Islands. Who doesn’t love them? Waves gently lapping on sandy beaches, steep cliffs rising into the blue sky. Islands are great, and in Islanders: Mobile, you get to spend your time on a beautiful variety of them, building thriving little civilizations.

What we love: The serenity of the experience. Islanders: Mobile is a lovely place to be and thankfully the game gives you all the time in the world to casually explore the sights and sounds of the procedurally generated islands you are working on, proving that strategy games don’t need to be stressful.

Quick tip: While there are no strict build-orders to learn or conflicts to manage, the game is not without its challenges: There is still a city to construct and the individual buildings need to be smartly placed to reach the necessary score to advance. A mansion next to a mine, for example, is probably not the best choice, but fields next to a mill will net you some extra points.

Meet the creator: Berlin–based Grizzly Games, which brought us the PC version of Islanders, has a knack for boiling down the strategy genre to its core—it’s also behind the 2025 App Store Awards finalist Thronefall. The mobile version of Islanders was developed by The Station and Coatsink.