The best free platform games for Android
Our favorite free Android platformers, from classic retro 2D fare to full-on console-style adventures.
Dadish 3
Dadish 3 is a side-on platform game starring a bouncing radish. The hero’s children have been taken by an evil villain determined to turn them into lunch – but the bad guy fortunately crashes his bus and the tiny radishes scarper. Your task is to traverse each short level, battling plentiful deadly hazards, in order to reach the joyful miniature vegetable at the end.
This can be a brutal game. Its demand for pixel-perfect precision and tight timing might put off more casual players. Stick with it, though, and you’ll feel like a gaming giant when you crack a tough level. And you won’t feel bored either. The silly plot switches your grimace for a smile, and the pace frequently shifts with exhilarating chase sequences and weird moments where you ride your gigantic bouncing tomato spouse. In short, then, it’s a tasty treat.
Super Mombo Quest
Super Mombo Quest is an action-packed platform game that finds the titular Mombo bouncing off walls like a ninja, jumping on enemies, and sliding down zip wires by using his enormous tongue. (Well, every platform game hero needs a gimmick, right?)
At times, you’ll attempt to dispatch every enemy within an area before a timer ticks down. This nets you a Mombo Combo. Collect enough and you’ll unlock new areas. It’s high-octane stuff, but there are also more laid-back moments, such as when you explore the village of the folks you’re trying to save, or more carefully move around the map to find new areas to tackle.
On a phone, it’s great stuff; but with a controller, you’d swear you were playing on an actual console. For free, it’s a ridiculous bargain – to a level rarely seen on mobile.
My Friend Pedro
My Friend Pedro is a violent platform game with Matrix slo-mo and a protagonist dedicated to annihilating everyone in their path at the behest of a sentient banana whose family has been kidnapped. We’ve no idea what substances the creators enjoyed when coming up with that plot, but the end result is tasty.
On Android, the game finds the trigger-happy star gracefully sailing through the air in arc-like leaps and periodically shooting goons. Drags and taps are all you need to succeed – or fail when you fall short and impale the ‘hero’ on spikes.
The odd puzzle and a 3D motorbike chase breaks up the platforming action – as do a lot of ads. Still, it’s generous that you can play through the entire game for nothing, and if the ads irk, you can be rid of them for $2.99/£2.19/AU$3.99.
Sad But Ded
Sad But Ded is a single-screen platformer featuring an endlessly screaming protagonist. That’s quite apt, given that the game’s devious nature means you’ll be the one screaming before long.
As ever in these things, your aim is to reach a goal. But rather than being armed with a virtual D-pad and buttons, you get a handful of single-use icons to prod at opportune moments. The auto-running hero responds accordingly, jumping or changing direction.
Well, mostly, because – as we said – the game is devious. Sometimes, based on level titles that you really need to pay attention to, buttons will do the opposite of what you expect or be blank. Or perhaps the level’s platforms will be unhelpfully removed.
Fortunately, Sad But Ded’s compelling nature and inventiveness will keep you playing even when you’re tempted to bellow in frustration.
Nameless Cat
Nameless Cat is a platformer that features a heroic moggie on a quest within a strange, deadly land. Hidden in each small level are two collectables that must be grabbed to allow progress - only between you and them are tricky passageways, roaming enemies, and quite a lot of spikes.
Fortunately, not everything in Nameless Cat is out to transform you into Very Dead Cat. You can make headway at speed - and sometimes avoid charging critters - by teleporting to cross-emblazoned containers. Friendly figures sometimes appear, too, offering sage advice, and adding to a thin but impactful story threaded throughout the game.
There are times where the difficulty level becomes extremely tough, but that mostly challenges you to think your way to a solution rather than brute-force it. In all, Nameless Cat is a delight - a near purr-fect freebie for Android.
OCO
OCO is a one-thumb platform game that will make your head spin. Everything takes place within minimal rotating circular arenas, and your aim is to grab all of the bling. All you can do is tap the screen to jump – it’s precisely when you do this that makes all the difference.
Depending on the level you’re tackling, you may have to figure out which walls to rebound off of to change direction. Or there might be speed-up mats and jump pads. On emerging victorious, OCO will wryly provide minimum jump and time targets, adding replay value to levels you’ve already completed.
With daily challenges, a level editor and un-intrusive advertising, OCO is a good bet for platform game fans looking for something a bit different, and that’s perfectly suited to one-handed mobile play.
Spicy Piggy
Spicy Piggy is like Canabalt, but with an auto-running pig that breathes fire. Along with carefully timing jumps, you belch flames that obliterate everything from enemies to walls. (It turns out the pig’s wolfed down some particularly hot chili, and is desperate for a drink.)
This is, to put it mildly, a tricky game. You must perform intricate finger gymnastics to prod the three action buttons (you can also slide) at the perfect moments to nail a route’s required choreography. There are checkpoints, but unlocking one requires spending collected fruit (which can only be grabbed once) or watching an ad.
This free Android game therefore tends to be staccato, or forces you to replay sections again and again. Even so, it brings home the bacon if you’re after an exciting hardcore auto-runner.
Yeah Bunny 2
Yeah Bunny 2 might be wafer-thin on plot – find a mother bird’s kidnapped chicks – but it’s big on fun as your speedy rabbit zooms about platforms, grabbing carrots, collecting coins, squashing enemies, and trying very hard to not get impaled on a spike.
We’re in traditional platform-gaming territory, then, but without conventional controls. This bunny auto-runs, and so your interactions are limited to timing jumps, whether that’s across deadly pits, or from wall to wall, ninja-style.
Levels can become puzzle-like as you figure out how to get to areas with this stripped-back setup, and sometimes backtracking can be a chore. For the most part though, Yeah Bunny 2 is a blast – and surprisingly exciting during levels where you’re chased by a gigantic, deadly boss.
Turn Undead 2: Monster Hunter
In stills, Turn Undead 2: Monster Hunter looks like an action-packed platform game. Its heavily armed, cloaked hero can be seen performing all manner of monster-killing feats with two massive guns that fire stakes the size of a small tree. Only Turn Undead 2 – as the name hints at – is in fact turn-based.
This means you get all the trappings of a classic platform game, but within the framework of a clockwork turn-based puzzler. You get time to plan every move you make, but with the ongoing realization that you might not make it to the exit if you put a foot wrong.
Arguably, it’s a little too tough at times, which can frustrate. Even so, this game’s well worth hunting down, purely because of how well the mash-up of genres works.
Super Cat Tales 2
Super Cat Tales 2 follows in the feline footsteps of its superb predecessor. All chunky retro-style visuals and leapy gameplay, this high-octane platformer finds a ragtag gang of moggies trying to save their world from an alien invasion.
Like the original, this sequel cleverly rethinks platform game controls for the touchscreen – tapping or holding the left or right of your device’s display is all that’s required for running, leaping, wall-jumping like a furry ninja, and obliterating robot foes when you chance upon a massive yellow tank.
Smartly, this time round you can switch cats on the fly, making use of each one’s special power to blaze through tricky sections, or unearth sneaky secrets. For a fiver, we’d recommend this one; for free, it’s a total no-brainer.
It’s Full of Sparks
It’s Full of Sparks is a speed-run platformer where sentient firecrackers must find a body of water to hurl themselves into before their fuses make them explode all over the shop. The first level is a sprint to the finish line, but the game immediately makes things more complicated.
You first don some red shades, which give you a button for turning on and off chunks of red landscape. Two more colors soon join the show. As the levels increase in size, you end up with a crazed, tense dash for survival, juggling bits of landscape via delicate finger choreography that’d impress even the finest flautist.
The game can be frustrating, and larger levels need quite a bit of trial and error, but this game’s charm and innovation ensures its spark won’t die for the duration.
Hoggy 2
Hoggy 2 is a platform puzzler that feels like it’s escaped from a Nintendo console. The premise involves the evil Moon Men kidnapping the children of the blobby heroes. You must find where the kids have been hidden, somewhere inside a massive maze full of jars.
Each jar houses a bite-sized challenge packed full of platforms, enemies, traps, and fruit. Eat all the fruit and you’re awarded a key. Collect enough keys to unlock new areas of the maze.
The platforming bits are frequently deviously fiendish. Early levels ease you in, but you’re soon facing tests that seem impossible until you spot something crucial – a block you’d previously not noticed, or a different order in which to approach things – whereupon you feel like a genius.
Should you best all 200 hand-crafted levels, you can make your own in a level editor, or take on those the Hoggy community’s created. That this all comes for free is astonishing. Download it now.
Drop Wizard Tower
Drop Wizard Tower is a superbly crafted love letter to classic single-screen arcade platform games like Bubble Bobble. You dart about, knocking out enemies, grabbing gems and fruit, and duffing up bosses, working your way towards a final confrontation.
However, there’s a twist in that Drop Wizard Tower fuses old-school platforming with auto-running. Your little wizard never stops moving, and can only be directed left or right. And he only shoots the instant he lands on a platform.
You’ll likely fight against this at first, cursing Drop Wizard Tower for straying from traditional left/right/jump/fire controls. But the game really works on mobile, and when it clicks you’ll be zooming about, stunning foes with your magic wand, and booting them away to create tumbling ‘avalanches’ of enemies.
