With the 2015-2016 school year almost ending, it’s hard to recall the memories from September, when we first walked in . Although summer is right around the corner, it’s time to remember the games that captivated us this past year.

Agar.io: Popular Youtubers such as Captainsparklez and Markiplier originally debuted this online multiplayer game during the summer, but once school started, it spread quickly throughout the student body. The player starts off as a tiny cell, and tries to avoid being eaten by the bigger cells while simultaneously trying to gain mass by eating the smaller cells. Along with an attractive design and sensible mechanics, it’s fun, easy and can get pretty exciting!  Though you cannot connect to servers on school computers, this game will still entertain you at home.

Smashy Road: Wanted: A little while after agar.io started gaining popularity, Smashy Road appeared on our phones. Looking similar to Crossy Road, Smashy Road brings the all too familiar blocky, colorful aesthetics, but is played much differently. This time the player is behind the wheel, crashing through country roads, collecting money, and trying to evade the police. Similar to Crossy Road, money collected goes towards buying new vehicles, but every car is different and encourages different playstyles, which has helped this game achieve the status of Top Free App in the App Store.

Hearthstone: Despite being around for more than two years, Hearthstone finally started gaining large traction at West in early winter. Despite being a more difficult game, anyone can pick this up and play. Just build a deck of 30 cards, defeat opponents online with said deck, and complete quests to earn gold to increase your deck and buy better cards.. A single game ranges anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes, but remember to keep an eye on your battery, as the fantastic graphics and animations of the game do demand a lot of power. After starting, it is hard to stop, as you get swept into the excitement generated by competitive play and sense of accomplishment. Be prepared to use data, as this hefty 1.5 GB game is unplayable on the school internet.

Clash Royale: As the third game released by the illustrious Supercell, Clash Royale definitely meets the high standards set by its predecessors. The game takes the all-too-familiar Clash of Clans characters and squeezes them into a quick, compact card game. Despite this, the game plays much like Clash, with the player deploying troops and casting spells in an effort to destroy their opponent’s towers. The difference lies in the structure of the game, which is similar to that of Hearthstone. Two players face off in real time with premade deck of cards, and whoever either destroys their opponent’s King’s Tower, or destroys more of their opponent’s towers wins. Try this game if you like Hearthstone or Clash of Clans, or if you are looking for something fresh and original to try on your phone.

Slither.io: This fun and engaging game follows a path similar to that of agar.io. Having gained players through advertising, it caught the attention of the same Youtubers and rapidly diffused after that. It features the player as a snake, that must grow by eating plasma spawning in the map or from other snakes. This game has been acclaimed as a more fair and balanced version of agar.io, as any snake, no matter how large, will dissolve into plasma when it collides with another snake’s tail. Once you start, it is hard to stop playing this game at home, as it is now banned on the school internet.

EMERGING SPOTLIGHT: Diep.io: If there is one game that will grip our school next, it will be diep.io. Taking the old Bubble Tanks series to the MMO stage, diep.io sports diversity not found in the other .io online games. Playing as a floating, geometric tank, the only mission is to shoot and kill cells and other players. Killing earns you XP, which lets you level up and upgrade your tank. The possibilities for matchups in this game are endless, making them even more fun and unpredictable. Nevertheless, this game still retains the same fundamentals as the other .io ga
mes, so don’t be afraid to familiarize yourself with it early. Everyone will be obsessed with it soon!