10 Best Platforming Games on iOS & Android (September 2026)

Mobile platformers have come a long way from simple tap-to-jump games. The hardware on phones today can handle console-quality titles, which means developers are actually porting full experiences rather than watered-down versions. But here’s the catch with having hundreds of platforming options on the App Store and Google Play: most of them are forgettable. Flashy screenshots, generic gameplay, and aggressive ads everywhere. So I went through a massive pool of platformers and narrowed it down to the ones that are genuinely worth downloading in 2026.

The best platformers on iOS and Android on the list below range from dark, atmospheric side-scrollers to ridiculous physics-based games you can zone out to on a commute.

How We Picked the Best Mobile Platformers

I care about how a game feels on a touchscreen first and foremost, because a platformer lives or dies by its controls. If the character response is sluggish or the buttons are poorly placed, the game is out regardless of how good everything else is. Beyond controls, I look at level variety, replay value, and whether the difficulty curve feels fair or artificially frustrating. Games that respect your time and don’t shove microtransactions down your throat also rank higher on the list.

Performance matters too, especially on mid-range devices. The best platformer mobile games in 2026 should run smoothly without overheating your phone or draining the battery in an hour. I also factor in offline support, because a platformer you can only play on Wi-Fi loses a big chunk of its convenience.

10. Leo’s Fortune

Chase stolen gold across hand-painted worlds

Leo’s Fortune is about Leopold, a round green creature covered in fur, who also happens to have the most magnificent mustache in all of mobile gaming. He returns home one day, all his gold is gone, and he suspects someone from his own family stole it. So he goes after them. In fact, the story plays out like a mystery, with Leo narrating voiced cutscenes in a thick Eastern European accent, accusing one relative after another while he follows a trail of scattered coins. It’s unexpectedly delightful for a side-scroller, and Leo as a character has this mix of arrogance and vulnerability that makes him thoroughly entertaining to listen to. Apple recognized the game at its WWDC event too, handing it a Design Award, which is quite a big deal considering how selective they are.

Under the hood, Leo’s Fortune is a stage-by-stage adventure across different types of locations, all of them handcrafted. Leo can puff up like a balloon to float slowly downward, or squeeze himself flat to drop quickly through gaps, and the game has you switching between these two states constantly as you move through each stage. The levels also layer in physics-driven obstacles, so you’ll be tilting platforms, rolling boulders into position, or timing leaps around spinning blades. Also, there’s no combat here at all, which is rare for the genre. The entire challenge revolves around precision movement and solving environmental puzzles under pressure.

9. Swordigo

Sword-swinging side-scroller with magic spells and a massive open world

Swordigo is, essentially, a classic fantasy adventure squeezed into your phone. You play as a young hero on a quest to track down a legendary blade, moving through forests, towns, caves, and dungeons that are all connected to each other like one big map. In fact, the world here is really huge for a mobile title, and that’s exactly the reason it often gets compared to older Zelda or Metroid games. Because the areas connect back to one another, you’ll often stumble across a blocked passage early on, then come back later once you’ve picked up the right spell or ability to get through.

Plus, the areas have treasure chests scattered in tricky spots, so you’ve always got a reason to poke around corners and jump onto ledges that look a little suspicious. Then, the combat and character growth side of Swordigo is where the ball really gets rolling. You swing a sword up close, launch magic spells from a distance, and earn experience from defeating enemies, which lets you level up and boost your stats. Well, the story is a pretty standard “hero saves the world” setup. It’s free to download on both iOS and Android, too, which makes it a ridiculously easy recommendation for anyone looking for an action platformer on their phone.

8. Geometry Dash

One of the most fast-paced platforming games on iOS and Android

Geometry Dash has this wild backstory where it started as a tiny project called Geometry Jump, inspired by another mobile game called The Impossible Game. The developer created it largely by himself, and it went on to become one of the most successful paid mobile games, with over 10 million downloads on Google Play alone. In this game, you control a small square icon that moves forward automatically, and your main input is tapping the screen to jump. But the levels are synchronized to electronic music tracks, and obstacles, spikes, and platforms are often arranged around the music. So your inputs have to be timed precisely to avoid crashing and restarting from the beginning in a normal run.

Furthermore, the community has created millions of custom levels using the in-game level editor, which is the same editor the developer himself uses to design the official stages. You can browse, play, and rate levels other players have uploaded from around the world. The creativity is staggering. And some player-made levels have become legendary within the community, with multi-minute obstacle courses that require thousands of perfectly timed inputs to complete. Your icon also shifts between different forms throughout a level. Like sometimes you transform into a ship, a ball, a wave, or a spider, and each one has its own movement pattern.

7. Downwell

Fall down a well, shoot enemies with your boots, try to survive

And speaking of brutal difficulty, Downwell approaches the whole concept of a platformer from a direction I’ve rarely seen. You’re a tiny character wearing gun-equipped boots, and your goal is to fall deeper and deeper into a vertical well filled with creatures, traps, and breakable terrain. The game uses three buttons: move left, move right, and jump. When you’re in the air, pressing the jump button fires your gun-boots downward, which slows your fall and damages anything underneath you. It’s a brilliant design choice because your weapon is also your brake, so every shot is simultaneously offensive and defensive.

Each run through Downwell is different because the well is procedurally generated, so memorizing layouts is off the table. Your approach has to adapt on the fly. Kill enemies in a chain without touching the ground, and your combo counter climbs, earning you gems, extra gun-boot charge, and even health when you eventually land. Those gems serve as currency for shops tucked into side caves. Well, one death sends you right back to the top, and the well reshuffles its layout for the next attempt. Downwell absolutely deserves its spot on any list of the best platformer mobile games in 2026, and I’d argue it’s one of those rare titles that actually plays better on a phone than on a console because of the vertical screen orientation.

6. Dandara

Gravity means nothing here, launch yourself between walls, floors, and ceilings

Now, here’s something wildly different from everything I’ve covered so far. The game borrows its name from Dandara, a 17th-century Afro-Brazilian figure remembered for resisting slavery and fighting for freedom. Here, she awakens in a broken world under a cruel regime, where art, music, and free thought have been suppressed. Her mission is to free its people and bring hope back. The twist is that Dandara moves by leaping from one white surface to another, whether it’s a floor, a wall, or a ceiling. Room orientation can shift with her, and the ceiling becomes the new floor in a blink. It is wild at first but addictive after an hour.

Movement uses a drag-and-release aim, where you pull your thumb in a direction and let go to launch her across the room. Combat works similarly, with a charged energy shot that needs a moment to power up. Enemies hit hard, and a death leaves your collected currency behind at the spot you fell, with a trip back to recover it. The map spreads out in every direction too, with locked doors, secret paths, and upgrades that open older areas. I wish the save points were spaced a little more generously, as repeating long stretches after a death can sting. But the trade-off is a world that genuinely demands you master its rules, and the payoff when you do is immensely satisfying.

5. Little Nightmares

Sneak through a giant underwater vessel as a tiny child in a raincoat

In Little Nightmares, you play as Six, a small girl wearing a yellow raincoat, trapped inside something called the Maw. The Maw is easily one of the creepiest locations I’ve come across in any mobile game. It’s a massive vessel that sits mostly underwater, like a floating iron resort, where grotesque oversized creatures roam around preparing food, gorging on it, and doing all sorts of disturbing things. The visuals here have an eerie stop-motion feel, with grotesque designs that resemble something out of a Tim Burton film, which should already give you an idea of what you’re walking into. Six is tiny compared to everything around her, so chairs are too tall to sit in, door handles are out of reach, and crawling through floor vents becomes a regular part of getting anywhere.

Well, calling it a platformer might feel a little reductive, because the game leans equally into stealth and puzzle-solving. You’ll be sneaking under tables, slipping through narrow openings in walls, and timing your movement carefully to avoid massive chefs or bloated guests who will lunge at you the moment they spot you. And the game barely explains anything through dialogue or cutscenes. The story is conveyed through what you see around you, the environments, the creatures, their behavior. If you’re looking for one of the best platformers on iOS and Android with a darker, more atmospheric edge, this one is the first to try.

4. Eggggg

Use projectile vomit to launch yourself through obstacle-filled levels

Eggggg is easily one of the weirdest platformers you’ll ever play on your phone. Gilbert, the main character, has a severe egg allergy, and I mean severe, because eating eggs makes him projectile vomit like a fire hydrant. He’s trying to escape his awful Aunt Doris and get to a birthday party, which seems harmless at first. However, the journey involves giant angry chickens, flying egg projectiles, and levels that look like they were ripped straight from a candy-colored fever dream. Every frame has a handcrafted cartoon look to it, which basically does the working of softening the grossness of the vomiting thing by a lot.

Eggggg is arguably one of the most unique platformers mobile has ever seen, because I’ve rarely played anything quite like it on the App Store or Play Store. It operates on a two-button control scheme where tapping a direction once makes Gilbert run and tapping the same direction again launches him into a vomit-propelled jump. It’s simple to wrap your head around in the first few levels, yet the precision required ramps up fast as obstacles get trickier and enemies crowd the screen. When I think about the best mobile platformer games, especially the ones that do something completely different, Eggggg belongs in the conversation. It’s disgusting, hilarious, and surprisingly tight when it comes to the platforming itself.

3. Walk Master

Balance a character on stilts through obstacle-filled levels

Walk Master reminds me of QWOP, the old browser game where walking was the hardest thing in the world. You control a character on tall stilts, slide your finger across the screen to move each leg forward, and try to reach the end of a level. Simple enough, right? Well, the physics engine has other plans, because every step affects your balance. If you overextend a leg or rush even slightly, your character topples over in the most dramatic ragdoll fashion. Hilariously dramatic. I’m talking full-on splits, face-plants, and flailing limbs that look straight out of a late-’90s Cartoon Network show.

There are 30+ characters to collect too, ranging from a goat to a duck and everything in between, each with their own quirky look. Levels gradually introduce moving platforms, piranhas in pools below you, and lava sections where you have to time each stilt placement carefully or your character tumbles into the lava. You pick it up expecting a casual five-minute distraction, and then 45 minutes later you’re still trying to clear one particularly tricky section. The simplicity of walking is the entire hook, because it’s the most basic human action, and Walk Master makes it feel incredibly difficult.

2. Dead Cells

Fight through an ever-changing castle, lose everything on death, try again

Dead Cells has a straightforward loop. You wake up, you fight through rooms full of enemies, you pick up whatever weapons are lying around, you die, you lose most of what you collected. Then you do it again. Yet the thing that makes it one of the most popular action platformers on mobile is that every run plays out differently, since the rooms rearrange themselves every time you restart. So even when you’re back at square one, the path ahead is unfamiliar, which creates a weird kind of excitement where dying stops being frustrating and starts being an opportunity.

You pick up whatever weapons the game throws your way during a run, whether it’s a broadsword, a crossbow, or deployable traps, and you work out the best combo on the fly. Since the levels rearrange themselves after every death, you can’t memorize exact layouts or cheese your way through sections. You have to adapt. Along the way, you collect a currency from enemies, which you can spend on unlocking new gear for future attempts. So even a run that ends badly can contribute to your next one, provided you’ve spent that currency before dying. I should mention that touch controls can feel a little tricky during the harder sections. Still, hooking up a controller solves it almost entirely, and the performance on both iOS and Android is rock solid.

1. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Explore a cursed mountain with fast-paced swordplay

Prince of Persia as a franchise got its start way back in 1989 as a side-scrolling game, moved into 3D and found new success during the PS2 era, and eventually got overshadowed by Assassin’s Creed, which basically took its DNA and ran in a completely different direction. So when The Lost Crown brought the series back to side-scrolling, it felt like the franchise finally remembered what made it click in the first place. And I’d go as far as saying it rivals some of the best games in the genre on any platform, mobile included. The map here is massive, and its areas connect through hidden shortcuts and looping corridors.

Then, plenty of rooms have something tucked away behind a breakable wall or a tricky jump sequence. So it checks all the boxes. Then, talking about the boss fights, they require patience, pattern recognition, and a good loadout, because button mashing will get you nowhere fast. Plus, the mobile version runs smoothly on capable devices, works offline, and has no ads, although unlocking the full game requires a one-time purchase. Of all the best platformers on iOS and Android, The Lost Crown takes the crown, and good luck finding anything on mobile that can match it.

FAQs

Do I need a controller to play these platformers on my phone?

Every game on the list can be played using touchscreen controls, and most of them handle it surprisingly well. However, if you are someone who grew up playing on a console, pairing a Bluetooth controller will feel much more natural, especially for faster-paced titles like Dead Cells and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. More casual picks like Walk Master and Eggggg: The Platform Puker were designed around touch input from the ground up, so a controller is completely optional there.

Are all of these games free to download?

Some of them are free to download, like Walk Master and Geometry Dash Lite, but the majority on the list require a one-time purchase. Dead Cells, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Little Nightmares, and Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition are all premium titles, meaning you pay once and get the full experience. Personally, I prefer it that way because there are no interruptions or paywalls mid-game.

Which platformer on this list is the easiest to pick up for someone who has never played one before?

Walk Master is probably the safest starting point because the concept is simple to grasp in seconds, and the learning curve is gentle. Leo’s Fortune is another solid option since it focuses more on exploration and light puzzle-solving rather than intense reflexes. Once you feel comfortable, you can move on to something more challenging like Swordigo or Geometry Dash.

Can I play any of these games without an internet connection?

Yes, and the good news is that almost every game on the list supports offline play. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Dead Cells, Dandara, Little Nightmares, Downwell, and Leo’s Fortune all run perfectly fine without Wi-Fi or mobile data. So if you are on a flight or somewhere without signal, these will still keep you occupied.

Which of these mobile platformers have the most replay value?

Dead Cells is the clear standout here because every run generates a different layout, different enemy placements, and different weapon drops. You could sink dozens of hours into it and still encounter fresh combinations. Geometry Dash also has strong replay value thanks to its massive library of community-created levels, which essentially means the content never runs out. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown offers a lengthy campaign filled to the brim with hidden paths and optional challenges.

Are any of these games suitable for kids?

Walk Master, Eggggg: The Platform Puker, and Leo’s Fortune are all family-friendly and safe for younger players. Geometry Dash is also fine for kids, though it can get frustrating at higher difficulty levels. On the other hand, Little Nightmares has a darker tone and some creepy imagery that might be too intense for very young children, so keep that in mind before handing over your phone.

Do these games drain a lot of battery on my phone?

Lighter titles like Downwell, Walk Master, and Geometry Dash are easy on battery since they are simple in terms of graphics. However, more visually detailed games like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Dead Cells, and Little Nightmares will consume more power, especially during longer sessions. Keeping your brightness at a reasonable level and closing background apps can help stretch your playtime.

Which platforming games on this list have the toughest difficulty?

Dead Cells and Downwell are both notoriously punishing, so be prepared to die a lot and restart frequently. Geometry Dash also ramps up sharply after the first few levels, and completing the harder stages requires serious precision and memorization. If you prefer a smoother ride, Leo’s Fortune and Swordigo offer a more balanced challenge that still feels satisfying without the constant setbacks.

Are these platformers available on both iOS and Android, or are some exclusive to one platform?

Every game on the list is available on both iOS and Android, so you are covered regardless of which phone you use. A few titles, like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, arrived on mobile through specific storefronts like Netflix Games or Apple Arcade, so it is worth checking where exactly to download them on your device. Otherwise, most are available directly on the App Store and Google Play Store.