Mobile games - no candy crush

[Mein Garten]

What mobile games is everyone playing? I've been getting into CoD mobile like a true 14 year old teenage boy.

I'm also curious about what people think about the growth of mobile games in the last 10 years? Will mobile gaming continue to gain traction in the gaming market? Will we start to get more mobile games that aren't paid to win?

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

God, I hope not.

They're supposed to be simple time wasters and nothing more, although I did download and play a pretty decent remake of the first Leisure Suit Larry game a while ago.

I guess they have their place, but I'll still always be a console gamer at heart.

 

[Exorbital Columnations]

The only mobile game I've found playable for more than half an hour was Calculords and I'm pretty stoked for the remake. The rest of them are too limited by the interface.

ETA: Shadow Fight 2 & 3 are also pretty alright, if you like simple fighting games.

 

[Gar For Archer]

R A I D S H A D O W L E G E N D S

But unironically the only mobile game I still play is Pokémon Go because it gets me outside and socializing every once in a while. Back in the day I used to play a bunch of puzzle games like Cut the Rope and its relatives, but nowadays the vast majority of games in that genre are shitty and built to peddle micro transactions.

 

[The Sauce Boss]

I play the Dismount games every once in a while on the bus, and that's about it.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

I play the Dismount games every once in a while on the bus, and that's about it.

For real, that's all they should be good for.

 

[inexplicable ethos]

I think the only game I've played on my phone that I didn't uninstall within an hour is Sudoku, and that seems like it doesn't really count.

I have a feeling that mobile gaming is at or very near saturation level. That's not to say it is necessarily going to decline, but I simply don't see much room for the industry to grow at this point. People who like playing phone games already play them, and people who don't like them aren't going to convert if they haven't by now. There's not a realistic way to increase their target population like there is with consoles and PC gaming; everyone has a smartphone already, so platform upselling isn't possible. It doesn't help that with the industry boom comes a flood of low-quality shovelware, not dissimilar to that which caused the gaming crash of the 80s. I would not be surprised if people get tired of seeing 100 permutations of the exact same shit, and give up on playing anything that isn't made by Nintendo or at least has enough starting capital to pay people to shill on YouTube.

Personally I would prefer to see games on mobile that just have an upfront cost and no microtransactions. I probably wouldn't play them anyway, but I think it would be better for people overall. Ironically, most mobile gamers would never buy into that because they generally aren't the type of people to buy games in the first place. They have to get addicted first before they start buying crystal or whatever dumb currency their game of choice uses, then most of them end up spending more on the game than they would have if it just cost $9.99 up front. There's a reason all these companies use the same F2P+microtransactions model, it makes them money.

 

[RetardedCat]

I think the only game I've played on my phone that I didn't uninstall within an hour is Sudoku, and that seems like it doesn't really count.

I did crosswords on my fucking phone like a true boomer.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

I have minesweeper, solitaire and mahjong solitaire [/boomer]

 

[FuckedUp]

The Kairosoft games were good.

 

[A single cheeto]

Dragalia Lost is fine imo, and they're very generous with their free premium currency. Also lots of events.

FF Opera Omnia is also pretty cool. I love having all the different characters, and seeing how they interact with each other.

 

[skiddlez]

the mobile game I like to play is loading up porn on my phone and masturbating in public, the objective is to not get caught. loss condition is prison

 

[YourMommasBackstory]

I adore Rayark's rythm games. They are great, you buy them ones, there are no ads and broken free-to-play balance (except Voez, but it's their only free game but free-to-play features are not annoying).
The only things you can buy in those games are song packs, but even tho, they regularly add new free songs for ppl who bought a game.
I hope there would be less pay2win and free-to-play casual garbage, but boy, they do bring a lot of money to developers. Mobile market is the one where you can invest small, really small amount of money into development of some hyper-casual game, and get big revenue.

 

[Mongolian_CoolRat]

Got into CookieRun because i thought the designs were cute and parts of the game were fun/had constant updates
but like most gacha/pay2win(though you can get fairly good at CR without paying) i play ,i just fell out and lost interest with the amount of stuff to do daily

dont really care much about its fanbase but its exceptional in its annoying teens who take cookies too seriously and applying woke headcannons/harassing other fanartists


Kairosoft games are pretty good though,the apartment management one is free/is a good way to pass time

theres also that one 2dlive anime girlfriend one i liked for the in game items and play around as a dress up game but its grindy and it being web browser based made it annoying to load up everytime

 

[Agent Nahman Jayden]

The only constant mobile game I've had ever since it released was Pocket Camp because it's simple and there's microtransactions but they aren't mandatory to play. And it kinda reminds me of the old games, I dunno. I've also had a few mahjong games here and there. Also Plague Inc. Yeah, consistent replayability is an issue but sometimes I just wanna murder the world with bio-weapons.

I do agree in that I think the mobile game market is close to plateauing if it hasn't already. People nowadays tend to have ephemeral interests and there are so many games to just try out and get rid of if you don't like them that finding one that's worth keeping is unexpectedly challenging, I'd imagine. Also there's a handful of games that are still trying to ride the coattails of the gameplay/style of Candy Crush, which is unsurprising because it draws in the simpler crowd but still.

 

[Autumnal Equinox]

I rarely play mobile games, but there's a couple I still have installed. Rougelikes like Cardinal Quest 2, Pixel Dungeon and The Greedy Cave keep the freemium and ptw bullshit to a minimum.

No real point playing mobile games though when emulators are a thing.

 

[YourMommasBackstory]

The only constant mobile game I've had ever since it released was Pocket Camp because it's simple and there's microtransactions but they aren't mandatory to play.

This. Usually mobile games balanced in a way that you spend microtransaction coins really fast, but in Pocket Camp you can play without using those coins and game wont punish you for that.

 

[sergeantshinypony29]

A lot of the mobile games I've played were essentially just playable adware.
They were at least kind of fun for a few minutes though.

 

[Atatata]

There was a game called SlimeRoom I used to play. It was a basic platformer, but it was cute.

 

[soryu]

I've been playing Fantasy Life Online. Super nice game with a pretty good character creator. The downside is that its only available in Japanese so navigating through the app will take some getting used to. It doesn't really throw in your face to buy anything using real money, Level 5 has gotten really good at not pushing their in app purchasing option.
If you've played Dragalia Lost, the main class gameplay is extremely similar to that. You'll definitely love FLO and it has plenty more. For those who haven't played the first release for 3DS, you can choose between 12 different classes to play as and you can change classes whenever you'd like without losing items, some things you can't equip in a few classes, but that's it. You can play with other people too, it's great for farming EXP, items, and money.
Definitely recommend the game if you like RPGs, one of the things that sucks is just the initial downloading, but everything is pretty smooth after that if you don't care for Japanese.