This is Portabliss, a column about downloadable games that can be played on the go. Solstice Arena appeared on the App Store last week. It's a MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) game in which you choose a hero and play a top-down 3v3 match. Using various spells and abilities, you attack the opposing heroes and try to take out their towers before they do the same to yours. It's deep, well-balanced, and it's an inventive take on the burgeoning genre, designed from the ground up for mobile platforms and touchscreens. And oh yeah, it was published by Zynga.

The mention of Zynga may conjure up more thoughts of smarmy farm animals and dessicated drawing games than it does words like "deep" and "inventive," but that's kind of the point. Zynga picked up the developer A Bit Lucky last year, and then immediately put them to work on something that could change the company's reputation, a "mid-core" title that did more right than it did wrong.

And though you may be surprised, Solstice Arena succeeds at that task. It's probably not the next League of Legends (though Zynga wouldn't mind if it was), but it does represent the inklings of a new leaf for a huge casual game publisher on the wane.