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.
The secret is to find one that works on aeroplane mode
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
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.
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.
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
Don’t Starve. Shattered Pixel Dungeon.
Bam, there goes the next year of your life.
OSRS, chess.com, lichess
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
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.
Every good game on mobile is a port of something made for another platform.
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.
Old-school RuneScape being on mobile makes it the best mobile game of all time
At least there is Stardew Valley.
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.
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.
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
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
PPSSPP but its too hard to use the touchscreen controls for most titles.
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.
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.
I got mini metro on my PC. Felt like that would have been a great game to have on a phone
i remember polytopia used to be good
- 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.
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