The best platformers for Android phones and tablets (2015)

Platform games have a long and storied history, which include some of the best video games of any kind ever made.

When the genre first encountered the modern smartphone format, however, it took a bit of a tumble. Early attempts at getting a genre based on laser-like precision to work on touchscreen-driven devices were clumsy at best.

Nowadays, things are different, and there are several truly stellar platformers launched on Android every year. Here, we discuss ten of the best.

As a rule, we're not including endless runners for consideration. They're pretty much their own thing now. Other than that, if a game positions running and jumping between platforms as its core mechanic, it's in with a shout.

VVVVVV
By Terry Cavanagh - buy on Android 

Terry Cavanagh's masterful, hard-as-nails platformer VVVVVV is deceptive on a number of levels.

It looks like the kind of uber-basic platformer you would have been playing in the early '80s, for one thing, yet it's actually a sophisticated free-roaming platformer with a clever gravity-manipulation feature at its core.

Indeed, you don't actually 'jump' at all in VVVVVV, which risks endangering its place on this list. I won't tell if you don't.

Also, VVVVVV's need for pinpoint precision would suggest that this Android conversion should be a disaster, yet it actually controls like a dream.

Thomas Was Alone 
By Bossa Studios - buy on Android 

Thomas Was Alone is another indie classic that has made its way to smartphone more or less unscathed.

Its levels are brief, stripped-back, and puzzle-like, and there's a strong focus on story with a much-lauded (and humorous) narrative approach.

Underpinning all of these trappings, though, are solid platformer mechanics, as you guide our odd-shaped protagonists around each minimalistic stage using effective virtual controls.

Traps n' Gemstones 
By Donut Games - buy on Android 

Traps n' Gemstones is a retro 2D platformer, but it belongs to the school of Metroid and Castlevania rather than Mario and Sonic.

You choose your own path through the game's vast pyramid, which is made up of various interconnecting rooms, each with a devious spatial puzzle to solve.

In between there are plenty of tricky baddies to vanquish, runes to collect, and sedate platformer acrobatics to perform.

Waking Mars 
By Tiger Style - buy on Android 

Waking Mars is another deeply unusual platformer. It doesn't have you jump through its moody sub-martian cave system so much as fly, with a nifty jetpack taking care of vertical traversal.

But it's the alien world itself and you actions in it that really set the game apart. Rather than jumping on heads or killing baddies in some other way, Waking Mars tasks you with sowing the seeds for life.

Spooky, atmospheric, and thoroughly absorbing, Waking Mars takes the platform game genre in an intriguing new direction.

Shadow Blade 
By Dead Mage Studio - buy on Android 

Shadow Blade is the complete opposite of something like Waking Mars or Traps n' Gemstones. It's full of super-fast, action-packed platforming.

You play the part of a nimble ninja, and the game's slick swipe-based control system sees you bounding up walls, sneaking around the back of enemies, and of applying the final lethal touch.

All of this is played out in some gorgeous, imaginatively designed, yet forgivingly bite-sized levels.

The original Castle of Illusion was something of a platformer classic during the 16-bit golden era of the genre. Surprisingly, this modern remake manages to replicate its appeal.

Taking the core ideas of the original levels, the game then elaborates with a lush 2.5D engine. It's more 'inspired by' then 'revamped,' and it's all the better for it.

Despite its Mickey Mouse theme, Castle of Illusion remains a tough challenge. Fortunately, the virtual controls are more than up to the task of seeing you through it - provided you have the old skool skills, of course.

Mikey Hooks 
By BeaverTap Games - buy on Android 

Mikey Hooks takes the tight controls and cute graphics of classic 2D platformers and applies them to a super-streamlined speed-run format.

This means that levels are brief, compact, and frenetic - just perfect for mobile play.

Besides which, the compulsion to keep coming back to beat your own times (and those of your friends), represented by a ghost, is startlingly strong.

Electronic Super Joy: Groove City 
By Michael Todd Games - buy on Android 

ESJ: Groove City (as it's known on the Google Play Store) is a truly bonkers platformer with a complete lack of manners.

Not only is does its formidable difficulty level see the game repeatedly booting you in the groin, but its cheeky sense of humour and blue language will have sensitive types blushing.

Fortunately, its tight platformer action justifies the game's quirkier elements, with inventive, constantly morphing levels.

Random Heroes 2 
By Ravenous Games - buy on Android 

Random Heroes 2 is as much a shooter as it is a platformer, but it gets the jumping so spot-on that we're happy to include it on this list.

Choose your hero, select your weapon from an increasingly OTT arsenal, and hop through a series of challenging 2D platformer levels.

The platforming is as tight as many a pure-bred platformer. The only difference here is that rather than jumping on heads, you're pumping them full of bullets.

Gunbrick 
By Nitrome - buy on Android 

Look, we don't know what the hell Gunbrick is.

It's not a pure platformer, that's for sure. It's as much of a puzzler as anything else, and there's a healthy smattering of arcade action in there too.

But its bright retro aesthetic and its twisting level design evoke the classic 2D platformers of old, and at heart it's simply about traversing various platforms using a jump mechanism. It's just that this jump mechanism involves firing a bazooka-like weapon at the floor.

So it's settled, then. Gunbrick is a platformer, and a ruddy excellent one at that.