Disease

Most mobile games are little time-wasters, suitable for entertaining yourself while you wait for the bus; few are deep, involving, and require strategic thinking. Plague Inc does, however.

In Plague Inc., you play a disease, and your victory condition is the complete extermination of humanity. Experiencing fiero because you've just killed every man, woman, and child on the planet is... strange, but interesting.

The game comes with seven different plague types (bacteria, virus, parasite, and so on); only bacteria is unlocked at first. Each poses somewhat different difficulties; for instance, the virus mutates frequently, which is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can gain new abilities without requiring you to spend "DNA points," but you may also evolve in a way to alarm humanity more quickly than you'd like.

Four terrible diseases have broken out all over the world, and they're spreading fast. The fate of humanity hangs in the balance. The clock is ticking, and your small team of health professionals has to find a cure to all four diseases before time runs out, or before infection spreads so far that it's just too late to save the human race. There goes Kinshasa! There goes Mumbai! There goes Tokyo! You'd better hurry.