The first I mention is Black Desert Mobile and the second is Vendetta Online, a mobile gameplay video of which I posted upthread.
He asked for turn based games, not necessarily RPGs. All of those are turn based, with the exception of the Bioware games. Those default to pausable real time, but can be set to autopause every turn which IMO is close enough.
Here are some more options for ārealā turn-based games in various different genres:
Iāve spent by far the most phone gaming time with board and card game conversions that offer asynchronous multiplayer to play with others on the qt3 leagues Slack. You already mentioned Through the Ages, but also check out Ascension, Star Realms, Terraforming Mars, Raiders of the North Sea, Yellow & Yangtze, Race for the Galaxy, Lords of Waterdeep, Dragon Castle, Shards of Infinity, Antihero, and Summoner Wars (NOT Summoners War, which is some f2p garbage).
There are other board/card games that donāt offer async, but still might be worth checking out if youāre ok with solo play. I havenāt spent much time personally playing these, but hereās what has caught my eye: Sentinels of the Multiverse, One-Deck Dungeon, Aeonās End, Mystic Vale, Legends of Andor, Pathfinder Adventure Game, King Tactics, Battlelore, Evolution, Isle of Skye.
Slay the Spire sure would be a great fit for real turn-based gaming on mobile, wouldnāt it? Well itās still coming soon (same with Dicey Dungeons), but there are some reasonable substitutes in that same space. Not as polished, and with some questionable translations, but still engaging enough mechanically: Night of the Full Moon, Pirates Outlaws, Dimension of Dreams, Silent Abyss, Spellsword Cards Origins.
There are a number of neat options in the microstrategy/puzzle/roguelite space that fit mobile perfectly by being simplified enough to be easy to see and control on a phone, but still offering some tricky decision-making whenever you have a few minutes to spare. Check out Hoplite, Enyo, Militia, Really Bad Chess, Minos Strategos, Solitairica, Maze Machina, Meteorfall, Card Thief, Card Crawl, Cardinal Quest 2, Auro, and Solar Settlers.
Then there are some text-heavy options that also work well on mobile, including Sorcery 1-4, 80 Days, King of Dragon Pass, Hatoful Boyfriend, and Cultist Simulator
If youāre down with CCGs and can live with their annoying monetization models, many of them have solid mobile versions with full access to their single-player and online modes. I really enjoyed Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions, but Hearthstone and Eternal are also available, among others.
Speaking of annoying monetization models, some of the f2p stuff can provide interesting turn-based gameplay as long as you can keep yourself from getting sucked into spending money or continuing the endless grind after the fun has been exhausted. Fire Emblem Heroes, Gems of War, and Legend of Solgard are the ones I enjoyed the most before I swore off that category forever.
And you didnāt hear it from me, but VCMI, Battle for Wesnoth, and Drastic open up access to a bunch more games even if theyāre a bit clunky since itās not their native platform.
The worst thing about switching from iOS to Android was no longer being able to play Michael Brough games.
Well, that hasnāt changed. But it doesnāt feel so bad, now that Seven Scrolls is Android.
Seven Scrolls isnāt a Brough game, but it admits from the very start that it is inspired by Brough. And it sure looks like one of his games. You move a weird looking sprite on a very small grid fighting monsters to unlock the next small grid.
And as in Cinco Paus, you pick up random items along the way. Thatās where the similarity ends. The items are scrolls, each with a conditional if-this-then-that spell that triggers over and over whether you like it or not. Your job is to control the procedural logic machine youāve unleashed to make its procedures kill your enemies before they kill you.
An example of the chaos: in a recent run, I picked up a scroll with āWhen I take damage, a monster is hit by lightningā. Sounds great, but I forgot that lightning chains to adjacent creatures. So when a monster hit me, it was struck by lightning, which chained to me and damaged me, so it was hit by lightning again, which damaged me againā¦ Good run while it lasted.
With this game, Android is finally a mature OS.
Neko Atsume technically has IAPs but Iāve never felt obligated to buy them. It might not have enough for you to do though.
This looks great. I picked it up for my sonās Galaxy tab, and Iāll no doubt be playing it, too.
I also got Unciv, because why not?
Iām intrigued by the concept but why oh why canāt they move beyond the generic DnD setting? What is with game creators and lack of creativity on this front?
Thereās always Maze Machina, another Brough-like (see what I did there?) on Android. You play a mouse fighting steampunk robots.
Wow, that looks almost exactly like Cinco Paus.
It does look similar, but it plays a lot differently.
Cinco Paus revolves around the roguelike concept of quaff-IDing. Nothing in Seven Scrolls needs to be identified, instead you need to find ways to trigger the helpful effects without triggering the harmful ones.
Well it looked cool and was cheap so I bought it.
Itās great. Itās maniacal laughter inducing by being just logical and just random enough, with randomness strongly affecting the logic. It has thisā¦ amazing hand drawn aesthetic.
Iām enjoying it, but there are an awful lot of just plain crappy scrolls you can get, and if you get two or three of them in a row early on it can kind of screw your run.
Yeah, Iāve taken to grabbing that first scroll as a priority, and if itās a dud, start a new run.
Some of my favorites so far:
-When a monster dies, a monster dies: as a newbie my first thought was āwell, thatās redundantā
-When a monk is hurt, a monk gets a shield
You can get into situations where itās literally hopeless seven or eight turns ahead. There is some nice tension between grabbing those last items and exiting when the monster spawn rate ramps up.
Cloning monks is fun. Itās like having dual paddles in Arkenoid, or some crazy pinball multiball.
Cloned monk is fun, yeah. An extra life that actually helps do stuff.
Gwent is out on Android. Iāve heard good things about this gameā¦
I picked up Grimvalor because itās available via Play Pass, and itās a pretty slick side-scrolling Hollow-Knight-like. Iām quite enjoying it.
Latest entry in the franchise on sale at what I believe to be an historical low š
Free:
Sentinels of the Multiverse is currently free, and itās a great port (IMO more enjoyable than the physical version).