Anon checks out mobile gaming

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.
- 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.
- 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.
- These days mate, you’ll be arrested and thrown in jail if you just say mobile gaming is good
- 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 !androidgamers@lemmy.world

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.
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:
phone battery lasts a lot longer
my time on my phone is more productive
I use a lot less data, so I pay less for my plan
I don't need flagship phones (not a photographer)
So now I mostly use my phone for:
phone things (calls and texts)
audiobooks
news
videos - I restrict myself to downloaded videos to help reduce wasted time
I have a Switch and Steam Deck, and quality game selection is much better there anyway.
- Inb4 Gaben announces the SteamPhone
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.
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
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.
God damnit... Slice and Dice really is good. I end up coming back to it to waste time a lot.
I bought Slice & Dice after reading this comment and others in this thread and yeah, it's pretty great. Thanks for the recommendation!

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.
- That's a good idea, but it's hard to work considering that true gamers don;t walk at all. /s
- 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
Pokemon Go was good enough that I didn't even mind that it was a NSA plot!
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.

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
- Canada: "Am I a joke to you?"
- 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?)

Don’t Starve. Shattered Pixel Dungeon.

Bam, there goes the next year of your life.

OSRS, chess.com, liche chess
- First two are proprietary. 2009scape mobile ftw
HELL YEAH SHATTERED PIXEL DUNGEON MENTIONED
- I can't play hard games 😭

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
- 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
- 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.
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

Besides some small things like Sudoku or Crossword, OSRS is the only game on my phone
OSRS just feels like it was meant for mobile even playing as a kid. Loving the mobility of no exp waste now

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?
- It was good like a decade ago but the dev team turned a fun and quirky roguelike into basically Diablo

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

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.

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.
clash royale
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.

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.

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.

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.
I played inbento on PC and really liked it, and it seems like it'd be even better on mobile!
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

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.

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.

i remember polytopia used to be good

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.
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)
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
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.

DATA WING was short & sweet.
Transmission is full of pretty and interesting puzzles
Simon Tatham's Puzzles is a godsend
I found Mindustry through the play store

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.

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
- It runs pretty decently on my phone, the Nintendo Switch has more struggling because it has 2013 hardware.
- 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?
Not a good game. It even consumed all of my mobile data once. /srs
- roblox.

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

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.

I still remember stuff like dead space mobile, those where true, actual games that showed you the potential phones COULD have

now the gaming industry (conventions and everything else to), is now utterly dominated and muddled by the likes of candy crush and genshin impact, its actually sad

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

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.

If you have android you can run some pc games on it but not everything runs

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 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?

Among us

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

I enjoy Magic: the Gathering Arena. And there are a few decent rogue likes

Duskwood

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.

Literally. I don't know of a single good Android game. Sure there are tons and tons of great games ported to Android, and there's always emulation. But not once to my knowledge has a good game been released only or even just first for Android.

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