Now that our GotY and Best Games of 2015 have been decided, I figured some people might find it interesting to see our process of selection and to list all the games that didn't quite make the cut. First of all it should be said that this is NOT an exact science by any means, and there are some VERY excellent games that didn't make it into our Best Of coverage. So if you didn't really find anything interesting about our Best Of list, you'll no doubt find tons of gems by combing through the massive list below. So this is how I came up with this year's list, and it's how I do it every year. I go all the way back to our Best Of lists from last year, and go through every page of TouchArcade from that point onwards all the way up to present day. It's roughly 170+ front pages to go through. I do this partially because I'm insane, but also because there are some really great games that for one reason or another just don't get reviewed by us, so I don't like just relying on looking at all the 4-5 star reviews for making these lists because there's too much potential for great games to be missed. Also many times very well-loved games don't get a super positive review from one of our reviewers because they personally didn't dig it, and that shouldn't preclude that game from being in consideration. I also actually go through every single Out Now post from the entire year too, just to see if anything stands out and to be thorough. Doing all this, which takes many hours spread across several days, gives us a massive, unwieldy list of really good games. From that point I just kind of go through the list and pick out things that I think were the real standouts of the year. I go through that main list several times over to make sure I've gotten everything, and the second list that this results in is also quite large but much more manageable than the initial list. Then it's really just hunkering down and deciding what stays and what goes based on a myriad of factors. When I finally have my list of 25-ish, I pass it on to the rest of the TA crew and ask if anybody has anything they feel should be added, or if they feel especially strong about any of those games NOT being included. This year there really was no objections to the original 25. Out of that 25, I felt that Land Sliders and Downwell were the two real standouts, though really you could make an argument for any of the games on the whole list. I know a lot of people were shocked at our pick of Land Sliders for GotY, and if that describes you then you'll want to listen to our podcast this week as we really go into detail in how it ended up as our pick. The pick for which one was GotY and which was Runner Up ultimately came down to Eli and myself, as we're the only two full-time editors of the site. In the end Land Sliders came out on top, and as I said we go into detail on why that is on our podcast if you're interested. Anyway, that's the lengthy, mind-numbing, but somehow cathartic process of whittling down the best games of the year. Without further ado here is the "Best of the Rest" in alphabetical order, followed by a list of ports/multiplatform games from the year, which we singled out for a possible feature that never ended up happening but I'm also too lazy to just cram them back into the main list. Also it's kind of helpful seeing all the ports and multiplatform stuff in one place, but it's not a very refined list so you'll find stuff in the big list that should qualify as port or multiplatform but isn't listed as such, and that's why. Ok enough babbling here's the list: BEST OF 2015 AG Drive AirAttack 2 Alto's Adventure Badland 2 Call of Champions Chaos Rings 3 Does Not Commute Don't Starve: Pocket Edition Downwell Dust: An Elysian Tail The Executive Furdemption Galactic Keep Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved Her Story Horizon Chase Implosion - Never Lose Hope Land Sliders Lara Croft GO Pac-Man 256 Prune The Room Three Sorcery! 3 Space Marshals Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon This War of Mine BEST OF THE REST 2015 A Day in the Woods A Good Snowman is Hard to Build A Study In Steampunk: Choice By Gaslight Active Soccer 2 Afterpulse Agent A: Puzzle in Disguise Alchemic Dungeons Alphabear Angry Birds 2 Anodia 2 Aralon: Forge and Flame Arcane Towers Atomic Pinball Collection Attack the Light: Steven Universe Auro Avernum 2: Crystal Souls AZZL Beast Quest The Beggar's Ride Beneath the Lighthouse Blokshot Revolution Blockwick 2 Blocky Highway Cally's Caves 3 Capitals Card Crawl Cavernaut Champion Of The Gods Code of Arms Coors Light Super Refresh-Men Cosmonautica Craft the World - Pocket Edition Crowntakers Cube Koala Dandy: Or A Brief Glimpse Into the Life of a Candy Alchemist Dark Echo Dark Fear Dashy Crashy Dead Effect 2 .Decluster .Decluster Zero: Bullet Nocturne Devious Dungeons 2 Diabolical Digfender Digit & Dash Divide By Sheep Dragon Hills Drop Wizard Drylands Dungeon Hunter 5 Dungeon of Madness Earthcore: Shattered Elements Edge of Oblivion: Alpha Squadron 2 The Enchanted Cave 2 Endless Sniper Evel Knievel Fallout Shelter Fantastic Plastic Squad Fatal Fight Fearless Fantasy Final Fantasy: Record Keeper Five Card Quest Five Nights at Freddy's 3 Five Nights at Freddy's 4 Flop Rocket Football Manager Classic 2015 Football Manager Mobile 2016 Football Manager Touch 2016 Forever Lost: Episode 3 Fragger 2 Gamebook Adventures 12: Asuria Awakens Give It Up! 2 Gods of Rome Grayout Groove Planet Guardian Sword Gunbrick Gunslugs 2 Hanger World Heroes and Castles 2 Hero Emblems Hero Fighter X Heroki Hitman Sniper Hopiko Imps in Tokyo Impulse GP Into the Dim Ire: Blood Memory Jelly Reef Kindo Lamp and Vamp Last Horizon The Last Warlock Lettercraft Lifeline Loot and Legends Lost Within Lowlander Magazine Mogul Magic Touch: Wizard for Hire Marvel Future Fight MicRogue Midnight Star Minecraft: Story Mode Monkeyrama Mortal Kombat X Mos Speedrun 2 Mr Jump Need for Speed: No Limits Neko Atsume Nono Islands Nubs' Adventure Operation Dracula Order and Chaos 2 Pancake - The Game Paper Monsters Recut Particle Mace PewDiePie: Legend of the Brofist Piloteer Pixel Dungeon Planet Quest Platform Panic Please, Don't Touch Anything Pocket Mine 2 Potatoman Seeks the Troof Power Hover Progress To 100 The Quest Keeper Radiation Island Radical! Radical Rappelling Rayman Adventures Rebuild 3: Gangs of Deadsville Roid Rampage Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 Runeblade Rush Rally Rust Bucket Ryan North's To Be Or Not To Be Sage Solitaire Samurai Blitz Seek: Find Your Friends The Sequence Shadowmatic Shibuya Grandmaster Shooting Stars Shooty Skies Sid Meier's Starships Silly Sausage in Meat Land The Silver Bullet Skeletomb Ski Safari 2 Skiing Yeti Mountain Skylanders SuperChargers Sling Kong Sneaky Sneaky Snowboard Party 2 Soda Dungeon Spirit Lords SPL-T Splendor Star Wars Rebels: Recon Missions Starseed: Origin Storm Casters Ultra Stormblades Subterfuge Super Boys - The Big Fight Super Dangerous Dungeons Super Happy Fun Block Super Sharp Swap Heroes 2 SwapQuest Sword of Xolan Taichi Panda Tales from Deep Space Tallowmere Tap Titans Templar Battleforce Terminal Velocity Test Chamber Til Morning's Light Tiny Dangerous Dungeons Tiny Rogue The Trace Trick Shot Trulon Ultimate General: Gettysburg Vietnam '65 Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade Warhammer 40K: Deathwatch - Tyranid Invasion Wizards and Wagons WonderCat Adventures Worms 4 Wrassling WWE 2K WWE Immortals Xenowerk You Must Build a Boat Zodiac Zombie Panic in Wonderland DX PORTS/MULTIPLATFORM Adventures of Pip Agar(dot)io Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Desktop Dungeons Don't Starve Pocket Edition Downwell Dragon Quest V Dragon Quest VI Dropsy: A Point and Click Hugventure Ducktales: Remastered Dust: An Elysian Tail Evoland The Deer God Dragon Fantasy: The Black Tome Of Ice Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy Remastered Fatal Fury Special Final Fantasy VII Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers Garou: Mark of the Wolves Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Goat Simulator MMO Simulator GoatZ Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories Gods Will Be Watching Grim Fandango Remastered Guitar Hero Live Halo: Spartan Assault Halo: Spartan Strike Heroes of Might and Magic 3 HD I Am Bread Legend of Grimrock Lost Horizon Lumino City Octodad: Dadliest Catch Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee Pac-Man Championship Edition DX Race The Sun Rex Rocket Scribblenauts Unlimited Sproggiwood This War of Mine Transistor Ys Chronicles 1
Well I just want to thank you for putting all the time and effort into this list. It shows how passionate you guys are about iOS gaming. You could have just picked some big name games out of the air and been done with it. This is exactly why I am Patreon supporter. Oh and good idea putting this in the forums. There will be much less moaning and complaining about what's on or not on the list.
Sigh,Scribblenauts Unlimited is in the list (which has been released recently) while Cataclysm - Dark Days Ahead was not even reviewed.Too bad,it deserves to be in the list,one of the best ports of 2015 for sure.
Pleased to see 'The Sequence' included in Jared's list. Such a clever game, with hours of game-play and so nicely presented. Still got some of the final levels to complete and it won't leave my device until that's happened.
Thanks for sharing this list. It's great to recognize so many games and I'm with Exact-Pscience: it shows that iOS gaming is far from dead. I don't want to moan about missing games, but I noticed that Mos Speedrun 2 was missing and that was surprising to me. I guess that's another proof for how iOS gaming is far from dead and how brutal the competition is: you can be a really great game, get a 5 star TA review, and still not be considered one of the top 200 or so games of the year.
If I look all the games up, add links for download, app info to make them accessible , would anyone or lots of anyone's like to help with adding genre, small descriptions, ect ?
I think "Crossy Maze" snuck out too late to make it onto this list. An excellent game, despite the title.
I don't think this "best of the rest" list includes the games that made it into the front page "favourite games of 2015" articles, where Mos Speerun 2 was featured as one of Jared's picks.
Ah, that's good to know! I haven't read all the front page articles, I got the impression this article was "best of the rest" that didn't make it in the top 25 that was linked here. I'm glad to hear that Mos Speedrun 2 did get some end-of-the-year recognition.
Yep, what Andy said. I had pulled some games out to make my personal favorites list and forgot to add them back in I've added the missing games to the "Best of the Rest" list in the OP and also added our Best Games and Game of the Year list too just for completion's sake.
That actually came out in 2014, but it's a tricky one too because it released in December but because it's episodic it would be hard to really judge it based on just the first episode. It would probably be fair to consider games like that for the year when the final episode comes out and the game is complete, but I don't know. It definitely was put in a tough spot because of the time that it launched!
I maybe wouldn't recommend since having got. Or at least wait on a sale. On the otherhand, would recommend: Dandy. Chuffed to bits since getting that one. Nice quality little alternative shoot-emup.