Android phones are awesome, but finding good free games for the platform can sometimes be a little tough. For that reason, I’ve been looking for and downloading handfuls of games, to narrow down which ones are fun, quality games. Here are five that I have found to be just that!

Abduction!

Abduction! is a very straightforward game. You control a cow that is trying to destroy an alien mothership that is abducting their herd. To achieve that, you must jump from platform to platform (conveniently floating thanks to the tractor beam) in an attempt to reach it. The game is controlled using the accelerometer, and by simply tilting the phone to the left or right, the cow does just that. On the way up you can collect (rescue) falling cows for extra points, and receive five-second bonuses from floating presents. But that’s not all that’s falling from the sky, as eventually you will have start dodging bombs that are being dropped by the aliens.

Thoughts: The game is pretty fun, but to me it’s really one of the games you fire up every so often, play a round or two and then you’re done. The controls are, as many accelerometer games are, a little floaty. Even so, once you get used to the movement, it’s not that bad. The core gameplay is simple yet solid, and I can see a lot of people enjoying this. The game comes with a demo for “Abduction! World Attack” which is their larger, more feature rich experience, but costs $2.20.

Bebbled

Bebbled is a puzzle game and works around the basis of removing pieces titled “bebs” from the game surface. To remove bebs, all you have to do is tap on a group of two or more to select them, and then tap again to remove the group. The more you remove at one time, the more points they are worth. In the campaign mode, you are given a preset board of bebs, with which you must achieve a certain goal to beat the level. The goal can be as simple as “achieve 200 points,” or it could say “achieve 400 points in 20 moves.” Bebbled features local and online leaderboards for both the campaign and freestyle modes, which encourages you to keep playing.

Thoughts: Bebbled is a great puzzle game. I’ve been playing it quite a bit lately, and am really enjoying it. The game comes with two campaigns, with more “coming soon.” There is also a “freestyle” mode that has six different variations on the game. Once you finish the campaigns (which get pretty tough) this is where the replay value really kicks in. All of these modes are just different enough from the last to catch your interest.

Flood-It!

Flood-It! is a puzzle game unlike any I’ve played before, and is a game that is really about thinking ahead. You are given a board of one of three sizes (small, medium or large) that is filled with different colored squares. The object of the game is to fill, or “flood” the board with one color. To do this, you start as the top left square on the board. You use the six different colors below the board to change its color. Whichever adjacent squares are the same color also change to the new color. You repeat this until you eventually flood the board with one color. There is a catch though, as you are limited to 22 steps on the small board, 30 on medium, and 36 on large.

Thoughts: I like this game a lot. I enjoy games like this where you don’t win almost every time. It always feels good to pull off a victory with one or two steps left, and when you lose, you always feel so close that you want to play again right after. The game is a little lacking in variety, as the board sizes are really the only things you can change to mix things up. You can change the colors to suit your likings, but that is simply aesthetic. That being said, it’s sort of like Minesweeper, in the way that it’s still a fun game that always presents a new challenge even without different modes.

LineUp Pro

LineUp Pro is another game by Labpixies, the makers of Flood-It! The game itself looks a little like Tetris, but it doesn’t play like it at all. To play the game, you tap on groupings of three of more blocks to eliminate them. The more you eliminate, the more points they are worth. Blocks continually appear from below you every few seconds, so you must keep your pace up to keep the blocks from hitting the top, which ends the game. You are limited to 100 taps per game, but every 1000 points, you get 100 more, and the speed increases. There is also a laser block that destroys the one line and one column that it is in.

Thoughts: LineUp Pro is a very addictive game, and you’ve got to be quick and thoughtful about your moves to gain those extra taps to keep you going. There definitely is strategy to it, but you sure can’t think too much, or it’ll be game over before you know it. Like Flood-It!, there is only one mode, but the core experience is fun enough to keep you wanting more. It also features online leaderboards to compare your scores against.

Jewels

Yep, Jewels is basically a free version of the Bejeweled game that most of us know and love. While not as feature rich, the core experience is the same. You match three or more jewels to eliminate them. The more you eliminate, the more points you get. There are three different modes: normal, timed, and infinite. In normal mode, you simply play until you are no longer able to make a move. As you accumulate points, the bonus bar on the bottom of the screen increases, and when it’s full you advance to the next level. Timed mode turns the bonus meter into a timer, which is refilled a little bit (more jewels adds more time) every time you eliminate jewels. You must keep a steady pace to keep the timer from reaching zero. The last mode, infinite, plays like you would think. Instead of the game ending like normal mode when you run out of moves, it simply resets the board so you can continue playing. Infinite mode does not have high scores, as it never ends, but the other modes do. Leaderboards are only local though.

Thoughts: It’s the most solid free Bejeweled clone that I’ve found on the market. Though it doesn’t add anything new to the gameplay, it’s still a solid experience. Just about everyone likes the match-three formula, so it really doesn’t need anything overhauled to still be fun. Online leaderboards would be nice, but isn’t really that big of a deal.

I hope everyone enjoyed the games that I picked, and I encourage you to try them all out! Let us know if you find some awesome games, and look for more mobile gaming features in the future!

Note: All games were tested using a Motorola Droid on firmware version 2.0.1