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The 3 best Android games this week - Card Dungeon and more

Hit the deck

The 3 best Android games this week - Card Dungeon and more
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Every Friday, Pocket Gamer offers hands-on impressions of the week's three best new Android games.

Card Dungeon
By Playtap Games - buy on Android (£1.49 / $1.99)

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I know, I know. Another roguelike. After The Nightmare Cooperative and Dungelot and Hoplite and loads more you're sick of them. But trust us, this one's clever.

As you wander through these dank dungeons, your range of actions is dictated by a set of trading cards.

You can only carry three cards at a time, and they'll wear out the more you use them. This encourages you to try different tactics and puts you in nasty situations where you've got a rubbish hand.

Inventive stuff. And it looks fab too, with a Card Hunter-inspired paper-thin look that turns all the characters into charming scraps of cardboard.

Botanicula
By Amanita Design - buy on Android (£2.99 / $4.99)

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Botanicula feels like the polar opposite of Amanita Design's most famous game, Machinarium.

Where that game was about a grimy, steampunk world populated by tin can robots and grumpy automatons, this serene follow-up is 100 percent organic. The stage is a tree, and the cast of characters is comprised of leaves, feathers, and sticks.

It's still a charming point and click adventure, though. And it's still told without a single word, so you have to figure out what to do and how to do it by watching cute animations and studying cartoon body language. It's a trip.

Terrible Tower
By RedOrb Games - download on Android (Free)

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You start climbing your way up a crumbling stone tower, and wonder to yourself why Pocket Gamer has recommended a game with such shonky graphics and sound effects.

Have they gone nuts? You wonder. Did the developer pay to be on this list? You ponder. You momentarily consider joining GamerGate in protest.

But then you miss a jump, topple off into the abyss, and wait for the cold embrace of death. And it doesn't happen. Instead, you warp in from the top of the screen and keep going. Aha, you go. It's got a vaguely clever new mechanic and PG is all about those.

Yes, Terrible Tower is not going to win any prizes for aesthetics. And it doesn't use its Portal-inspired teleporting concept as well as it could. But it tries something different and messes with your brain in an interesting, fuzzy-feeling way. Try it.

Mark Brown
Mark Brown
Mark Brown is editor at large of Pocket Gamer