Sophia, Rory and Dylan Games, Inc

Fifteen games and a Sega Genesis. Tap one to play in the browser.

Kart racing, drawn the way the old 16-bit ones were: a picture of the circuit seen from above, laid back into the screen a band at a time until it becomes a road running to the horizon. The kart drives itself forward — you steer with a thumb, hold DRIFT through the corners to charge a boost, and throw whatever the item box gave you at the kart in front. Eight drivers, three circuits — a sunset beach, a jungle and a volcano — three laps of a long circuit, a single race or a three-round grand prix with points.

A dungeon crawl for one thumb. Walk with the left of the screen, your weapon aims and fires itself, and the two buttons on the right are a dash straight through danger and a special the dungeon pays you for killing things. Doors stay shut until the room is clear. Three floors — catacombs, fungal hollow and emberforge — each one ending in a boss the size of the doorway, with shrines, shops, a locked vault and eighteen relics that stack on the way down. Play as Sophia with a longbow, Rory with boomerang blades, or Dylan with fireballs.

Wordplay for the boys. Four answers, and a clock that eats the points rather than the turn, so nobody gets cut off mid-think. Two thousand two hundred riddles across a dozen kinds: hidden animals, rhymes, anagrams, sound-alikes, odd ones out, word glue and a few hundred proper head-scratchers. It builds them fresh every time, so nobody learns the answers off by heart. Quick Quiz for twelve and three lives, or Beat the Clock for ninety seconds.

Six-a-side arcade football from straight above, built the way the old 16-bit ones were. The ball is never glued to your feet: you knock it ahead and run onto it, and a tackle is getting your body there first. One thumb steers, one button passes and shoots, and holding a direction after you hit it bends the ball through the air. Eight teams, a quick match, a three-round cup with penalty shoot-outs, and two players on one iPad.

A marble run builder. Drag planks, curves, trampolines, bumpers, fans, spinners, cannons and portals onto the board, turn them, press GO and watch the marble roll. Sixteen puzzles with a goal cup and bonus stars, a hint button when you are stuck, and a sandbox with five marbles and three save slots for your own contraptions.

Agent Rory: Operation Eclipse

A first-person spy adventure in two acts across fourteen countries, from London and Venice to Nairobi, Beijing and the Alps. Fifty-six missions, every one a mini-game that wins intel: lie detectors, safe dials, cipher wheels, codebreakers, lasers, sonar, vault rings, a telephoto lens, shredded documents and countdowns, getting harder as you go. Every character speaks with the iPad's own voices.

Slime Storm in space. Fly with one thumb, weapons fire themselves, hide behind asteroids and mine them, ride out three bosses and reach the warp gate. Three ships to unlock.

A one-thumb survivor. Walk, your weapons fire themselves, grab gems, pick upgrade cards, survive ten minutes and three bosses. Play as Dylan, Rory or Sophia.

Two players on one iPad, held between you. Drive with a thumb, tap to fire, bounce shells off steel, smash bricks, grab power-ups. First to five hits. A robot plays if you are on your own.

Dylan's Odyssey

A 3D hat-throwing adventure across seven kingdoms: Dino Ridge, Skyline City, Sunburn Sands, Frostbite Peaks, Volcano Bay, Cloud Islands and Ghost Manor. Capture a T-Rex, a taxi, a stone lion, a bird and a fireball, hunt Power Moons and beat the raptor bosses.

A 3D Sonic act built on speed: loop, corkscrew, rails over the bay, homing chains, a torch-lit ruin, a wall run and a waterfall jump to the beach sprint. Keyboard, gamepad or touch.

Paws of Fury 64

A 3D dog platformer. Ten open worlds, all of them wrong. Three dogs, triple jumps, ground pounds, and seven bones to sniff out in every world.

Swipe arrows onto the floor to steer the lizards into the rocket, past the snakes and around the holes. Twelve puzzles and a 90-second Stampede.

Anti-gravity racing. Eight ships, three circuits, boost pads, rockets, missiles, mines and shields. Hold the iPad sideways.

Blockfort: Boss Siege

Build a fort against the clock, then survive the golem that comes to tear it down. Ten rounds.

Star Digger: Deep Boss

Dig down, collect every star, break the seal. Your stars are your lives against the boss below.

Sega Genesis Arcade

A real Mega Drive emulator in the browser, with eight free homebrew games on the shelf: platformers, a trap-filled tower puzzle, an egg-catching chicken and a four-player star race. Add cartridges you own to play them on this device. On-screen pad on the iPad.

On an iPad: open a game, then Share → Add to Home Screen for a fullscreen icon. Touch controls turn themselves on automatically. In Agent Rory, the left thumb walks, the right thumb looks, and the big green button investigates whatever is glowing; every mini-game has a HINT button. In Sonic Spin, the left thumb is a floating stick and the right thumb has JUMP (tap again in the air to home in), SPIN, BOOST and DRIFT. In Paws of Fury, the left thumb is the stick, the right thumb has JUMP, BITE and POUND, and dragging the middle of the screen swings the camera. In Lizard Rocket, swipe across a tile to lay an arrow and tap an arrow to pick it up. In Velocity Zero, hold the phone or iPad sideways, drag on the left half of the screen to steer and use the AIRBRAKE and FIRE buttons on the right; in the voxel games, drag the MOVE pad to walk and drag elsewhere to look. In the Genesis Arcade, tap a game and then its Start button; the D-pad and A B C buttons appear on screen, and the bar under the game has fullscreen and save states.