Whether you own an Android smartphone or tablet (or, indeed, both) 2014 has been a stellar year for new games. From beautiful puzzlers and frenetic twitch-action games to adventures and social trivia quizzes, the Google Play store's games category continues to swell.
The Guardian's Best Android Apps column tracks new releases every week, and now we've reached July, it feels like a good moment for a recap of some of the best Android games from the first half of the year.
Prices are correct at the time of writing (9 July) but bear in mind they may have changed if you're reading it even a few days later. IAP means a game includes in-app purchases of some kind: from virtual items and currency being sold through to single-purchase unlocks for full games.
By definition, this kind of selection is personal, shaped by this journalist's taste in games. Please do pile in to the comments section to tell me why I shouldn't have included X or should have included Y: your recommendations for great games from 2014 are more than welcome.
One final note: if you're more interested in iOS, read the separate 40 best iPhone and iPad games from 2014 (so far) feature.
Monument Valley (£2.49)
Starting with one of those beautiful puzzlers: Monument Valley sold 500,000 copies in its first month on iOS before making the leap to Android. It's a surreal shape-shifting game that involves guiding a mysterious princess through a series of impossible-architecture levels. It's short, but utterly sweet.
The Room Two (£0.99)
If you've not played the original The Room, it's well worth a look, but its sequel took the game on a notch or two. “A physical puzzler, wrapped in a mystery game, inside a beautifully tactile 3D world,” as its developer put it, this is a well-crafted collection of puzzles challenging your logic skills.
The Walking Dead: Season One (Free + IAP)
The Walking Dead: marvellous as a TV show, but just as good as an adventure game. Developer Telltale Games' take on the zombie apocalypse has won widespread acclaim, and for good reason: it doesn't skimp on plot or characterisation, and will give you the shivers if played at night. One episode is free, with more available to buy in-app.
The Walking Dead: Season Two (Free + IAP)
Blazed through the first season of The Walking Dead? Head straight into season two, which was released a few months after the first one. Again, it's a gripping adventure game pitting you against the undead hordes, with one episode available to play for free, and others sold in-game.
Clumsy Ninja (Free + IAP)
Easily the best character to make his debut on Android in 2014 is Clumsy Ninja: "the most hapless ninja ever to grace a touchscreen" according to developer NaturalMotion. He stars in this virtual pet-style game where you train his skills through trampolining, balloon-popping and ninja-basketball. Superb animation makes this a treat.
Boom Beach (Free + IAP)
Boom Beach is the third game from Supercell, the developer that has enjoyed huge success with its Clash of Clans and Hay Day games. Like those, this is a freemium game: you have to build an island base and invade those of other players, with a military theme and plenty of potential for strategic planning.
Kiwanuka (£1.79)
Kiwanuka sat alongside Monument Valley as a lovely puzzler for Android this year, although the gameplay takes its cues from different sources: Lemmings, for example. It gets you to guide a colourful collection of characters to freedom using a glowing staff: a neon-infused delight.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown (£7.14)
It may seem expensive by app standards, but if you love your strategy games, you'll get plenty of gameplay-per-quid out of XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It's a faithful conversion of the classic sci-fi game, as you fend off an alien invasion with careful tactics rather than unrestrained shooting.
Threes! (£1.20)
Flappy Bird isn't available any more, so I've left it out of this roundup. However, only Threes! could rival it this year for just-one-more-go addiction. It sounds simple: swipe number tiles to make matches, adding 1s and 2s together to make 3s, then adding those. But once you're sucked in, it's nearly impossible to put down.
Lumosity (Free + IAP)
Lumosity is a popular brain-training game – well, a suite of games really – which claims 60m players already on the web and iOS. It finally came to Android in 2014, with its accessible collection of mini-games intact. Great for stretching your grey cells for a few minutes every day, and tracking your progress over time.
Band Stars (Free + IAP)
Fancy yourself as a music mogul? Band Stars gets you to form a band and take them to success, hiring and firing members as you go, upgrading their skills and recording hits. Or, indeed, misses. Social aspects and extra features added over time have made this an enduringly-fun game to keep on your homescreen.
Broken Sword 5 Serpent's Curse (£4.99)
The Broken Sword games are brilliant: engrossing adventures that have navigated the path from PC to mobile with aplomb. This latest one continued developer Revolution Software’s run, sending you on the hunt for a stolen painting with puzzles and a well-worked storyline to hold your attention.
QuizUp (Free + IAP)
It turns out people like playing social trivia games on their smartphones: QuizUp has been a monster success on iOS and Android alike. It's a collection of trivia quizzes covering more than 200,000 questions and 400 topics, built around multiplayer challenges so you can compete with friends.
JoyJoy (£1.17)
Much of the fun for Android gamers this year has been great games appearing from nowhere. JoyJoy was one of them: a twin-stick shooter with well-crafted controls, varied visuals and a well-tuned progression curve. Shoot everything, then shoot some more things. As twitch-gaming on Android goes, it’s up there with the best.
Bad Hotel (£1.49)
Another game that won a hatful of awards and critical acclaim on iOS before making the leap to Android, developer Lucky Frame's Bad Hotel puts you in the position of running your own hotel – one infested by rats, yetis and other invading beasties. An indie classic already.
Wartune: Hall of Heroes (Free + IAP)
Massively multiplayer fantasy game Wartune may be intimidating for casual gamers, but if you relish the challenge, there's plenty to get stuck into: city-building, battles and careful levelling up. With a dedicated community of players, there's months of gameplay in store if you get into it.
Eliss Infinity (£1.76)
Eliss is a puzzle game that's perfect for modern multi-touch devices, as you fuse and split planets to match them. Eliss Infinity is its first appearance on Android, complete with a new "endless" mode, a revamped version of the iOS-only original, and more polish. An excellent introduction to one of the best mobile time-killers.
Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition (£6.99 + IAP)
If you like roleplaying games (RPGs) than Android is proving a happy hunting ground in 2014. Baldur's Gate is another classic from the PC world ported to Google-powered devices: a careful conversion of the 1998 game plus expansion kits that see you exploring a sprawling world of monsters, loot and storytelling.
OTTTD (£1.65 + IAP)
Tower defence has been another genre that's been very popular on Android, with OTTTD (Over The Top Tower Defence) the standout game in the first half of 2014. You build and upgrade towers, manage a team of heroes and see off bosses in a polished and playable example of tower defence at its best.
Angry Birds Epic (Free + IAP)
There are plenty of doubters wondering if the Angry Birds bubble is about to burst, but Angry Birds Epic was an intriguing move into a new genre: RPGs. You have to build up a team of birds, craft and upgrade weapons for them, and then see off pigs through turn-based battles, rather than physics-flinging.
VVVVVV (£1.99)
Terry Cavanagh is a games developer with a growing following, both among gamers and his peers. Known best on mobile for Super Hexagon, he released VVVVVV this year: a mobile version of a retro platform game available since 2010 on other devices. It's hard – this won't come as a surprise if you know his work – but rewarding.
Cut the Rope 2 (Free + IAP)
Cut the Rope is, like Angry Birds, one of the first big mobile gaming brands to have gone mainstream in the early years of Android and iOS gaming. Its latest incarnation is business as usual: snipping ropes to guide sweets into the mouth of cuddly monster Om Nom. However, new characters and features kept it fresh.
Family Guy The Quest for Stuff (Free + IAP)
The Simpsons' freemium mobile game was a big hit in 2013, so it wasn't a surprise to see Family Guy following suit this year. It starts with Peter Griffin having accidentally destroyed his hometown, leaving you with the task of rebuilding it, meeting characters, completing quests and unlocking animations as you go.
Bubble Witch Saga 2 (Free + IAP)
Candy Crush Saga remains the biggest mobile gaming hit of the modern app store era, but publisher King is trying to follow up its success with other Saga games. This takes the template of (ace) console franchise Puzzle Bobble and adds social features and in-app purchases. There are lots of critics of King's approach, but mainstream mobile gamers continue to love games like this.
Final Fantasy VI (£10.99)
Square Enix has been steadily working through its back catalogue of Final Fantasy games to bring its famed RPG series to Android. This was a pixel-perfect port of the 1994 game in the series, adding in some of the features from its 2006 remake. A great blast of nostalgia if you loved the original.
HonorBound (Free + IAP)
Another RPG, but this one built for the free-to-play model that's so big on mobile devices in 2014. You build a party of heroes, explore levels, capture monsters and level everyone up to repeat the above. I got well and truly sucked into this earlier in the year: the Pokemon-style collecting complements the main RPG gameplay well.
Impossible Road (£1.49)
Minimalist racing game Impossible Road sees you zooming down an undulating track, with a pitch-perfect control system giving you plenty of latitude to find the best path (or, more likely, to mess up and crash embarrassingly). It's hypnotic, and challenging in the best possible ways.
King of the Course Golf (Free + IAP)
Tiger Woods may not be the cover star he once was for EA's golf games, but the publisher isn't giving up on the genre. King of the Course was its attempt to reinvent the golf game for free-to-play, blending famous courses, neat touchscreen controls and purchasable boosts. Positive reviews suggest the balance is much better than for the ill-fated Dungeon Keeper, released earlier in the year.
Hitman Go (£2.99 + IAP)
Square Enix's Hitman has traditionally been a third-person shooter on console, but its Android game this year opted for a different style of gameplay: grid-based puzzling. Assassination remains your main goal, with neat "scale-model style" graphics and well-crafted puzzles making it a surprise joy to play.
Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage (£1.49 + IAP)
Icebreaker is a puzzle-action game with a viking theme, tasking you with freeing Norse warriors by solving 140 physics-puzzle levels. Controls are somewhere between Fruit Ninja and Cut the Rope as you chop through ice and other obstacles. Head-scratchingly challenging in places, in a good way.
Magazine Mogul (£2.99)
Japanese developer Kairosoft made its name in the west with Game Dev Story: a cute pixel-art simulation of the games industry. It's since rolled out a host of similar sims, including this magazine industry game. Build a team, launch issues and research new topics: all wed to Kairosoft's familiarly-addictive game mechanics.
Disco Zoo (Free + IAP)
One of the most ridiculous games to be released for Android this year, but that's entirely a good thing. You run a zoo, and have to tap on grids of squares Battleship-style to find new animals to stock it with, and earn money. And every so often, you can roll out a mirrorball for a zoo-wide disco dance.
Wave Wave (£1.09)
I mentioned Super Hexagon earlier, but Wave Wave is one of the games following in its wake offering punishingly-hard "twitch" action. It'll separate the men and women from the girls and boys in gaming terms, as you guide a line through a frequently-rotating maze by tap-holding on the screen.
Farm Heroes Saga (Free)
Another Saga game from King, where the match-puzzle action involves swapping fruit'n'veg, while collecting magic beans and comparing your best scores with Facebook friends. The structure around the gameplay is the same as Candy Crush Saga, and while it's not as popular, it does seem to be attracting players over time.
Rival Knights (Free + IAP)
Jousting: pretty hard, whether in real life or in games – I was frequently brought to tears by the jousting section in Defender of the Crown as a child. Rival Knights manages to make the medieval sport fun though: console-style graphics and gameplay involving unlocking and upgrading horses, weapons and armour before galloping into (mock) battle.
Warhammer 40,000: Carnage (£4.99 + IAP)
Talking of games from the 1980s... The heyday of tabletop game Warhammer 40,000 may have been a while back, but it's still a popular brand with plenty of fans. A mini-flurry of mobile games has included this, which sees you taking the role of a space marine blasting everything you can see.
Great Little War Game 2 (£1.99)
Developer Rubicon Development is one of the stars of Android with its little and big war games. This sequel continued the company's fine run: turn-based strategy with more than 60 missions to strategise your way through. Or not: "Just jump in and start shooting," suggested the developer.
Card Wars - Adventure Time (£2.39 + IAP)
2014 was the year my sons (aged five and seven) discovered Adventure Time on TV, and when I discovered its excellent spin-off game for Android. It takes a card-battling game referred to in the show, and turns it into a fully thought-out game, as you build a deck of cards then battle characters from the show.
FarmVille 2: Country Escape (Free + IAP)
FarmVille is still A Thing? Well, publisher Zynga hoped so with this new Android game, which revamped its famous farming sim but kept its core of harvesting, crafting and trading. It's fair to say that Candy Crush and Clash of Clans have stolen FarmVille's thunder on mobile in the last couple of years, but this game was a reminder of its appeal.
Hazumino (£1.10)
Finally, Hazumino: part endless-runner game and part Tetris-style block puzzler, where you have to run, jump AND build. Cutesy graphics and a nagging chiptune soundtrack made this under-the-radar game one of the most appealing Android releases of 2014 so far: easy to play, but difficult to put down.
That's the 40, but now's your chance to tell me why I'm an idiot and my selection is wrong! Make your recommendations in the comments section.
• The 50 best Android games of 2013
