Big Bass Drop

Big Bass Drop surprised me more than almost anything I tried this month. It looks like a simple tap game at first glance — objects fall from the top, you catch them at the bottom — but the whole thing is wired to a bouncy soundtrack, and hitting your catches on the beat builds a combo meter that changes how the level plays.

Control is one thumb, which I love on a phone. You slide a little platform left and right and tap to snap it shut at the right moment. The trick is that the falling patterns line up with the music, so once you stop staring at the screen and start listening, your reactions get weirdly smooth. It's that rare game that rewards you for relaxing.

There's a decent amount of content too. Each stage remixes the tempo, later ones throw in fake-out drops and double lanes, and the difficulty curve is fair. I never felt cheated by a miss, only slow. It's a great commute game and an even better one-more-round game before bed.

What we liked

• One-thumb controls that feel great
• Music and gameplay genuinely sync up
• Fair difficulty with no cheap deaths