This year, the sample turned out to be larger than usual. This happened due to the fact that this time Apple tried not to forget anyone. She not only singled out the absolute winners in the “Editors’ Choice” selection, but also highlighted a large number of applications by trends, and also named the top 15 applications in the key tops (paid, free and cash).

“Editors’ Choice” and “Trends” are the same selection for all countries. Tops differ from country to country, there are no common ones.

Before we talk about the winners, we note: judging by the selection, Apple is not breathing evenly to indie. Of the six titles for iPhone and iPad, which Apple Corporation highlighted, four were developed by independent teams.

iPhone

The best iPhone game according to Apple was a vertical runner in the Hemingway setting “The Old Man and the Sea” with shooting and square fish. Of course, we are talking about Ridiculous Fishing – A Tale of Redemption from the independent Dutch team Vlambeer, created by programmer Rami Ismail and designer Jan Willem Nijman.

The second place was taken by the spy text quest Device 6 from Simogo (recall that this studio at the beginning of the year was marked by no less than the original Year Walk).

The “bronze” went to the much-loved gaming press, but at the same time problematic in terms of monetization of Plants vs. Zombies 2.

In the trends that Apple has broken down into categories, there were marked:

In the category “Independent Games”:

1. Oceanhorn is the ideological heir of The Legend of Zelda.

2. rymdkapsel is a minimalistic strategy in the style of Kubrikov’s 2001 Odyssey.

3. EPOCH.2 – action about robots on Unreal Engine 3.

4. Kindom Rush Frontiers is a continuation of the classic cartoon tower defense.

5. LIMBO is a mediocre (due to management) port of the console platformer.

6. Quell Memento is a visually poor puzzle, ideologically close to last year’s Pudding Monsters.

In the category “Gaming blockbusters”:

1. XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a tactical strategy port from consoles that has not been officially released in Russia.

2. FIFA 14 is a football simulator from EA.

3. Dead trigger 2 is a continuation of the experimental project of the Czech team.

4. Deus Ex: The Fall is not the most successful, but at the same time a very beautiful experiment by UbiSoft, who decided to continue the cyberpunk series on tablets.

5. Call of Duty: Strike Team – a mix of action and, conditionally, tactics, which went on a loud brand.

6. Infinity Blade III is the third game in one of the oldest mobile IP (since Angry Birds and Cut the Rope).

In the category “Quick reaction games”:

1. Impossible Road – glamorous minimalism and original gameplay from an independent developer, in short, just what Apple likes.

2. Knightmare Tower is a half-slasher, half-runner, who ideally lacked endless gameplay.

3. Duet Game is another hymn to minimalism, in which it is necessary not to let two balls moving in the same orbit come into contact with the blocks at once.

4. Boson X is an endless three-dimensional runner in which you need to rotate a ten-sided maze around its axis.

5. Slayin is a retro slasher role-playing game with bosses and pixel art from FDG.

6. Mega Dead Pixel is an endless two-dimensional runner about how bad it is to be big (the bigger the pixel, the faster it moves).

In the category “excellent multiplayer”:

1. Heads Up! – perhaps the first mobile game that needs to be played on at least two devices.

  

2. Battle Camp is for some reason a very favorite Apple clone of Puzzle & Dragons for the Western market.

3. Stampede Run – relaunched Zynga multiplayer Running with Friends.

4. Say the Same Thing is a multiplayer word game in which users try to build a logical chain together.

5. Dungeon Hunter 4 is the main clone of Diablo on mobile platforms.

6. Super Stickman Golf 2 – continuation of the logical puzzle about golf.

In the category “Crafting games”:

1. Block Fortress – synthesis of Minecraft and Counter-Strike.

2. Junk Jack X is the ideological successor of Terraria, originally developed specifically for touch devices.

3. Terraria – two-dimensional Minecraft.

4. The Blockheads is a multiplayer Terraria, visually close to Minecraft.

5. Minecraft – does someone not know what kind of game it is?

In the “Racing” category:

In our opinion, this is the only category that does not raise any questions at all. Only the most worthy titles are in the lead here, although, of course, calling CSR Classics “racing” is not entirely true.

1. Asphalt 8: Airborne

2. Real Racing 3

3. Angry Birds Go!

4. Riptide GP2

5. 2K Drive

5. CSR Classics

Minecraft became the top game for 2013 in the category of paid applications. Candy Crush Saga was ahead of everyone in terms of free downloads. It also turned out to be the box office leader of the year, ahead of Clash of Clans. (All these data are for the American market).

iPad

The best game of the year for Apple’s planest turned out to be Badland from Frogmind. We do not understand the exclusivity of this game in the editorial office. And we attribute its wide popularity to the fact that someone at Apple is a big fan of it and aggressively pushes it for a feature wherever possible (although familiar game designers disagree with us, in their opinion, Badland is a unique project).

In the role of catching up with XCOM: Enemy Unknown from 2K Games and Impossible Road from Kevin Ng.

According to trends, the situation with the iPad is very similar to that with the iPhone (in the categories of “crafting” and “racing” there are no changes at all):

There are two changes in the “Independent Games” category: The Room Two and Frozen Synapse have appeared. The first is a continuation of one of the central titles of last year, a quest about ghosts and mysterious boxes that need to be opened.

The second is an honest tactical strategy in a very unusual wrapper.

There are also two changes in the ”Game Blockbusters” category: Plants vs. Zombies 2 and Assassin’s Creed Pirates. And if everything is clear with “zombies”, then Assassin’s Creed Pirates, which was released just last week, is the ideological heir of Sid Meier’s Pirates in a modern way (unless there is no such freedom).

There is one change in the category of “Quick Reaction Games”: Pivvot, this is another project about music and minimalism. In terms of gameplay, it is very close to the already mentioned Duet Game.

Apple has also added the category “Memorable Characters” specifically for the iPad. The following games got into it:

1. Clumsy Ninja – a look at the development of the Talking Tom series from the NaturalMotion side.

2. Tiny Thief is a very cute reinterpretation of the classic Thief from the now deceased Looking Glass Studios.

3. Rayman Fiesta Run – last year, Apple named the first part of Rayman’s mobile adventures (Rayman Jungle Run) the game of the year for the iPhone, this time, the company apparently decided not to repeat itself, although the project is no worse.

4. Robot Unicorn Attack 2 – runner about unicorn robots and pink dreams.

5. Cordy 2 is a platformer about a charismatic TV robot.

6. Le Vamp is a very boring runner on Unity about autumn, vampires and raging townspeople.

The situation for top games on the iPad is similar to that observed with games on the iPhone, if we talk about the leaders. That is, Minecraft is in the lead in the paid top, Candy Crush Saga is in the free and cash register.

The results of last year can be found here.