I’ve always wanted to enjoy single-player mobile gaming more than I actually did. Over the years, I’ve bought a few gems, but been disappointed by a lot more, or left them languishing in a folder because they required two hands and focused attention, and at that point it just felt like a worse version of a dedicated gaming device.
Trying to articulate what I was actually looking for, I think these are the key points:
- No ads or virtual currency IAP (this rules out the mainstream mobile market. I used to try and put up with these, but eventually swore them off.)
- Playable with one thumb while holding the phone in portrait mode (which excludes most of the meatier games that would otherwise be perfect, such as almost all PC/console ports).
- Finishable rather than open-ended, and with a modicum of story/structure on the macro level (For whatever reason, I’m just not wired to be satisfied with endless grind, high score chases, or purely abstract puzzles)
- Playable in fragmented bits and pieces throughout the day (i.e. turn/menu based since I might be distracted, resumable in seconds since I might have a small time window, and not heavily reliant on audio since the sound may be off)
- And of course, generally high quality.
Unfortunately, the intersection of that Venn diagram within the mobile game space is… tiny. And I’ve enjoyed the occasional exception to each of these criteria, but that’s what I’m looking for. I’ve found a few over the years, but am always looking for (and willing to pay for) more. The reasons are pretty clear – my tastes are a tiny unprofitable niche, and if developers want to be able to sell on literally any other platform they need to prioritize landscape presentation.
Preamble aside, a few months ago I switched back to Android after a sojourn on iOS, and since then I’ve gotten more enjoyment out of gaming on my phone than I had in the whole previous decade. The key turned out to be emulation, and more specifically, having the epiphany that putting a d-pad in the bottom-center where my thumb naturally falls, with buttons arrayed around it, makes for a really natural control scheme for a lot of games. The types of games I want are rare in the modern mobile market, but were once abundant, and this scheme makes a ton of them fully enjoyable in my desired one-thumb portrait mode.
I had dabbled in emulation on previous phones, but always using the default control setups, which mimic physical gamepads and use both thumbs. That never worked for me, and I had dismissed on-screen controls as too imprecise and annoying to bother with, but centering it and separating the buttons worked way better for my muscle memory to minimize misclicks. Obviously without the tactile nature it’ll never fully match a physical gamepad, and I don’t even try action-based games this way, but for anything where I’m primarily navigating maps and menus, it’s all I need.
Don’t think many people are playing games like this (no emulators offer this scheme by default, and several make it difficult or impossible to configure), but I’ve been having a great time with it. Definitely recommend giving it a shot if you’ve found yourself with similar complaints about the current mobile gaming landscape and just wanting some good tactics games, dungeon crawlers, etc. on your phone. Happy to discuss recommendations and setup tips, but this post is already huge, so let me know if you’re curious.
