Google has now updated the list of apps and games featured in the Android Excellence portion of the Editor’s Choice section on the Google Play Store. For those who may not be aware, the two lists are effectively meant to showcase the very best of what Android has to offer. Google launched the program back in June of last year, looking to honor the app developers who it says work tirelessly to drive innovation, quality, and polish to the Android Platform. To be featured in the exclusive category, developers need to follow best practices for the development of apps. The result of that, the company said at the time, is near universality of use, despite the wide cultural diversity of Android users, thanks to superior device optimization, design, technical performance, and localization. This quarter, however, the company sought to highlight applications that both fit the above description and whose developers went above and beyond to adopt the latest Android features.
The first new section is Android Excellence Games. As always, this includes games from a wide variety of genre ranging from puzzle and action strategy to MMORPGs and shooters. The apps don’t necessarily appear in any designated order of quality, but some noteworthy mentions on the list include Nintendo’s turn-based strategy RPG Fire Emblem Heroes. The game is also currently the number two grossing game in the Play Store’s simulation category, despite being free to play with no purchases required to finish the game. That’s backed up by an overall 4.6-star rating for its addictive combat and summoning mechanisms, as well as its high replay value. Another title on the list is Noodlecake Studios Inc’s Lumino City, which is a unique 4.7-star-rated adventure game featuring an art style that was created utilizing cinematographically-captured handmade models. Lumino City has also won a substantial collection of awards for its art and gameplay mechanics. In all, there is a total of 16 titles that have made the list for this iteration of Google’s Android Excellence Games, ranging in price from free to $4.99. There’s something there for pretty much everybody, making it well worth taking a look.
On the more general side, Android Excellence Apps features no fewer than 18 applications that caught the search giant and Android users’ attention for this quarter. There are, of course, a few application on the list from more well-established companies or developers such as Airbnb, LinkedIn, and IFTTT. However, there are also several which may be new to many users and they range in usefulness from entertainment apps to an app from BioWink GmbH which is geared at helping women track ovulation and their monthly cycles. Ditty, on the other hand, is an app developed by Zya that helps users created musical humor and more by singing whatever is typed in over animated gifs, images, or videos. Those are shared via a dedicated social network or as a downloadable video file. As with the games section above, there’s bound to be something there for just about anybody in the newly updated Excellence Apps section of the Google Play Store.
