PG's top 5 moments of the week - Monument Valley, Hearthstone, FTL

Every week, Pocket Gamer provides a weekly digest of the most important and popular stories from these digital pages.

When we come to compile our 'best of 2014' lists at the end of the year, it's quite possible that three of the eventual entries will have come out this week: FTL, Monument Valley, and Hearthstone (though this last one is only in soft-launch.)

In other words, it's a good week for mobile games. And, as you'll find out if you take a look at the iOS and Android top 10s listed below, it's been a pretty good month too.

This long-awaited Escher-esque puzzler from ustwo is all about manipulating scenery in impossible ways while a surreal and faintly touching narrative unfolds. It's short, clocking in at around an hour according to critic-on-the-scene Harry Slater, but that didn't stop it getting a coveted Gold Award.

Not only have we reviewed it, but editor Mark Brown has been busily working (on his week off!) to bring you a set of Monument Valley walkthroughs. Don't forget to tell him how grateful you are in the comments.

The name Warcraft generally makes one think of rolling 3D fantasy landscapes, soaring orchestral theme music, and Eric Cartman defecating on his mother. But Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft isn't like that – it's a collectable card game (CCG), and it has the iPad generation squarely in its sights.

After a long and much publicised development Hearthstone is finally out in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, where citizens of the Commonwealth Nations can play it exhaustively while Blizzard looks on and makes its final tweaks.

Harry previewed Hearthstone on video. If you can deal with him telling you to, “get your fingers in there and wiggle them around” then you should watch it now.

There was a time when a roundup of the best Android games was more or less a list of games that were already out on iOS. But not any more. Okay, so Threes! Has been out for a little while, and Sorcery has been out for an age – and, yes, Cut the Rope 2 came out in December.

Then there's Lost Yeti, which came out in January, and it would be difficult to deny that Epoch 2 arrived on the App Store last November. But that's only half the list – and among the other half there's even a game (Rochard) that didn't come out on iOS at all. Instant bragging rights for Android gamers (who own PlayStation Certified handsets).

We also rounded up the best iOS games, among which are stylish puzzler Clarc, Clash of Clans follow-up Boom Beach, nuclear war sim First Strike, and Kairosoft management game World Cruise Story, which – hang on – came to Android last June. Touche Google!

It's not often that Pocket Gamer gives out two Gold Awards in the same week, but it with some alarm that I report that very phenomenon. Monument Valley shared the top honour with FTL: Faster Than Light.

Subset Games's peerless space-based roguelike has been on PC for a while, and the iPad conversion is mostly successful - the controls can get a little bit fiddly when the action gets frantic, but that doesn't stop if from being a stone cold classic.

Stay tuned for some hints and tips next week.

Did you know that Rovio is working on a VR version of Angry Birds for Oculus Rift? It's true – somebody at Rovio HQ leaked the concept documents to us. Unrelatedly, were you aware that Google has created a Google Maps-powered Pokemon hunt, whereby players must travel to-

-PSYCH!

In fact, almost none of the interesting, exciting, and inspiring things that you read about on the internet last Tuesday were real.

This week at 148Apps, you'll find reviews of puzzling puzzler Monument Valley, Fairway Solitaire Blast, and Boom Beach. Plus, you'll find an early preview of Hearthstone.

Check it out here.