My Top 5 Favorite Android Games

Hey there. Am I going to give you the 5 best games of all time? Hell no. I’m just giving you the ones I play most often as of this writing. That could change next month! Let’s share experiences – I tell you mine, you tell me yours and see what we get. (These are all available in the Google Play store.)

1. Monument Valley

I first heard of Monument Valley while watching Kevin Spacey playing it on a House of Cards episode on Netflix. (Kudos to USTWO for that product placement!). At first glance, it just looked “different”. You lead a little gal called Ida through a series of architectural mazes which open up levers and turntables and introduce you to annoying birds and sad totems. At times, I almost broke my brain trying to navigate it. It’s been described as elegant, but frankly, it’s like a fabulous book you wish would never be over. And over it will be, as the game itself isn’t beyond difficult and doesn’t have a zillion levels. I recently talked a friend into installing the game after balking at the price ($3.99). He’s now hooked and has completed every chapter.

Monument Valley is a little M.C. Escher mixed with the Arabian Nights tumbled with the opening sequence to Game of Thrones and glorified with gorgeous color and music. It’s a mystical adventure you will not soon forget and it’s worth every dollar you spend on it.

2. Monster Legends

My nephew turned me onto Monster Legends and now I’m at level 42 and he’s at 24. Originally it was meant to be a bonding exercise between me and a 10 yr. old, but I’ve become a little obsessed with it. The game is about creating a world of habitats; breeding, winning, or buying a series of wonderful monsters to live in the habitats; warring with other players in challenges or adventure maps to win more gold, various prizes, and the ever valuable gems – all in your never ending quest to level up monsters, collect monsters, or just have the most of everything. And yes, I have actually plunked down real cash to get more gems to get better monsters to cremate the competition in all my battles. Later I learned how to breed monsters more efficiently and accumulate gems over time.

The fun thing about Monster Legends is, you can come back to it throughout the day for ten minutes at a time, get your monster high on, then leave it for a while. There’s no real finishing of the game and if you take a close look at the monsters as they grow through different stages when you level them up, you’ll see they were created with a great sense of humor and creativity. Remember to Google info online about breeding, go after Legendaries, and spend time in the battles to accumulate free stuff.

3. Candy Crush Saga & Candy Crush Soda

For years now we’ve been matching up symbols, gems, fruits, and sundry objects in games like Bejeweled, but honestly, nobody does it better than Candy Crush and Candy Crush Soda. I pooh-poohed them when I originally heard about them and thought they were just mindless entertainment. And guess what? They are! The addiction to them, however, is almost instantaneous. Wherever I go, people know what I’m playing and want to know what level I’m at. I haven’t seen anything but the top of my sister’s head since she discovered it. It can be difficult to get past some levels and there are times when you absolutely “need” friends to move forward so it pays to connect to Facebook, (even though I deplore games that force you to do that) and get keys to open levels or extra turns.

Truth be told, I’m more of a word gamer, but Dang, this game is crazy good and I can’t play it without the super satisfying sound effects. Candy Crush is Pavlov’s Dog experiment personified. You will need a twelve-step program to stop playing it.

4. Classic Words Solo

Yeah, I used to be all about Words with Friends, but then it kept crapping out on my phone. So I opted for a more stable version of the beloved Scrabble game called Classic Words. It lets you play different levels with the computer and hone your Scrabble skills neatly and efficiently. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that WWF has, but sometimes I just wanna play Scrabs. There are no cheaters here either, (a common complaint about WWF) and the game play is FAST. You’ll learn a ton of new words and there’s a stats table included.

5. Dots

Dots is a connect-the-dots game that offers great satisfaction in very little time. The versions include timed, number-of-moves, and endless, as well as challenges.

Connect two dots. Cool. Connect a line of dots. Neat. Connect a whole square or rectangle of dots and you’ve hit the jackpot. If you have your settings correct, (vibration and sound ON), you’ll be tweaking for bleeps in no time. It’s fast and fun and you don’t have to wrap your brain around it. A zombie could do it. Trust me when I say, you’ll be wanting to beat your old score every time. This is the one for the supermarket checkout line.

Please share your faves in the comments section.