Meh, whole they’re undoubtedly great games, the experience on mobile just isn’t.

Yeah the hardest thing is finding them! You open the store and it gives you almost no information as to whether the games decent or a cash in. The review system seems rigged.

Absolutely agree on the freemium bullshit. Haven’t seen a single one that was worth playing.

I’ll also add on a handful of suggestions if anyone enjoys puzzle games: The Room series (4 games in the series), and The House of Da Vinci (3 games in the series, heavily inspired by The Room).

Personally don’t mind freemium games, I don’t care about wait times and shit, just play the game at my own pace.

What I do hate is FOMO, I’m an all-or-nothin’ kinda gamer. If i feel pressured to play because I might miss an exclusive item, I’m out.

huh I had no idea! thanks

GBA emulation is the best. All the games are meant for small screens and modern hardware has absolutely no issues with emulating the GBA. It has soooo many games. You can also get ROM hacks (most common for Pokemon games), which are fan edits to games. Some of which are such massive edits that they’re basically entirely new games only using the existing framework for the style of gameplay.

Only downside is controls. Touch screens are simply not as good as physical controls. I don’t recommend trying any games that require fast paced and precise controls, as you will hit wrong buttons plenty. You can get Bluetooth controllers to help with this I think, though I’ve never personally tried them. I’ve also seen “case controllers”, which go around your phone and make it sorta like a Switch form factor.

those are actually… games. But also, beyond that, been playing some fun platformers and having a blast! Oddmar & Suzy Cube are 2 stand outs I’ve been enjoying.

Or did it revolutionize the industry to it’s endpoint, that we just don’t want to admit was the natural conclusion of capitalistic society video games?

Wait FTL is on mobile? That sounds amazing… dang it looks like it is ios only.

However, mobile devices don’t have enough resources for many triple-A PC/Console games

I don’t think this is ever an obstacle when one of the most popular games out there is Stardew Valley, which can run on mobile without even straining it. There is a whole ecosystem of indie games that could be run on mobile just fine, but even indie developers are more likely to target PC as the primary platform.

As for ergonomics, that’s pretty much a circular problem from games not being made for mobile in the first place. Games designed around touch controls, like Monument Valley, can have pretty good ergonomics. Those trying to emulate buttons and analog sticks, not so much.

Unfortunately, more than anything I believe the real obstacle is the culture created around apps, where users are driven away if they have to pay anything at all, and even a $20 price point is nigh unthinkable. So mobile games all lean towards microtransactions, which often makes the monetization of those games downright predatory, at expense of the fun. They look “free” until they trick the player into spending $100+

Most of your examples are not ‘mobile games’, they are actual games that are also available on mobile devices. That is a big difference in my opinion.

Just to nitpick, Morrowind’s engine absolutely wasn’t ported to Android. What actually happened is that we made an entirely new game engine from scratch that can also interpret Morrowind’s game data. That’s obviously massively more effort than ‘just’ adapting source code to run on a new platform, but unlike DOOM, the source code has never been made available to the public, so that was never an option.

Also, OpenMW’s Android port is technically not official and tends to lurch from maintainer to maintainer, so if anyone reading this wants to help bring it up to scratch so it can be absorbed into the main project, that might be good.

Just gotta dig? Dude like 95% of what you just listed are just pc/console game ports to mobile, does that really count as a ‘mobile game’ I’m not too sure, I think theyre still originally regular games that have been slimmed down and ported to phones.

I’m not sure about many of these and wasn’t aware of most of them being on phones. But you’re the first comment I’ve seen that mentions Stardew Valley. It’s by far the best mobile game I’ve ever played.

That said, I preferred it on PC for better controls, easier modding, multiplayer, and quicker updates. Though you actually can mod Stardew on Android. I still started with it on Android and it’s a very high quality mobile game.

Exactly this. Every non-shit mobile game I ever found turned out to be a port from either PC or console.

I’ve not found that to be necessarily true, since some games just don’t feel that great translating over to a touchscreen coming from its basis being gamepad. I’ve bought lot of games from spare Google rewards points like Dead Cells which is a good game and playable but not really comfortable enough for me to play it on mobile, and getting controller out feels like I’m defeating the point of mobile game since usually it’s something I’ll play when all I have is my phone. Not going to stuff a gamepad in my pocket.

Games that really do try to make use of the touchscreen in a great way I’ve found to actually be Nintendo DS games that were specifically designed to be played entirely with stylus. Other actual mobile games have felt more like gamepad games trying to translate over stuff to the touchscreen with non tactile elements. Kind of works, but feels off. Unless its like an RPG or a game like The World Ends with You which was made to be touchscreen from the start. That seems like a good port.

I’m seconding Mindustry. It’s on the Google play store free as well. I play it on PC though because I could never do the controls on touch well. Free on PC itch, or $10 on steam which I bought to support the fantastic game.

Shattered Pixel Dungeon is absolutely amazing if you are into roguelikes.

My favorite from FDroid (also on the Play Store) is called simply “Puzzles”… It’s a collection of ~40 logic puzzles (including Sudoku) that’s great for micro-gaming. Individual puzzles are randomly generated, so you never run out of content.