It was in the early days of the Apple App Store. Games were 59p to buy. No in-app purchases and were generally good indie titles. "Helsing's Fire" comes to mind. Miss that game!
I played the original Plants vs Zombies back in the day and thought it was pretty good. I got a new tablet recently and decided to try out the latest version - and holy fuck it is significantly worse. Rather than trying to be a good game, every possible aspect has been monetized.
So yeah, I'd say the early 2010s was a time where you could at least find some good stuff that wasn't ruined by enshitification.
Exactly. I played a lot of mobile games in the early 2010s, and have avoided mobile games since. There were some bangers back then that really weren't that expensive.
Well, it is kinda true. Many old games I had on my phone that were free and didn't have ads, in the last few years have received updates to do literally nothing, but include ads. So "these days" is the case for some.
There was a dude on reddit who started doing short reviews of mobile games he liked, then ended up creating an app that focused on curated community reviews. It's not perfect but at least it's got decent filters for genres, which alone makes it a hell of a lot better than wading into the play store
This really upsets me and periodically bums me out. I used to like trawling through the top lists to see the various games that were on mobile. This is back in like 2011-2013. Typically monetization was either a free/premium version split, or an energy system. Now it's beyond 99% garbage with 99% of the last 1% being ports. The 1 of 1? Slice and Dice, that game rocks.
and then you go through the top paid games just to find... the same top paid games from the last decade. Nothing of value is being created or getting recognition
There could be a vicious cycle where game devs who want to be taken seriously don't touch mobile games, so as mobile game devs develop skills and experience, they move away from the platform.
Also a lot of the thick frameworks that many devs rely on these days require a lot of computing resources that maybe mobile devices have trouble keeping up with. I could see scenarios where a mobile game is worked on for a while but abandoned due to awful performance in early testing while a similar desktop game doesn't get killed because it's being developed on a high end system and later gets optimized to run better on weaker systems.
Though tbh, I have no idea how top phones compare with high end desktops these days and am just assuming that they are way behind, while low end desktops might be more comparable to high end phones for performance.
I suspect that most of it comes down to passive cooling, most phones dont have active cooling systems like fans so even if it has decent specs its gonna bottleneck rather rapidly.
There were brilliant games from the 80's, 90's and early 2000's that ran on comparatively primitive machines. A decent phone today can very easily emulate a Gameboy an N64 or even a Playstation 1 or Xbox.
I understand that many people think good graphics = good game and vice versa but I think an interesting story, novel puzzles or original concepts are so much more important than how real a game looks. High-end computing power is simply not required to make a great game.
I agree with other people in the thread, people just don't want to pay £40, £50, £60+ for a mobile game, they want it for free and then complain when the games are a grind unless they pay all the micro transactions. Good games won't come unless people are willing to pay for them.
I've not seen hard numbers but it really seems a high end phone is pretty comparable to a low end laptop performance-wise these days. Both do a great job of displaying webpages, playing web video and can kinda crunch through an optimized enough video game at a low enough resolution
Yeah, but then your buds die, and you're either the schmuck holding a steamdeck to the side of gheir head, or the asshole holding their steamdeck an inch in front of their face with their GP on speaker explaining in grim detail the colour of the fluid seeping from their piles....
You can plug in your buds case to charge on your steam deck. I don't know anyone who regularly encounters that issue though. That's like saying your phone can die mid call and then you won't be able to make calls. Like sure, it's happened to people but by in large everyone always has theirs charged and we didn't NOT make wireless phones popular because of this one specific scenario.
Don't have a steamdeck, I did know you can charge stuff off it though. Idk about you, but I often forget to charge my buds, and forget things like my external battery or cables(or the buds themselves) at home as I run out the door.
I wasn't saying that these scenarios would be a daily occurrence, but I can definitely remember enough times that I'd have to count on both hands I've seen someone making a call on the bus with a phablet or tablet. And maybe where you live people have enough respect for the people around them, but every city I've ever lived there's someone talking really loud on speaker about something they really shouldn't be at least once a month that I personally encounter.
I used my first computer around 2004. I was under 20, and not in the US or Europe (uhh... Morocco is literally 14km from Spain so it's close enough, right?)
Good mobile game = ports from PC games and emulators
miHoYo games could be so much more if they are PC/Console games instead of mobile.
The only truly mobile game that I can think of that I can say is good is Pokemon GO, and I don't even like it but is the only game that truly uses the uniqueness of the mobile platform as a game feature.
I'm in a closed beta for WalkScape, which is a single-player RPG that uses your pedometer for all game progress. Travel to another location? Chop down trees? Craft a bronze mining pick? Stomp grapes into wine? All of them progress only as you take steps throughout the day. A great little game to check in on now and then, and I feel utilizes the mobile platform well.
It's neat, if fairly barebones. You pop open the game, see if you've completed your current activity (reached a destination you walked to, finished crafting through your item stack, gathered materials until your bag is full) then designate the next thing you'll do. But, it's F2P, ad-free, and the devs are very genuine! There's another beta wave soon because they're showing it at Gamescom! https://walkscape.app
Also, it's more forgiving than POGO since it uses STRICTLY pedometer (step count), so it doesn't try to see if you were running too fast, changing location, etc.
The last levels of Abyss is more about team comp + good items than what you can do with the combat.
Of course you need to dodge and switch characters efficiently but the ceiling of the game is low. You have some interesting things like the 2H characters jumping + attack but is not like a essential skill of the game.
Nope, they heavily police botting so its all real players. Super friendly community, and if you somehow don't like the community, it has a singleplayer mode and isn't too hard to host yourself
it's a game of that type, you learn to win it after dying a lot and just a quick read the in game "tome of dungeon mastery" and use the search function a lot and lot
I was early into mobile gaming, and it used to be AWESOME! It was a platform oozing with potential. Every game that came out on mobile was excellently crafted...until Candy Crush came out. It literally ruined the whole genre.
Doodle Jump wasn't the pinnacle of gaming, but everything about it was polished to perfection. The devs really put in the effort and finished the game, which is a rare feeling even in AAA games today.
But the potential was there, not a mtx nightmare in 80 percent of games. I would still say that great games like minedustry or better are still possible nowadays
It does, the gameplay works well on a small screen (actually better than Kotor in some ways), and I've generally found that turn-based stuff works well on touchscreens. Twitchy action stuff doesn't work so well - I found the GTA ports unplayable.
Also, I think Aspyr did a really nice job retooling the Kotor UI for smartphones, and they also did Kotor II.
Plants vs zombies was originally pretty good. I had originally bought it many years ago. Tried to play it again recently and the thing I paid for is some ad infested dumpster fire. Made me ignore all mobile games. Even the good ones can be ruined as you have no control of updates when you change phones.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is cross-platform now, so technically it's not mobile-only. And DCSS is much better than SPD, imo, as someone who has dumped unholy amounts of time into both.
Genshin is more your traditional singleplayer Gacha with MMO elements in my opinion. Also the first successful open-world Gacha so it gets some brownie points for that.
The mobile games industry was killed by ports and low-effort cash grabs. Seems like nobody makes good games that are specifically designed for mobile anymore, and almost all ports suffer from poor controls and/or just not being as good as the original versions.
Stuff like Pokémon Go and Ingress were very promising. Although I feel like Pokémon Go was too low effort and should have had very fleshed out Pokémon mechanics such as wild encounters, turn based battles, etc.
A year ago or so I would have said Clash Royale. But now... nah.
You'll find plenty of videos that explain this better than I can, but at this point the devs clearly hate the community, the game is more pay to win than ever, evolutions are completely broken and the devs barely care to balance the game anymore.
It's pretty obvious that right now they just want to squeeze as much money as possible from the game before it completely dies out.
They literally only have to pander to a small handful of whales to justify pay to win microtransactions. I'm sure the average player never spends any money on it.
Yea picked up the game a week ago, after not playing for 2 or 3 years and wow is this game unballanced. At this point it's just realy anoying. And my 2013 deck is obviously not meta anymore, but to level a new deck to a point of playability takes an obscene amount of work.
There are some pretty decent portable controllers out there though (I.e. Turtle Beach Atom). Plus phone brackets for Series S/X controllers and DS4/DS5.
So there are good controller options, touchscreen controls for games designed for physical controls suck.
But carrying around physical controllers isn't very convenient.
I've plugged an Xbox controller into a phone before and that worked. I've not had an iPhone since they moved over to the USBC so I don't know about that.
Gotta plug one of my favorite mobile game studios: Afterburn. They only have 3 puzzle games. All are relatively short and 100%-able. Every single one is fun and full of heart. Golf Peaks, Inbento (bought by Crunchyroll), and Railbound.
Its pretty dang nice on mobile. I pay for the Google Play Pass (Apple Game Pass competitor) because it shares to my family and amongst all of us it adds up to making sense to pay $20/yr it costs, and I'll pop open a game of Mini Metro every so often and play the daily challenge map
you get the problem PC has (zillions of devices of different hardware/os configs) but at an even lower performance minimum. heavily limits what developers actually can do with it.
also doesnt help that more than half your userbase doesnt want to actually pay for the game.
Mobile games don't need to be technically impressive though. It's not like in PC/consoles where people want the most expensive high res 3D graphics.
I don't know if this is true for most, but for me, I just want a game that is simple visually but entertaining. The last thing I want is for a game to drain my phone's battery.
I've actually paid for a game. Had a good demo/trial and I paid for the full version. However, part of the problem is that way too many mobile games are trash. I'm not putting any money in unless I can try the game first.
PC has a similar problem. It's easy to find good games, but they're are still so many to choose from and finding one that fits what I like is still hard without a trial/demo of some sort. The 2 hour limit on Steam isn't enough time for a lot of games. Hell, I was just trying out a demo for a game right up my alley and I spent two hours just looking at all the options I had before I really even started the game. I think there's too much customization for my taste. It's cool, but that also means you can spend countless time trying to customize things to be optimal. I'll spend all my time tweaking things rather than playing.
yeah it should really be a "2 hours of playtime not counting settings fiddling and character creation if it's an RPG" or maybe just bump it up to 4h
though i'm pretty sure Steam is leading the demo renessance, the demo fest is a good show of that. And i've noticed many more games have demos nowadays, though it's mostly limited to indi games. I guess triple A with 20 franchise releases doesn't need to convince its fantabse to buy the game
the flash game era benefited from an era where building a PC wasn't completely streamlined yet, and game distribution on desktop also wasn't streamlined (early steam was reviled and most users did not like it). Steam launched in 2003, and 2005 it went to allow 3rd parties. 2005 is also coincidentally when youtube was released, which marked the start of users moving off of well established sites like newgrounds to it over time, which flash ultimately died when mobile became more mainstream and neither google nor apple wanted to support flash. down the line.
2005 also marked the release date of the Xbox 360, which realistically was the first console where indie game development took off due to the Xbox Arcade. Also notice how paid mobile games was much more regular back during there was realistically like a few mobile phones in the market(when the iPhone 3GS was launched)
Minecraft has been running fine on mobile, even as far back as like 2012 or something when it came out.
I remember playing it on an iPad 2, which is surely way more underpowered than the switch, and it ran perfectly fine. So it is possible. Guess they just didn't really try hard enough?
It doesn't quite fit into my list because it seems to be paid, but it looks wonderful, thanks. Since we're mentioning paid options, though, Zenge is nice.
It's really bizarre how phone gaming's golden age was before the smartphone era, having buttons helped a lot. Later java ME games and symbian everything were very cool, I still listen to the songs of Asphalt 4 to this day.
Don't get me wrong there are cool games too after mihoyo started getting ambitious, but they also ported their games to PC and consoles where it's better to play.
the current day phones gaming capability is massively hindered by the shit storm you have to sift through in order to play any of them. Most of which is due to shitty advertisement companies having malicious ads and intrusive practices. It's basically a hard requirement nowadays to use some sort of DNS blocker for them
Back when PUBG first came out, I did not have a powerful PC yet. However, I could enjoy the mobile version of the game and, by the time I built my first PC, I had gained extensive knowledge that equated to a good head start. At its height, PUBG mobile was awesome. Moreover, when with friends, we could all just decide to play it together on our phones, to matter where we were.
Dicey Dungeons is an example of a game that I think is actually BETTER on mobile (cheaper too). Awesome game, and the touch controls really streamline it.
Rollercoaster tycoon classic
-RCT 1+2 in one
-Touch interface + port by original rct1+2 dev
-100 or so scenarios
-No added mxt or pay to skip anything, --gameplay is exactly like PC release
-Original soundtrack
I think the fact that RCT Classic is only worth getting on mobile because there are better options on PC doesn't help make the case that RCT Classic should be a shining example of 'mobile gaming'. RCT Classic is bit above the bare minimum for an acceptable rerelease of older games.
I find Honkai: Star Rail even more suited to mobile (It's mostly not reaction time based) but still play Genshin also. Not as much as I did, but still too much.
How is a giant open world with a cool campaign not impressive for a phone game? Just play it like a regular game instead of doing endgame content, the story's combat is easy to not force anyone to pull.
It's on Google play for $10 but if you really want to know where I got it, it was a free promotion several years ago when Amazon was doing their weird "Amazon Underground" alternate store or whatever the hell it was.
Some indie mobile games are great (Nameless cat, Zombie catchers (before being aquired by DECA), Simon Tatham's puzzles, foss fdroid games (Simple Solitare), Cookie clicker, etc.
Kairosoft and A# are literally the only mobile game companies I will buy EVERY FUCKDAMN thing they put out. Hell I barely have any time to mobile game anymore and I'll STILL drop that fiver when I see a new title arise.
For those that haven't played them, A#'s King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages are AMAZING! I have literally spent more time playing King of Dragon Pass on my phone than any other activity on it in the last 10 years added together.
For once, anon is not fake. May still be gay
Mobile gaming is awful these days. The vast majority are just cash grabs.
That said I look forward to Balatro being released
"These days?" As if it was ever good?
It was in the early days of the Apple App Store. Games were 59p to buy. No in-app purchases and were generally good indie titles. "Helsing's Fire" comes to mind. Miss that game!
Before it went f2p, yeah. Angry bird, pvz port, world of goo, ridiculous fishing, all fun stuff
I played the original Plants vs Zombies back in the day and thought it was pretty good. I got a new tablet recently and decided to try out the latest version - and holy fuck it is significantly worse. Rather than trying to be a good game, every possible aspect has been monetized.
So yeah, I'd say the early 2010s was a time where you could at least find some good stuff that wasn't ruined by enshitification.
Exactly. I played a lot of mobile games in the early 2010s, and have avoided mobile games since. There were some bangers back then that really weren't that expensive.
Well, it is kinda true. Many old games I had on my phone that were free and didn't have ads, in the last few years have received updates to do literally nothing, but include ads. So "these days" is the case for some.
These days mate, you’ll be arrested and thrown in jail if you just say mobile gaming is good
I happily wasted a lot of time playing Worms and angry birds back in the day. It was even better on a tablet. Doodle Jump was another good one.
Those were the days of yore, before in-app purchases and microtransactions.
There's a Worms mobile port? :O
I always just emulated the SNES version while wishing it had touch controls.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.worms2armageddon.app
It's great fun on a tablet.
I remember playing Perfect Cell on iOS when I was younger and having a really great time
The secret is to find one that works on aeroplane mode
With a bit of know-how, you can make a mobile version that works quite well: https://github.com/blake502/balatro-mobile-maker
Come join is at ![email protected]
We have more than 200 members, and more than one screen of posts!
There was a dude on reddit who started doing short reviews of mobile games he liked, then ended up creating an app that focused on curated community reviews. It's not perfect but at least it's got decent filters for genres, which alone makes it a hell of a lot better than wading into the play store
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=minireview.best.android.games.reviews&hl=en_US
I've seen several curated recommendation websites born and die over the years. I'm surprised that MiniReview still works.
There's also slant.co and multiple blogs like AndroidPolice, although they all now feature sponsored content - ads for shitty Android games.
This really upsets me and periodically bums me out. I used to like trawling through the top lists to see the various games that were on mobile. This is back in like 2011-2013. Typically monetization was either a free/premium version split, or an energy system. Now it's beyond 99% garbage with 99% of the last 1% being ports. The 1 of 1? Slice and Dice, that game rocks.
and then you go through the top paid games just to find... the same top paid games from the last decade. Nothing of value is being created or getting recognition
There could be a vicious cycle where game devs who want to be taken seriously don't touch mobile games, so as mobile game devs develop skills and experience, they move away from the platform.
Also a lot of the thick frameworks that many devs rely on these days require a lot of computing resources that maybe mobile devices have trouble keeping up with. I could see scenarios where a mobile game is worked on for a while but abandoned due to awful performance in early testing while a similar desktop game doesn't get killed because it's being developed on a high end system and later gets optimized to run better on weaker systems.
Though tbh, I have no idea how top phones compare with high end desktops these days and am just assuming that they are way behind, while low end desktops might be more comparable to high end phones for performance.
I suspect that most of it comes down to passive cooling, most phones dont have active cooling systems like fans so even if it has decent specs its gonna bottleneck rather rapidly.
There were brilliant games from the 80's, 90's and early 2000's that ran on comparatively primitive machines. A decent phone today can very easily emulate a Gameboy an N64 or even a Playstation 1 or Xbox.
I understand that many people think good graphics = good game and vice versa but I think an interesting story, novel puzzles or original concepts are so much more important than how real a game looks. High-end computing power is simply not required to make a great game.
I agree with other people in the thread, people just don't want to pay £40, £50, £60+ for a mobile game, they want it for free and then complain when the games are a grind unless they pay all the micro transactions. Good games won't come unless people are willing to pay for them.
I've not seen hard numbers but it really seems a high end phone is pretty comparable to a low end laptop performance-wise these days. Both do a great job of displaying webpages, playing web video and can kinda crunch through an optimized enough video game at a low enough resolution
Same. I used to play a number of games, and even paid for a few, but the gems are just too hard to find these days.
So now I pretty much never play games on my phone, which does a few things:
So now I mostly use my phone for:
I have a Switch and Steam Deck, and quality game selection is much better there anyway.
Inb4 Gaben announces the SteamPhone
That could honestly be cool. If he could get calls and texts to work on SteamOS, I'd probably buy it.
I would bet they add steam phone to the steam deck instead. Would be something new and with everyone just having wireless earbuds it could work.
Yeah, but then your buds die, and you're either the schmuck holding a steamdeck to the side of gheir head, or the asshole holding their steamdeck an inch in front of their face with their GP on speaker explaining in grim detail the colour of the fluid seeping from their piles....
You can plug in your buds case to charge on your steam deck. I don't know anyone who regularly encounters that issue though. That's like saying your phone can die mid call and then you won't be able to make calls. Like sure, it's happened to people but by in large everyone always has theirs charged and we didn't NOT make wireless phones popular because of this one specific scenario.
Don't have a steamdeck, I did know you can charge stuff off it though. Idk about you, but I often forget to charge my buds, and forget things like my external battery or cables(or the buds themselves) at home as I run out the door.
I wasn't saying that these scenarios would be a daily occurrence, but I can definitely remember enough times that I'd have to count on both hands I've seen someone making a call on the bus with a phablet or tablet. And maybe where you live people have enough respect for the people around them, but every city I've ever lived there's someone talking really loud on speaker about something they really shouldn't be at least once a month that I personally encounter.
The only games I ever have on my phone now are gachas and paid for games.
Also, I agree that Slice and Dice is awesome. I got the itch version which came with both android and linux versions.
The hours I've sunk into slice and dice! That game rocks!
Yup! I wanted Slay the Spire, but the port is awful and this fills that void.
The port is fantastic, have you used it since the initial round of upsates?
Wait when? The latest experience I had was interminable loading on start and constant save wipes.
When was your experience, and which device? The 2.2+ version has been stable for me. I tried on android phone, tablet, and ipad.
I think I last used it last winter, but looking at the play store it's had an update since. Already looks like the startup is faster!
Slice and dice, magic research (2), Simon tathams puzzle pack, Bart Bontes color series, unciv, pathpix, pirates outlaws...
There isn't only ports and garbage, you just need to go deeper than the front page (and not ever browse by "free")
There's also a good loop hero port
I bought Slice & Dice after reading this comment and others in this thread and yeah, it's pretty great. Thanks for the recommendation!
The only computer most huamns have ever used is a smart phone.
this makes me sad
If you're under 20 and/or not in the US or Europe, probably.
I have some news about worldwide demographics
I used my first computer around 2004. I was under 20, and not in the US or Europe (uhh... Morocco is literally 14km from Spain so it's close enough, right?)
Morocco is close enough, its in that same weird area as Caucasian countries where it isnt in Europe but its close enough to benefit from Europe.
Weird coincidence: all of them participated in Eurovision at one point. Yes, even Morocco.
Canada: "Am I a joke to you?"
Yes, and you pay with monopoly money
Well the Canadians have see-through plastic money. It's the Americans who have money printed on pieces of old bed sheet.
I feel like plastic is a downgrade from linen
Oh :(
Good mobile game = ports from PC games and emulators
miHoYo games could be so much more if they are PC/Console games instead of mobile.
The only truly mobile game that I can think of that I can say is good is Pokemon GO, and I don't even like it but is the only game that truly uses the uniqueness of the mobile platform as a game feature.
I'm in a closed beta for WalkScape, which is a single-player RPG that uses your pedometer for all game progress. Travel to another location? Chop down trees? Craft a bronze mining pick? Stomp grapes into wine? All of them progress only as you take steps throughout the day. A great little game to check in on now and then, and I feel utilizes the mobile platform well.
Seems like a good idea, maybe we'll have 2 good mobile games than.
That sounds like the best things I currently use PoGo for. I love chewing through eggs with my daily bike rides
It's neat, if fairly barebones. You pop open the game, see if you've completed your current activity (reached a destination you walked to, finished crafting through your item stack, gathered materials until your bag is full) then designate the next thing you'll do. But, it's F2P, ad-free, and the devs are very genuine! There's another beta wave soon because they're showing it at Gamescom! https://walkscape.app
Also, it's more forgiving than POGO since it uses STRICTLY pedometer (step count), so it doesn't try to see if you were running too fast, changing location, etc.
This looks very promising. Thanks for linking to it here. I hope it gets launched soon.
Looks pretty sweet! Thanks!
I, for the love of God, cannot play Genshin on mobile. The controls are absolutely garbage. On PC tho, it is really good.
My problem with Genshin is not even that. The game is a mobile first and that limits the mechanics of the game.
If the basic Normal/Hard Hit + 1 skill + ultimate is shit on mobile imagine if they implemented combos like DMC.
Try Wuthering waves, the combat can get a lot more interesting imo
I remember that the game anticheat doesn't work on linux, if they change that I'll try it.
Ah that's a shame, I hope they change it and you get to try it out some day!
It is way deeper than that though, or at least that's what I think about the endgame content.
Sure, exploration is piss easy, but the Abyss not so much.
The last levels of Abyss is more about team comp + good items than what you can do with the combat.
Of course you need to dodge and switch characters efficiently but the ceiling of the game is low. You have some interesting things like the 2H characters jumping + attack but is not like a essential skill of the game.
Pokemon Go was good enough that I didn't even mind that it was a NSA plot!
Don’t Starve. Shattered Pixel Dungeon.
Bam, there goes the next year of your life.
OSRS, chess.com, lichess
First two are proprietary. 2009scape mobile ftw
Username checks out.
I refuse to pay monthly subscriptions for games.
That's why I pay an annual one instead!
Osrs is worth it
Fair. I haven't paid in years, though. I afk grind alch with a foot pedal when I'm working.
Huh, I haven't heard of 2009 scape. Are there a lot of bots?
Nope, they heavily police botting so its all real players. Super friendly community, and if you somehow don't like the community, it has a singleplayer mode and isn't too hard to host yourself
HELL YEAH SHATTERED PIXEL DUNGEON MENTIONED
I can't play hard games 😭
Git gud -> hard game gets easy
Can't git gud -> crying :(
How about using guides from the internet?
Paradox should make mobile games
it's a game of that type, you learn to win it after dying a lot and just a quick read the in game "tome of dungeon mastery" and use the search function a lot and lot
I was early into mobile gaming, and it used to be AWESOME! It was a platform oozing with potential. Every game that came out on mobile was excellently crafted...until Candy Crush came out. It literally ruined the whole genre.
I wouldn't exactly call Doodle Jump the pinnacle of gaming.
If you play games like monument valley 1 & 2, dadish, 20 minutes till dawn and games similar to that you'll see how polished mobile games can be.
Edit: Game name correction
Don't forget World of Goo
World of Goo 2 isn't on mobile :(
Doodle Jump wasn't the pinnacle of gaming, but everything about it was polished to perfection. The devs really put in the effort and finished the game, which is a rare feeling even in AAA games today.
Rose tinted glasses here, extremely simple game loop and it still had bugs and hit box issues under some conditions
But the potential was there, not a mtx nightmare in 80 percent of games. I would still say that great games like minedustry or better are still possible nowadays
Not being an MTX nightmare should be the bare minimum, not something deserving of praise.
Minedustry hast no mtx, it's even free on Android. I bought the game on steam to support the developer even tho I don't play it on steam
Perhaps not, but it was definitely fun.
Of course not. That title belongs to Fruit Ninja.
The best game I've played on Android is the Kotor port.
The second best game I've played is the Into the Breach port.
Into the breach might work really well on phone. 🤔
It does, the gameplay works well on a small screen (actually better than Kotor in some ways), and I've generally found that turn-based stuff works well on touchscreens. Twitchy action stuff doesn't work so well - I found the GTA ports unplayable.
Also, I think Aspyr did a really nice job retooling the Kotor UI for smartphones, and they also did Kotor II.
Into the Breech works well on every level.
Though I do occasionally want an endless mode...
Every good game on mobile is a port of something made for another platform.
Well there are Gems like Temple Run, Subway Servers, Jetpack Joyride (earl Angry Birds). But most are cheap garbage with lots of ads.
Plants vs zombies was originally pretty good. I had originally bought it many years ago. Tried to play it again recently and the thing I paid for is some ad infested dumpster fire. Made me ignore all mobile games. Even the good ones can be ruined as you have no control of updates when you change phones.
You can usually find the APK files online FYI, you just have to download and run them. If youre on apple though IDFK.
PvZ was a port to mobile from PC, just fyi.
Except for slice&dice
Terraria, but it's a lot better on PC. You can transfer your character files and maps with a little effort though.
DevilutionX is pretty good if you liked Diablo 1.
And then there are the insane lists of ROMs/emulators.
Pokemon was a fun emulate, anything else people like? Kirby games might be good too. Hmmm
GBA Final Fantasy ports are great as well as Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Also highly recommend Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga and Golden Sun
A lot of people don't realize their phones can emulate PS1 fairly easily now.
If you've got a good phone you can even emulate GameCube, Dreamcast, PS2, & 3DS; which opens up a lot of options.
Old-school RuneScape being on mobile makes it the best mobile game of all time
OSRS just feels like it was meant for mobile even playing as a kid. Loving the mobility of no exp waste now
Besides some small things like Sudoku or Crossword, OSRS is the only game on my phone
At least there is Stardew Valley.
Slay the Spire.
It was unplayable for years on android 13 and would crash every time. Finally they fixed it.
This is the ultimate mobile game
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is fun
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is cross-platform now, so technically it's not mobile-only. And DCSS is much better than SPD, imo, as someone who has dumped unholy amounts of time into both.
What's DCSS?
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.
Ok and which version is the best (for mobile and in general)
It was good like a decade ago but the dev team turned a fun and quirky roguelike into basically Diablo
You referring to DCSS or SPD?
dcss, spd never had pretentions of being an RPG like older roguelikes such as dcss
There's an insane number of PC ports. You can play Myst or GTA SA.
On the multiplayer side, genshin is very much your traditional MMO, if you like that. You can also play Eve or Hades star.
In terms of a competitive scene for years we had vainglory (forever in our hearts), and now we have LoL wild rift.
Yea but touch screen controls are the worst. I hate using those virtual joysticks
Genshin is more your traditional singleplayer Gacha with MMO elements in my opinion. Also the first successful open-world Gacha so it gets some brownie points for that.
The mobile games industry was killed by ports and low-effort cash grabs. Seems like nobody makes good games that are specifically designed for mobile anymore, and almost all ports suffer from poor controls and/or just not being as good as the original versions.
Stuff like Pokémon Go and Ingress were very promising. Although I feel like Pokémon Go was too low effort and should have had very fleshed out Pokémon mechanics such as wild encounters, turn based battles, etc.
CRYING SUNS
A year ago or so I would have said Clash Royale. But now... nah.
You'll find plenty of videos that explain this better than I can, but at this point the devs clearly hate the community, the game is more pay to win than ever, evolutions are completely broken and the devs barely care to balance the game anymore.
It's pretty obvious that right now they just want to squeeze as much money as possible from the game before it completely dies out.
And that describes mobile gaming in a nutshell.
They literally only have to pander to a small handful of whales to justify pay to win microtransactions. I'm sure the average player never spends any money on it.
Holy hell I was straight up addicted once, then the devs ruined it all...
Yea picked up the game a week ago, after not playing for 2 or 3 years and wow is this game unballanced. At this point it's just realy anoying. And my 2013 deck is obviously not meta anymore, but to level a new deck to a point of playability takes an obscene amount of work.
I've been wanting to make a mobile game out of spite because if this
Game development is super hard tho and I've only done like 3 game jams
I believe in you! 3 jams worth is already a lot of useful experience.
PPSSPP but its too hard to use the touchscreen controls for most titles.
I remember playing Pokémon Emerald on the school bus with my Droid 4
Didn't even have to have the on screen controls
There are some pretty decent portable controllers out there though (I.e. Turtle Beach Atom). Plus phone brackets for Series S/X controllers and DS4/DS5.
So there are good controller options, touchscreen controls for games designed for physical controls suck.
But carrying around physical controllers isn't very convenient.
Idk if there are drivers for usb controllers on androids but pixels and the like come with USB 2 adapters so the potential is there.
Yeah my OnePlus 12 came with a USB-C "OTG" adapter as well.
I actually upgraded to it before going on vacation (BOS-->HOU) in April and got the aforementioned Turtle Beach controller with it.
Very much enjoyed playing Chrono Trigger on the flight, if only because I hadn't figured out how to get Yuzu working on my phone by then.
Thanks, JetBlue, for allowing me to download an emulator and a few roms without paying for wifi.
I've plugged an Xbox controller into a phone before and that worked. I've not had an iPhone since they moved over to the USBC so I don't know about that.
Are we going to act like Plants vs Zombies doesn’t exist?
PvZ was originally on PC.
Have you tried the mobile version? It's utter garbage cash-grab.
Haven't played it on mobile since 2012. Even on a tiny ass iPhone 3gs screen it was solid.
Gotta plug one of my favorite mobile game studios: Afterburn. They only have 3 puzzle games. All are relatively short and 100%-able. Every single one is fun and full of heart. Golf Peaks, Inbento (bought by Crunchyroll), and Railbound.
Railbound is a fun puzzle game! Def recommend. Spent many a commute designing rail yards.
Golf peaks was great, if I ever get play pass again or want to buy a new game I'll check the others out. Thanks!
Golf Peaks was great
I played inbento on PC and really liked it, and it seems like it'd be even better on mobile!
I got mini metro on my PC. Felt like that would have been a great game to have on a phone
It's on mobile.
Yea I know. But I can't speak for if it's shit or not.
It's okay but the large screen on a regular monitor is huge advantage
Its pretty dang nice on mobile. I pay for the Google Play Pass (Apple Game Pass competitor) because it shares to my family and amongst all of us it adds up to making sense to pay $20/yr it costs, and I'll pop open a game of Mini Metro every so often and play the daily challenge map
you get the problem PC has (zillions of devices of different hardware/os configs) but at an even lower performance minimum. heavily limits what developers actually can do with it.
also doesnt help that more than half your userbase doesnt want to actually pay for the game.
Mobile games don't need to be technically impressive though. It's not like in PC/consoles where people want the most expensive high res 3D graphics.
I don't know if this is true for most, but for me, I just want a game that is simple visually but entertaining. The last thing I want is for a game to drain my phone's battery.
I've actually paid for a game. Had a good demo/trial and I paid for the full version. However, part of the problem is that way too many mobile games are trash. I'm not putting any money in unless I can try the game first.
PC has a similar problem. It's easy to find good games, but they're are still so many to choose from and finding one that fits what I like is still hard without a trial/demo of some sort. The 2 hour limit on Steam isn't enough time for a lot of games. Hell, I was just trying out a demo for a game right up my alley and I spent two hours just looking at all the options I had before I really even started the game. I think there's too much customization for my taste. It's cool, but that also means you can spend countless time trying to customize things to be optimal. I'll spend all my time tweaking things rather than playing.
yeah it should really be a "2 hours of playtime not counting settings fiddling and character creation if it's an RPG" or maybe just bump it up to 4h
though i'm pretty sure Steam is leading the demo renessance, the demo fest is a good show of that. And i've noticed many more games have demos nowadays, though it's mostly limited to indi games. I guess triple A with 20 franchise releases doesn't need to convince its fantabse to buy the game
If everything you say is the reason there aren't many good games then explain the flash game era
the flash game era benefited from an era where building a PC wasn't completely streamlined yet, and game distribution on desktop also wasn't streamlined (early steam was reviled and most users did not like it). Steam launched in 2003, and 2005 it went to allow 3rd parties. 2005 is also coincidentally when youtube was released, which marked the start of users moving off of well established sites like newgrounds to it over time, which flash ultimately died when mobile became more mainstream and neither google nor apple wanted to support flash. down the line.
2005 also marked the release date of the Xbox 360, which realistically was the first console where indie game development took off due to the Xbox Arcade. Also notice how paid mobile games was much more regular back during there was realistically like a few mobile phones in the market(when the iPhone 3GS was launched)
And most people want to play for a few minutes at a time and don't have a controller to play with when they're ready to play those few minutes.
i remember polytopia used to be good
Minecraft is on mobile, and alot if other platforms...
I can't imagine it runs any good on mobile considering how it struggles on switch
I have a Note 20 Ultra, it seems to run perfectly for me.
Minecraft has been running fine on mobile, even as far back as like 2012 or something when it came out.
I remember playing it on an iPad 2, which is surely way more underpowered than the switch, and it ran perfectly fine. So it is possible. Guess they just didn't really try hard enough?
roblox.
I don't know, anon, I had fun.
Monument Valley
It doesn't quite fit into my list because it seems to be paid, but it looks wonderful, thanks. Since we're mentioning paid options, though, Zenge is nice.
Give Bart bonte's puzzles a try (search for "yellow"in the play store, or for his name maybe?) they're pretty easily digestible, and very unique.
I already played at least two :^) Thanks for reminding me
+1 for datawing. you know what it's time I give that game another playthrough.
Hope you have fun! Tell Mother I said hi.
I have been enjoying Slice and Dice. Roguelikes scratch a certain itch for me.
the only good mobile game was MCPE, now it's minecraft bedrock
It's really bizarre how phone gaming's golden age was before the smartphone era, having buttons helped a lot. Later java ME games and symbian everything were very cool, I still listen to the songs of Asphalt 4 to this day.
Don't get me wrong there are cool games too after mihoyo started getting ambitious, but they also ported their games to PC and consoles where it's better to play.
true, i avoid games on my phone because the touchscreen is just the worst possible interface for most games.
the current day phones gaming capability is massively hindered by the shit storm you have to sift through in order to play any of them. Most of which is due to shitty advertisement companies having malicious ads and intrusive practices. It's basically a hard requirement nowadays to use some sort of DNS blocker for them
phone gaming's golden age was temple run and jetpack joyride, cmv
Snake 2 with the wrapping borders
Back when PUBG first came out, I did not have a powerful PC yet. However, I could enjoy the mobile version of the game and, by the time I built my first PC, I had gained extensive knowledge that equated to a good head start. At its height, PUBG mobile was awesome. Moreover, when with friends, we could all just decide to play it together on our phones, to matter where we were.
Dicey Dungeons is an example of a game that I think is actually BETTER on mobile (cheaper too). Awesome game, and the touch controls really streamline it.
Slice & Dice is another game that tge mobile version is better than desktop
Old school RuneScape is on mobile.
I know this doesn't have anything to do with the thread, but sprog is it really you?
2009scape (free and open source recreation of Runescape circa 2009) is also on Android via an unofficial port
But as others have said, the best phone games were developed for other platforms
Flow Free is easily the best mobile game of all time, maybe the best video game of all time /hj
Uhh, never heard of that game, but Im here for my handjob?
Second!
Hey, I like that game. What's wrong with it?
Nothing I'm just being hyperbolic for comedic effect
Here is an article if you need more information on the topic:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedy
Rollercoaster tycoon classic -RCT 1+2 in one -Touch interface + port by original rct1+2 dev -100 or so scenarios -No added mxt or pay to skip anything, --gameplay is exactly like PC release -Original soundtrack
This highlights the problem more than anything
True but it's just a recommendation
I think the fact that RCT Classic is only worth getting on mobile because there are better options on PC doesn't help make the case that RCT Classic should be a shining example of 'mobile gaming'. RCT Classic is bit above the bare minimum for an acceptable rerelease of older games.
True its not exactly the point I was trying to make just like the one game on mobile that I recommend paying for 😂
I like Genshin Impact tho 😭
I find Honkai: Star Rail even more suited to mobile (It's mostly not reaction time based) but still play Genshin also. Not as much as I did, but still too much.
Star Rail is a damn solid turn-based RPG and is kinda perfect on mobile.
You know what? If you enjoy the game, then there's nothing wrong with continuing to play it, as long as you aren't spending money on it.
The best mobile games are ports like Terraria and Slay the Spire, or old fashioned emulated games, but you need a controller to make it feel okay.
Yep. I have AAA games on my phone I'll never touch because playing Pokemon moon doesn't feel right on a slab of glass. Can't get into it.
How is a giant open world with a cool campaign not impressive for a phone game? Just play it like a regular game instead of doing endgame content, the story's combat is easy to not force anyone to pull.
I think netflix has some half decent games these days, like Storyteller, Gamedev Tycoon and Terra Nil
If you have android you can run some pc games on it but not everything runs
I replayed Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 on mobile. It's a surprisingly good port.
Same with Knights of the Old Republic. But that's just it: every decent mobile game is a port.
Wait where did you download kotor for mobile?
It's on Google play for $10 but if you really want to know where I got it, it was a free promotion several years ago when Amazon was doing their weird "Amazon Underground" alternate store or whatever the hell it was.
Among us
I enjoy Magic: the Gathering Arena. And there are a few decent rogue likes
Professor Layton is on iOS does that count
Layton is baby puzzles. Or at least it made me feel that way after two levels.
It requires you to read for 99% of puzzles so they can't be for the illiterate larval humans
I can't believe nobody mentioned Vampire Survivors yet? I know it's a port, but it's amazing on mobile.
Rocket League side swipes is undisputed best mobile game on the shitter
Some indie mobile games are great (Nameless cat, Zombie catchers (before being aquired by DECA), Simon Tatham's puzzles, foss fdroid games (Simple Solitare), Cookie clicker, etc.
Duskwood
You can play Half-Life (Xash3d) or Half-Life 2 (native port) on it, that's something.
Or, even use box86 and box64 to run Steam and/or PC games in a Wine environment
Kairosoft and A# are literally the only mobile game companies I will buy EVERY FUCKDAMN thing they put out. Hell I barely have any time to mobile game anymore and I'll STILL drop that fiver when I see a new title arise.
For those that haven't played them, A#'s King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages are AMAZING! I have literally spent more time playing King of Dragon Pass on my phone than any other activity on it in the last 10 years added together.