Perhaps you've just bought an iPad, or just been given one for the first time. Or maybe you're thinking that your Apple tablet is old and boring and there's nothing fun left that it can do.
Well, friend, you're entirely wrong. Fortunately, the App Store offers loads of gaming greats for you, even if you've forked out your last bit of cash to buy the iPad itself.
Our lists cover the best free iPad puzzle games, racers, platform games, and more, split into categories (one on each page) for your perusing pleasure.
Plus, check back every month for our latest favorite free iPad game, which you'll find below.
If you've got some cash spare, you can also check our our full guide to the best iPad games, which include paid options, and those with in-app purchases. For cost-free PC options, here are the best free PC games.
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The best new free iPad game
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Linia Stripes
Linia Stripes is the epitome of the chill-out puzzler. It exists in a universe of endless geometric patterns, and tasks you with removing stripes in order from shortest to longest.
In less expert hands, this would be a five-minute wonder – a throwaway game to which you’d never return. But the execution here makes the game captivating. Visually – and especially on the iPad’s larger display – each scene is like a slice of modern art. And the sound is great too, piano notes playing as you tap each piece and craft a personal ambient soundtrack.
If that still sounds slight, it is. But the game’s nature is such that it’s perfect to dip into for a relaxing session. And should you want more, one-off IAP payments let you remove the ads, unlock a speed-oriented Pro mode, and explore additional pattern packs.
Best free iPad arcade games
Our favorite iPad arcade games, including brawlers and fighting games, auto-runners, party games, pinball, and retro classics.
Mr. Traffic
Mr. Traffic finds a conductor directing vehicles at a terrifyingly dangerous crossroads – and presumably wishing someone would install traffic lights. Your job is to avoid the inevitable pile-up for as long as possible, by tapping cars when it’s safe for them to go – or when they need to brake.
Long-time iPad gamers might grumble this is nothing new. But Mr. Traffic adds character and flair rarely seen in this kind of game, from its gorgeous cartoon visuals to random incidents where you’ll see UFOs blaze across the screen or ghosts being pursued by a famous station wagon.
On iPad, it’s particularly good, with the squarish display affording you more warning regarding vehicles appearing from the side, and the larger screen area helping with accuracy when you’re dealing with a dozen impatient virtual drivers.
Super Fowlst 2
Super Fowlst 2 is the third entry in a series of free iPad games (following Fowlst and Super Fowlst) that finds a heroic chicken saving the world from a demon invasion. You tap the sides of the screen to flap your principled poultry, whereupon they arc upwards until gravity makes itself known. Roaming enemies are defeated by bonking them on the head.
The game’s speed, odd control method, and level design - peppering the landscape with explosive crates full of bees, spike-filled corridors, and literal pinball table components - make for frenetic and chaotic play. Visually, the game’s a treat as well, with delicate pixel art and plenty of character.
There’s longevity, too, in being able to upgrade your chicken (so it can poop bombs and gain a downwards-smash move), and procedurally generated levels that ensure you never quite get the same game twice.
Astalo
Astalo finds your tiny fighter atop a square hunk of land with sheer drops at every edge. It’s also packed full of monsters determined to tear you limb from limb. If you don’t want to die horribly, you might need to get a bit stabby…
To attack, you drag a finger in the direction you want your fighter to head, and let go to watch them scythe through skeletons and other foes. The pace is frenetic - not least in endless mode, which resembles arcade classic Robotron in its relentless, claustrophobic nature.
Similarly, Astalo typically leaves you staring at a game over screen in short order. But story and endless modes alike provide plenty of replay value, and the game works especially well on iPad due to your finger not covering up half the screen while you swipe for your very survival.
Fancade
Fancade is a game construction kit that puts its money where its mouth is, since all of the mini-games within were made using the app itself.
This is quite an achievement, given what you get. There are over 50 game styles, which echo fare found elsewhere on iPad, such as auto-runners, puzzlers, racing games, and an architectural path-finding title that resembles the creator’s own Mekorama.
If you so desire, you can use Fancade to create your own miniature masterpieces, either starting from scratch or by using one of the built-in kits. A gallery lets you delve into what others have made as well.
Even if you never make your own games, Fancade is a must-have, offering countless levels of bite-sized gaming bliss. And taken as a whole, it’s one of the most impressive and ambitious freebies the App Store is ever likely to see.
Oddman
Oddman is a high-intensity brawler, set in a world of strange bouncy protagonists, floating islands, and instant death. Like a deranged take on sumo, you fling your character at your opponents, trying to knock them to their doom.
Although you’re hardly equipped with a wide range of moves – nor any real semblance of subtlety – Oddman attempts to add variety to your life. Over time, you encounter new types of foe – including massive bosses – and different environments that shake up how you approach bouts. It’s immediate and very silly – although mastery takes a while, and you’re never more than an errant swipe from disaster.
Neatly, this free iPad game moves beyond solo play, too. You can pit your swiping digit against a friend, on same-device two-player brawls that make good use of the iPad display’s relative acres.
The King of Fighters ALLSTAR
Free iPad game The King of Fighters ALLSTAR comes across like a restless take on Double Dragon or Final Fight. This means you mostly duff up all manner of bad guys along side-scrolling streets, prior to laying into a big bad.
Like other King of Fighters titles, you have a team, so you can tag in others from your trio during battles. The game includes arena-style modes as well, unlocked when you’ve worked through enough of the story.
On iPhone, this game’s button-mashing is fiddly, but it works well on the iPad’s larger display, which also lets the lovely visuals shine. Newbies are catered for with ‘auto’ movement, but veterans can opt for ‘manual’, which echoes console fighting games, and provides far more nuance than the comparatively canned fare found in the Marvel and Transformers mobile brawlers.
Snake Rivals
Snake Rivals comes across like classic mobile title Snake got smashed into Fortnite. Dozens of reptiles are dumped into an arena, and the last snake standing – er, slithering – wins.
There are three modes to pit your tubular terror against: Classic allows endless respawns so you can learn the ropes and build tactics; Gold Rush is all about obliterating other snakes to turn them into gold to grab; and Battle Royale has you take out the opposition while the arena gradually shrinks to a tiny island surrounded by lava.
Although a simple arcade game, Snake Rivals works particularly well with an iPad flat on a table, giving you the space to spot rivals, without your fingers obscuring the display. Its freemium aspects aren’t too venomous either – largely being limited to optional snake customization.
Knight Brawl
Knight Brawl is to 2D fighters what Anchorman is to journalism. That is, Knight Brawl is absurd, silly, and entertaining, but it’s very knowingly not trying to be realistic – and it’s all the better for it.
Side-on battles have knights attempt to relieve opponents of their armor before delivering the final blow. Only the controls and physics – like in Colin Lane’s other games – make for an anarchic experience where characters bounce around like they’re on trampolines.
If that was all you got, this would have been fun – a medieval take on Rowdy Wrestling, with pointy weapons. But along with multiple battle modes, there are also missions where you raid castles and steal bling. This isn’t just a throwaway gag, then, but a game for the long-term – a serious slice of iPad comedy.
Williams Pinball
Williams Pinball brings a selection of classic pinball tables to your iPad, and then adds animated remastering – at least, if you’re prepared to work for it.
Initially, you just get to unlock one table for unlimited play. (Pick a good one – Attack from Mars, The Getaway, or Medieval Madness – because you’ll be playing it a lot.) Through daily challenges, you’ll then slowly acquire the parts to gradually unlock other tables – unless you fancy splashing out on IAP to buy them outright.
This probably sounds a bit awful, but the truth is you’re ‘grinding’ by playing pinball. Also, the challenges often give you unlimited balls, so you can learn the tables. Stay the course, and eventually you can boost these already top-notch recreations with tough pro-level physics and animated components.
Fly THIS!
Fly THIS! echoes early App Store hit Flight Control, having you draw paths for planes to follow. But whereas the older title was an endless test that relentlessly ramped up the panic, this newer game feels more strategic and bite-sized.
The planes are fewer in number, but the maps are more claustrophobic. Also, you’re not just making planes land – instead, you ferry passengers between airports. Further complications come in the form of weather, and massive mountains you really don’t want to fly planes into.
Because each level has a set points target, Fly THIS! is great for playing in short bursts as well. In all, it’s a smart reimagining of a long-lost iPad favorite, which in many ways is more appealing than the game that presumably inspired it.
Beat Street
Beat Street is a love letter to classic scrolling brawlers, where a single, determined hero pummels gangs of evil-doers and saves the day. In Beat Street, giant vermin are terrorizing Toko City, and will only stop when you’ve repeatedly punched them in the face.
On iPhone, Beat Street is a surprisingly successful one-thumb effort, but on iPad you’re better off playing in landscape. With your left thumb, you can dance about, and then use your right to hammer the screen (and the opposition).
The iPad’s large display shows off the great pixel art, but the fighty gameplay’s the real star – from you taking on far too many opponents at once to gleefully beating one about the head with a baseball bat. It turns out they do make ’em like they used to after all.
Up the Wall
Up the Wall is an auto-runner with an edge. Or rather, lots of edges. Because instead of being played on a single plane, Up the Wall regularly has you abruptly turn 90-degree corners, some of which find you zooming up vertical walls.
The speed and snap twists make for a disorienting experience, but the game’s design is extremely smart where, most notably, each challenge is finite and predefined. Up the Wall isn’t about randomness and luck, but mastering layouts, and aiming for that perfect run.
It nails everything else, too. The game sounds great, and has sharp, vibrant visuals, with imaginative environments. It’s not often you’re frantically directing a burger in an abstract fever dream of milkshakes and ketchup bottles, nor a skull in a world of flames, lava, and guitars.
Silly Walks
Silly Walks is a one-thumb arcade game, featuring wobbling foodstuffs braving the hell of nightmarish kitchens (and, later, gardens and gyms), in order to free fruity chums who’ve been cruelly caged.
The hero of the hour – initially a pineapple cocktail – rotates on one foot. Tapping the screen plants a foot, causing him to rotate on the other foot and changing the direction of rotation. Charitably, this could be called a step, and with practice, it’s possible to put together a reasonable dodder.
And you’ll need to. Although early levels only require you to not fall off of tables, pretty soon you’re dealing with meat pulverizers, hero-slicing knives, and psychotic kitchenware in hot pursuit.
It’s admittedly all a little one-level – Silly Walks reveals almost all in its initial levels – but smart design, superb visuals, and a unique control method make it well worth a download.
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