple Arcade? At the time of writing, ‘plus’ versions of the following games we’ve featured are available on that service: Alto’s Odyssey, Badland, Crossy Road, Pac-Man 256, Threes!, Time Locker, and Tiny Wings.