Tide Marshal

Tide Marshal asks you to think a few moves ahead. You command fleets across a map of islands and inlets, balancing supply lines against the pressure of incoming raids. It's clever without being overwhelming, and each mission is short enough to finish in a sitting.

The interface deserves credit. Dragging units and queuing orders works smoothly, and you can pause to plan, which is a blessing on a small screen. We appreciated that the tutorial missions teach through doing rather than walls of text.

Battery-wise it's middle of the road — the map rendering is light, but the game nudges you to keep playing with escalating challenges. On an older phone we tested, it held a steady frame rate on the default settings.

What we liked

• Pause-to-plan tactical depth
• Clean drag-and-queue controls
• Short, replayable missions