Live a life of Luxor

It's easy for new releases to get forgotten when the competition is tough. How many generic action flicks have fallen by the wayside as the better known, better produced examples rake in the cash? Remember when the pop charts hit saturation point with boy and girl bands in the '90s, and the flops outweighed the hits?

It's no different for video games, where anything unremarkable in a popular genre is sure to suffer. There aren't many more competitive areas than the mobile puzzle genre, so a new release has to be extraordinarily good to stand out from the crowd.

Luxor Quest is just such a game.

The Luxor series has been hugely successful thanks to its mixture of smooth, zen-like gameplay and attractive presentation. Luxor Quest takes both elements to a new level, featuring even more fantastical Egyptian-themed level design and all-new gameplay elements.

The core Luxor experience involves matching three or more coloured orbs in a constantly moving, snaking line, in order to prevent them from reaching the pyramid at the end of the track.

This is achieved by firing additional orbs into the line from the bottom of the screen. You'll need to utilise deflection points to gain a new angle of approach, as well as potent power-ups that will give you a temporary advantage.

These power-ups range from being able to explode the whole row of orbs to reversing their course, and all will become invaluable as the 30 stages on offer get gradually tougher.

Luxor Quest has already earned a Pocket Gamer Gold Award for being a "Superb and addictive puzzle game," and if you only pick up one puzzle game on your mobile this year, you'd do well to make this the one.