Action games

Action is the shelf for games that keep moving while you are still deciding. Most involve waves, most have an upgrade screen between them, and none takes long to understand.

The merge-and-deploy pattern turns up more than once. Merge Heroes Titans has you combining duplicate swordsmen and archers into stronger units and placing them before the next wave arrives, which is closer to strategy than the label suggests.

Paper Wars carries the best idea here — artillery on a sheet of notebook paper, with a mirrored targeting system, so every shot you take also shows the enemy where to aim. Dragon Draw Joust replaces the equipment menu with a drawing pad, and whatever shape you sketch becomes the weapon you fight with.

For something plainer, Stickman Weapon Master works through successive groups of opponents, with weapons that change the rhythm rather than the odds.