Google quietly launches HTML5 games hub Instant Games on select Android devices

Google has quietly launched a new app called Instant Games on the Play Store.

As spotted by Mobilegamer.biz, Instant Games offers a new location for gamers to browse a catalogue of HTML5 games, filter by categories like new, multiplayer and popular, and search directly for a specific title. Users can also specify searches to offline games and favourites.

Games within the new app include Banana Run, 99 Balls, Billiards Classic and ZeptoLab’s Cut the Rope spinoff Om Nom Run.

Instant competition

Google’s stealth drop of Instant Games has followed mere weeks after Apple unveiled a new dedicated Apple Games app, designed as a single destination for all mobile games an iOS user has ever downloaded - provided they’re still available.

Apple’s new app also includes leaderboards, challenges and recommendations of "new games we love", intended to provide discoverability for new games. It also has a tab for subscription service Apple Arcade.

The reveal had mixed reception among our Mobile Mavens, with some welcoming new social features but others lambasting Apple for "not understanding games".

Google’s new app, meanwhile, is focusing on ease of play. As its name implies, Instant Games grants access to titles with no further downloads required - in a similar vein to YouTube Playables where users can jump straight from watching videos to playing games without waiting out the install phase.

YouTube Playables also included a Cut the Rope game at launch, among 74 other titles.

Google hasn’t loudly advertised its new app but has explained how Instant Games’ offline saving works via Android Help. Notably, Instant Games is only available "on select Android devices".

It also happens to share a name with Facebook's Instant Games, though the two appear unrelated.