Seeking Mobile Experiences

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One of the things that I noticed while going through my Giant Wall of Games list ™ is that during the 2020 Calendar year I pretty much played NOTHING on my phone. That isn’t entirely true, because I downloaded and tried a few things but nothing significant enough to actually log in the list. There were a handful of games that I installed and immediately uninstalled for various reasons, but in the past I had something like Dragalia Lost or Pokemon Go that was always on the list. So on a whim yesterday afternoon I put out a call to my Twitter family.

Okay friends. Since I have long considered mobile development a largely poisoned well. I figure I will crowdsource this… best mobile games available for Android that are not f2p monetization/gacha traps or match 3 games…. GO!

@Belghast

The problem I have with mobile gaming is that the discovery mechanisms seem to largely be dominated by either Gacha games or games with otherwise similarly questionable free to play mechanics. There are also a number of games that I would clump into a category of being a port of a game from another platform but that are made worse by touch screen controls. I have a number of SquareSoft mobile ports and they are an infinitely worse experience than playing the same game on pretty much any other platform. What I seem to be lacking however are the games that either wouldn’t work without a touch screen interfaces are somehow uniquely enriched by having one. Some of the constraints I am looking for are as follows.

  • Must be Android – I have zero iOS devices by design
  • Must be a Direct Purchase, One Time Unlock, or Free to Play with very optional and non-obtrusive monetization
  • Should be a gameplay experience uniquely enhanced by the touchscreen interface and not just a port trying to make up for those shortcomings
  • No Match Three Games – While I love Bejeweled, I need to move past that

I have to say I absolutely love my Twitter family because once again they came through for me with a massive list of titles to try. This mornings post is as much for my own benefit as it is for sharing these picks with the world, because I wanted a nice clean way of keeping track of it. A few of the titles that were thrown out were games that I had tried and ruled out for one reason or another, so I am dropping them from the list. The titles that are currently in the running for eventually garnering my attention are as follows.

Ultimately the above block of six games is what I chose for my very first cohort. Monument Valley is a game series that I had heard really good things about but ultimately forgot existed. You Must Build a Boat is a game that I have heard someone at some time in the past raving about it… I thought it was Kodra but it might just be a fuzzy memory of Liore when Cat Context existed. Loop gets bumped up in priority because it is was created by a mutual, so absolutely going to check that out. Eve Echos is a game that I had already installed but never actually got around to checking… so just grouping it in by default. Pathfinder Adventures because i was curious and Pixel Dungeon because also curious.

Mobile gaming is pretty much a bedtime activity for me, and last night I managed to try out one of the games before sleep ultimately claimed me. I had not really been sleeping well for a few nights so I did not make it super far. Monument Valley is gorgeous and is exactly the sort of game I am looking for. I am not exactly sure how this game works without a touch interface, and as a result it isn’t just making up for that limited toolset but exploiting it. The puzzles are interesting and change enough to feel fresh each time you move onto a new monument. I made it through five before my eyelids were too heavy to continue, but I am probably going to be playing this one for awhile until I either complete it or get distracted by some other shiny object.

Since this has apparently turned into a post with just an excessive number of bullet point lists… why not add another? I wanted to take a moment to thank all of the folks who participated yesterday in throwing out game ideas. There was a flurry of them that all came in at once, and I think I have accounted for them all… but apologies if I inadvertently miss someone. Yall are awesome in my book.

Essentially over the years I have developed this borderline toxic attitude that mobile gaming is by nature mechanically worse than gaming on pretty much any other platform. I am trying really hard to break this mental block. My hope is that by exposing myself to the games that my friends consider the best, I will start to see the potential of this platform that I have largely relegated to idle match three games and Gacha gambling. I know there are unique experiences that can only be had on a mobile phone, so I am hoping to find more of them.

Now this is the point where I reach out to my readers as well. If you have any mobile games that you love and feel like are must play experiences, please drop me a line below in the comments. I will look into all of them and potentially add them to the list above.

6 thoughts on “Seeking Mobile Experiences”

  1. Hmm, that’s tricky, given your requirements and the propensity of developers to throw in monetization tricks into all sorts of mobile games. I’d say Fruit Ninja and One Finger Death Punch are action games that are both elevated by a touch screen interface, but some research is required as to which version of their games has the least obtrusive monetization. (I think it is the original Fruit Ninja and One Finger Death Punch 2 that is the least annoying, while the sequel Fruit Ninja 2 and original OFDP have been saddled with extra annoying stuff.)

    The allure and playstyle of mobile is also portability and frequent short checks on an app over time, which lend itself to a diferent style of game. Hence the popularity of AR games, idle games and/or gacha games on mobile.

    I play a lot of Interactive Fiction games on the iPad (80 days, Choice of Games stuff, Tin Man games stuff) but those work because the screen size is perfect as a portable book reader. Possibly it might be less enjoyable on a smaller screen.

  2. I’m of the same mine in regards to mobile games, theoretically there are good ones out there but there’s no consistent way of finding out what they are. A lot of the games on that list are available on PC, which is a more comfortable platform for me. Golf Peaks is probably the only game on that list that felt more comfortable with a touchscreen, and I played that one on my Switch.

  3. I love 80 Days ( plus the studios other games).
    Each play-through can be so varied due to how they randomise the inventory and the story branches based on certain events.

  4. Now, I love “You Must Build a Boat” but that? Is definitely a match-3 game. Sure, there’s more to it, but I am surprised that didn’t knock it out of contention.

    • Oh… I did not get that impression from the screenshots I saw. I just remember SOMEONE and I cannot remember who, raving about it on a podcast and simply threw it on the list due to that. I will try it now regardless.

  5. There are a lot of mobile games out there that have those gacha or other mechanics that don’t make them necessarily F2P or fun… but there are a lot of gems out there as well and I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the games you listed!

    “Reigns”, for instance, is also available on Steam and was a lot of fun to play over there and I’m sure that the mobile port is as good as the Steam version.

    My favourite mobile game, for sure, is “Adventure Bar Story”. It has a “LITE” version that lets you play the first chapter or so… but the full version comes at a small price for a lot of content. It’s an RPG where you run a café of sorts, discover recipes and you basically hunt for ingredients to then make a profit. It’s turn-based combat but it was quite cute and fun, in my opinion, especially as it fits into that nieche of shopkeeper/tavernowner games that I like.

    “Merchant” by Retora Games on the other hand is a lovely RPG where you collect materials, craft items and sell them to make a profit. You can hire Heroes and Crafters to do your bidding for you and while it has items that can be bought with real money, you can acquire those items with in-game materials. There is also no option to speed up time with real money, so the game doesn’t really have any Pay2Win kind of deals. It’s essentially a free-to-play game that you can play every nowand then and I liked it quite a bit. It’s on Steam as well! 😀

    If you like management games, you may enjoy “Assembly Line”

    Apart from that, “Pixel Dungeon” and “Shattered Pixel Dungeon” were quite fun as well but I didn’t really play too much of those.

    I played “Pocket Ants: Colony Sim” for a while and had a bit of fun with it but eventually it turns into a pay-to-win type of game because of PvP… but until then it actually is kind of fun.

    If you like Slay The Spire, you may enjoy “Dungeon Tales”. Apart from that “Badlands”, “Monster Hunter Stories”, and “Stardew Valley” also have lovely ports to the game.

    And at last, there’s also “Dungeon Cards” by 717 Pixels – a simple and fast-paced card crawler with roguelike elements that I used to play.

    Hope you enjoy some of these! 🙂 Can’t recommend Adventure Bar Story enough, though, and I’d recommend checking out the Lite Version before you decide on whether or not you’d enjoy the full game.

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