I haven’t had a lot of time to do much console gaming lately but I still would love to have a “go to” mobile game that I can whip out and progress a few levels or grind a few items or knock out a battle or match or two.
Interested to know what games have grabbed you and held your attention lately?
Chess/Lichess. Just a suggestion: There’s some apps and sites that have premium features, but: Lichess has all the features for free, no ads, is open-source and great UI. :)
Old School RuneScape
The mobile app is definitely what turned me back onto OSRS. I wish I had more time, because the gameplay is like comfort food to me.
Old School Runescape. One of the best games ever made imo
Arknights (shout out to my kbin mag [email protected]). It’s a fun lil tower defense that you can easily pull out and grind some materials. Keep in mind that it is a gacha game, so there’s definitely aggressive monetization, but it’s definitely on the F2P-friendly side in terms of gacha.
I can’t recommend Stardew Valley enough. It’s $5, but so absolutely worth it. Especially since there are no mtx, and is still getting updates, albeit a bit behind the PC version. One of the best uses of $5 on the app store imo
Was playing Arknights and Marvel Snap for awhile. Might be up your alley based on your description?
Marvel Snap is excellent. I fell off of it after a few months, but definitely should get back into it!
I’ve heard of Arknights, but never checked it out. What is your impression of it?
Shattered Pixel Dungeon. I have another phone, this one is recent, with at least 2k games on it
Evan consistently updates Shattered Pixel Dungeon, and I fucking love his game. It’s it’s own version of the open source Pixel
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This is now the fourth or fifth time someone has recommended this one to me…I think it is high time I pick it up!
Any advice for a first-time player?
Haha I had to chime in.
Best beginner tips - explore a level fully before you drink any potions. Certain “potion” rooms will always have the potion that solves the puzzle in them on the same floor -
- fish room will have an invisible potion,
- evil crystal sentry will have a haste potion,
- gas filled room will have a purity potion,
- Wooden door can be burned with fire pot,
- Magic fire can be put out with ice potion,
- Completely trap filled room has a levitation pot on the same level
Upgraded items (wands/armor/weapons# x , potions of strength, and scrolls of upgrade cannot be destroyed by bombs, or explosive traps/stones. This is a good way to identify items with bonuses (armor/weapons)
Well of health will cleanse all worm cursed items, heal you to fill, and remove all negative status (including hunger/starvation)
Oh also. Sneak attacking/surprise attacks - yellow exclamation above their heads. Moving through a door, with an anemy right behind, will close the door behind you, and cause them to have to open it - meaning you get a free chance to attack and auto-hit.
Does Apple Arcade count? If so I’ve been playing Agent Intercept
of course! Any recommendations there?
Letterpress, since the launch of the iPhone, is still the best word game around if you ask me.
So simple, and yet so complex. A little bit of stratego in terms of holding real estate, but a vocabulary challenge at it’s core.
I don’t think I’ve played anything but Marvel Snap since it came out. It’s a turn based Marvel card battler, that also scratches the Hearthstone itch I get. Highly recommend!
How much money do you spend in it to keep it interesting?
It’s true that you could potentially spend a lot on in-app purchases, so I have a personal strategy. As long as I’m getting entertainment and value from the game, I’ll purchase the battle pass each season, which costs around $9 USD. This lets me to unlock a bunch of additional content by playing. I avoid the “deals” and “sales” they offer to prevent being continuously charged small amounts.
Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rails.
Genshin Impact successfully had my attention for over five hundred days. It’s a regularly updated game that can be played entirely F2P, and I love that concept. Anyone who claims that you have to whale to get good at the game is wrong. You just have to play the game and ignore that some Youtubers and Twitch Streamers seem to believe that fake big numbers are the only way to improve in that game. In reality, I’ve watched streamers ignore that, and instead opt to play with their favorite romantic pairing or favorite character because they just enjoy the game more that way.
Honkai Star Rails seems to be a similar concept, however it faces a dilemma where it is a turn-based game and as a result the battle mechanics, so far, have to be more carefully considered. For example, I run a defense-healer-single attack-AOE attack team. So far, I tend to die if I don’t do that. The gameplay is more simplistic than Genshin Impact, but the battles are stronger and tend to take longer. Bright side: because it was recently launched you get a bunch of free pulls! Yeah!
Honestly I found Genshin to be a very refreshing open world rpg. It’s pretty easy, low stress, and if you don’t buy into the streamer hype, very accessible cheap game.
The music is fantastic, and the world is beautiful. Cross platform also makes it a breeze to switch between my phone and ps5
I havent played Genshin but from what i have heard, Star Rail(from the same developer) is even better(though very different gameplay). Tighter story telling, amazing music(timed with in game actions) and a lot of quality of life features that dont exist in Genshin.
Having played both, Star Rail is just different. It takes a “quality over quantity” approach, so the content it has is better, but there’s not much of it. There’s maybe 20-30h of game in there right now, if you do everything. Genshin’s more like 200h.
