When you can't help but whip through a couple dozen attempts each time you open up a game, it more than likely has its hooks plunged quite deep into your psyche. Luckily, Impossible Road is a game worthy of such obsession, as the unflinchingly difficult quest to guide a ball along an endless roller coaster track into the abyss rewards persistence, and wastes no time in getting you back into its dazzling world upon inevitable failure. And trying to circumvent the typical rolling approach to maximize your score? Well, that's just part of the appeal.

Depressed by its bleak perspective, alone and freezing in the digital marketplace, Don't Starve survives solely on mystery and cheek. The first self-released offering from developer Klei Entertainment – best known for attractive consoles side-scrollers like Shank and Mark of the Ninja – Don't Starve drops the player into an unforgiving boot camp in wilderness readiness.

Angry Birds Friends brought the fowl-flinging sensation to Facebook, and unsurprisingly, it proved hugely popular in that format. Now the socially-connected spin on the franchise makes the return trip to iPhone and iPad while maintaining the distinct, free-to-play approach that defined that browser-based take. On a platform that already hosts five distinct Angry Birds games packed with several hundred total levels, the prospect of playing in one six-stage tournament per week may not seem remarkable, but it's the competitive aspect that puts an interesting tweak on the usual formula.