The best games for iPhone and iPad from May 2018

Sometime around the start of the new month, here at 148Apps we like to take a look back at the games that came out over the past four weeks and let you know which of them we think you should definitely have played. And this month is no difference.

There's at least one great game in the list, and everything else here is skirting the top echelons of good. And we reckon there's going to be something here for everyone, especially if you love puzzles, shooting, or weird games set in the surreal inner-workings of the human body. And who doesn't love those things?

There's so much to like about the way that Zach Gage deconstructs games and then puts them back together for his own fiendish amusement. And Pocket Run Pool is no different. It's a high-score chasing game of potting, and it's got just enough fiendish twists to make sure you're going to be stuck playing it for hours.

This is another game that picks apart its inspiration, then stitches it back together to make something incredibly impressive. It's Minesweeper, but presented as a sort of mixture of a roguelike and a deeper puzzler. There's a decent amount of polish here too, and a charming swagger that you can't help but fall in love with.

How do your ears work? How does your central nervous system work? We're pretty sure that the answers to both of those questions doesn't lie in Homo Machina, but the ideas it throws out are still intriguing, interesting, and a lot of fun. It's only real problem is that it's a bit on the short side, but when a game's this lovely, you're unlikely to complain too much.

This is the sort of game you need to play with the sound on. Probably with some headphones in if you're in public. It's a one-touch auto-runner that sees you playing in time to the pounding sounds of an awesome soundtrack. Oh, and it looks absolutely stunning as well, so get it got if you've not got it yet.

Anyone with a penchant for retro shooters like R-Type is going to lap up everything that Super Hydorah has to offer. It's fast, it's smart, and it throws in a bundle of brilliant new ideas to make sure you're never overly familiar with what's going on. Old school arcade shooters haven't felt this good in a while.

You probably thought that match-stuff puzzlers were old hat, but Tiny Bubbles takes the formula, shakes it up, and creates something really rather special. There's a physics element here, as well as plenty of different modes that keep things interesting. In fact, they keep things more than interesting, they keep things really, really good.

A game that's all about lighting things up. It's a puzzler, but there's an awful lot of really intriguing things going on here. It's got a really interesting aesthetic that sets the game apart from a lot of games with similar ideas. And you're going to be scratching your head at some of the tougher puzzles, in the best possible way.