The best iPhone and iPad games this week - Botanicula, Hack, Slash, Loot, and Intake: Be Aggressive
Tree hugging, dungeon crawling, pill popping madness
Every Friday, Pocket Gamer offers hands-on impressions of the week's three best new iPhone and iPad games.
Botanicula
By Amanita Design - buy on iPad (£2.99 / $4.99)
A point and click adventure from the makers of Machinarium, Botanicula is a visual feast, all bright colours and quirky organic designs.
The game is mainly set on a tree and you control a band of five insect-like creatures who band together to figure out where the gloopy sickness that's infected their home has come from.
Each of the characters has their own unique skill, and you'll need to utilise them all to solve the puzzles the game presents you with.
If you want to spend some time in a living, breathing, utterly unique world this weekend, then download Botanicula right this instant.
Hack, Slash, Loot
By David Williamson - buy on iPad (£2.99 / $4.99)
This touchscreen retooling of the PC success story leaves most of the game unchanged.
So you're still hacking through some deep, randomly generated dungeons, earning loot and completing quests as you go.
The simple swipey tappy controls mean that most people are going to be able to have a crack at the subterranean lairs, but there's a decent level of challenge to discover behind the pixel art graphics.
The roguelike has found an unlikely home on the App Store, and this is a prime example of the genre done right. Well worth a try if you like your fantasy fast and full of death.
Intake: Be Aggressive
By Cipher Prime Studios - buy on iPad (£1.99 / $2.99)
A frantic, angry blend of dubstep, drug culture, and insanely fast pill-tapping gameplay, Intake: Be Aggressive is a brilliant shooter without much shooting in it.
There's a colour-switching mechanic similar to Ikaruga that lets you shield against certain coloured pills and pop others as they cascade down the screen towards you.
Finding the right rhythm after a few games really opens up this slightly crazed arcade experience, and the mixture of influences that dribble through the simple, fast-paced play make it a thing to behold.
