Splitter Critters, Hidden Folks were the year's big winners on the App Store
App Store editors name the most notable games, developers and trends of 2017
RAC7 Games' Splitter Critters was the most celebrated game among the App Store's editors in 2017.
Splitter Critters was named Game of the Year on iPad in at least 84 countries, according to Apple's annual breakdown of the best products on the App Store. RAC7's puzzle game achieved those accolades despite being released at the start of the year.
The other most widely praised games were Adriaan de Jongh and Sylvain Tegroeg's hand-drawn Hidden Folks, and the iPad version of Jonathan Blow's The Witness, both of which were named Games of the Year in dozens of countries. Slightly less popular was Broken Rules' Old Man's Journey, which was still singled out in 15 countries.
It's worth noting that none of these games use a free-to-play model, and The Witness is priced as high as $9.99.
For its Trends of the Year in gaming, Apple picked out .io games, real-time competitive games, and "hyper casual games" like Gardenscapes, Egg, Inc, and Flippy Knife.
Apple has also released a list of the best developers of the year, which is replete with developers and publishers from the games industry. You can find it here.