I keep getting mixed up with this category. My gut reaction tells me its basically Farmville & Jewel Quest stuff, but apparently fortnite gets lumped in there as well these days…
To be fair, “diversity” comes in a lot of flavors. One of the hardest is ideological or opinion diversity. Organizations routinely get criticized for having a visually appealing mix of gender and racial types, but only one mindset or point of view. So maybe these gentlemen represent everything from Ayn Rand to Leon Trotsky? Heh.
All three are microtransaction-laden nightmares, albeit in different ways. My problem with mobile isn’t the platform, it’s the business model that seem to almost always go with it.
There are some great games on mobile, and no I am not talking about F2P addiction based games. Some of the smaller or even older PC titles are on there now too.
Sadly I’m pretty sure the F2P stuff accounts for the overwhelming bulk of the mobile region of that graph. There’s certainly no reason one can’t have good games on the platform, but the good stuff is getting absolutely clobbered by the predatory crap.
Yeah but… just making sure folks know that there are some quality games in the mobile space in case they are missing out. The general population isn’t paying somewhere between 400 and what 1500 every two years for a new phone just so they can make clearer calls and stream YouTube.
Yup, and that’s a good thing to be doing. On that note, any specific favorites? Aside from the occasional small puzzle game I really don’t play much of anything on my phone.
That’s true, they’re doing it because carriers are really good at disguising the cost and they’ve made their own identity fully subservient to The Brand.
So far I’ve only found one genre that I really enjoy on mobile: Tower Defense games. Other than that, any game I try on my phone either takes too long, or requires too much of my attention, or it goes the other way and is too inconsequential. I’m definitely open to finding more genres that I might enjoy on mobile, but it’s a tough situation to design for. You need to not be too involved, because players will be playing in between doing other things, but it can’t be completely mindless crap either.
Picross, man. Picross is the jam.
Ever since they’ve added AI to MP, my sister and me get our ass kicked by Through the Ages every night before bed. It’s such a different game with all 4 slots populated. For a shortish run I am playing One Deck Dungeon these days.
That’s actually a general theme for me and mobile, the card game and board game sphere. Since so many of those are not only MP but cross platform with iOS and Steam, it’s been great.
The best thing about mobile too is any not a gamer friend who will play games that couldn’t tell you the difference between a GPU and a CPU and if you mention a next gen console they say you mean something like Nintendo, well those people have phones! So you can still play games with them.
Potion Explosion is a go to so far with my not a gamer but I have a phone group as is Carcassonne.
I downloaded Oceans last night, same makers of Evolution. It’s their free lite version or something, but I haven’t had a chance to play it yet.
I liked the Kingdom Rush games for a bit, but the last one I looked at got way more micro tran than I liked, so I didn’t really go back after that.
I adore Picross but can’t imagine playing it on something the size of a phone screen.
Been enjoying ODD on the PC, so I can certainly see how it would work on mobile too. Card and board games make a lot of sense - turn based, relatively screen friendly in most cases. I’ll keep that in mind!
I picked it up on PC first actually. Then I found out it was like 99 cents at the time Android. Now I play it in bed mostly because it works so well on a small device with a touch screen. They keep advertising their Spirit Island app which I am sure to try eventually.
Playing physical games in their digital form might just become a new way for me to figure out which physical games to buy for my group. Evolution, a favorite of my family, is not a favorite of my friends. It’s too aggressive. I hear Oceans is a little tamer in that area so it might work there.
I kicked started Evolution digital. I am a big supporter of bringing the physical games into the digital space.
I’ve been eye the Game Dev Tycoon game too for mobile. I enjoy it on PC, and it seems perfect for mobile. Oh I have two Reigns too which are neat little games.
I am almost exclusive paid for games. I am not a fan of the free and nag you for money scheme.
Picross Luna 2 and 3 have a lovely interface that doesn’t require zooming and which I’m perfectly happy with up to 20x20 puzzles.
3 is a vastly improved app on Android. Can’t recommend it highly enough.
I may have to check that out just to see how it’s even possible, I seriously can’t comprehend that. Thanks for the suggestion!
This is just a 15x15 but on my Pixel 3:
You touch and drag the cross on the “traffic light” thing to move the cursor, touch the circle or x to fill in or exclude a square, or touch-and-drag the circle or x to fill in or exclude a line. Works a treat.
3 has ads but lets you disable them for $3.99 or whatever.
Oh I guess they changed the name.
It’s fine. I played Paint It Back on my iPod Touch, which was something like a 4" screen.
Yeah I can’t say I don’t make mistakes with my big person fingers playing Picross on my phone but, you know, you get used to it.
Reasons to play with a stylus, I expect, which is the primary way I use my phone anyway.