Recommended by Spectre Collie

Turn-based tactical strategy/comedy game for iPhone and iPad. The campaign is reasonably long and varied; individual missions take me anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour to complete, so there’s a lot of content. Kind of a cross between Heroes of Might and Magic and your typical tactical strategy game, since there’s more emphasis on capturing locations on that map than on your individual units’ abilities. I can’t foresee a lot of experimentation or strategizing, but it’s all about making it through the single-player campaign, which is pretty entertaining.

iPad Version: Highborn HD
Developer: Jet Set Games

Something of a cross between Flight Control and Blackjack: numbered tokens float across the field, you draw lines to smash them into each other and add up to 7. Going over 7 or under -7 is an instant loss. Surprisingly addictive, and it’s a universal app so you can play on the iPad and iPhone with the same binary. And at the time of this writing, it’s free.

Developer: No Monkeys

Slick trivia game with content updated daily, and hooks into your Facebook and Twitter networks. I still wish Jellyvision would do a You Don’t Know Jack! app, since the presentation and questions in QRANK are pretty straightforward if not downright dry. But it turns out that short games with topical questions are a perfect fit for a mobile phone game.

I’m on the game as “SpectreCollie.”

Developer: Ricochet Labs

The one iPhone game that everybody has, and for good reason: it basically invented a new genre of game, one that only works on touch screens. Draw lines to guide planes and helicopters in for a safe landing. Really slick and classy UI design and art direction, and a subtle sense of humor throughout.

Developer: Firemint

Dungeon crawler from a Japanese developer, in which you defeat monsters by forming poker hands out of a set of available cards. Kind of like Puzzle Quest, if it’d used draw poker instead of Bejeweled. The art and UI keep it feeling a little low-rent, but the game itself is surprisingly engaging, and there are plenty of clever design touches. (For instance: certain weapons can cause status effects when you assemble certain hands, like paralysis if you get a straight).

Developer: GAIA

The only accelerometer-based game I actually like. Move your pointer to collect power-ups to avoid the onslaught of red dots. Die, then repeat. Near-perfect controls, well-placed achievements, and a sense of humor throughout the whole thing.

Developer: One Man Left

Asteroids: the role-playing game. It’s as engrossing as any game not made for a mobile phone (it’s one of the only games I’ve actually finished in the last couple of years). Great production value, terrific music and sound design, and the rarest of all for iPhone games: dialogue that’s genuinely funny. Recommended even if you don’t think “asteroids with RPG elements” sounds like something you’d like.

Developer: Venan Arcade

Dangerously addictive puzzle game, a slower-paced Tetris with a minor hint of Sudoku. Drop numbered circles into a well; the circles disappear when that number of circles appears in a row or column. As close to perfect as an iPhone game can get.

Developer: area/code