this “anti-Angry Birds” may be the best game for the iPhone/iPad

In this age of flashy, distracting but meaningless mobile games, it’s rare to see a game that’s actually fun, let alone inventive. Auro manages to do both. Give it a shot.

In this turn-based strategy game, you play as a little blond prince who defeats enemies by bumping them into water or pillars of flame. Different spells can do anything from shoot rows of fire to turn you into a raging yeti.

The game can take a while to get into. The art design is unusual, and the spells don’t seem to always make sense at first (launching a fireball on top of an enemy, the instinctual move of almost any other game, is often a wrong choice here—instead you aim to the left of an enemy to knock him into a pit).

Keep at it though, and you’ll find that there’s a lot of internal logic and a great deal of thought and love put into making a nearly perfect strategy game. Easily worth the $5.

Aurileano about Auro: Monster Bumping