Vampire Survivors. Seriously, give it a try.
Gaming
It's so good. Truly impressed with how well it works on mobile, too!
It’s not originally for mobile but I have been playing Dead Cells on mine and having fun.
I'm surprised Honkai Star Rail hasn't been mentioned. It's turn based and much less time consuming than the other popular Hoyoverse game, Genshin
I was deep into Genshin for a bit, but fell off the wagon a few months ago. I download Star Rail, and dug it! But time got away from me and I haven't returned for a while. Maybe I'll dive back in!
None of them. Mobile games seem to be designed specifically to take as much money from people as possible for as little effort as possible. It’s like NFTs if they actually worked.
Bad mobile games that do what you say ruin the reputation of actually good mobile games!
Any recommendations? With how big mobile gaming is, there should be an abundance of good games, but every just feels like the same monetization formula with different skins.
This comment is exactly like when people say that X-genre of music is nothing but violence, or Y-race of humans are all rapists.
Saying they don't like the predominant form of mobile game monetisation is exactly like racism! Woof.
Yeah… one thing is to say that you don’t like something, and the other is to make an affirmation, throwing EVERYTHING into the same box because of your ignorance and laziness to actually have hands-on experience with the topic. Woof! 🐶
I think the difference is in the seriousness, mate. Mobile games haven't been cruelly repressed for hundreds of years. This is more like judging all books with a certain style cover the same way.
And who has been cruelly repressed for hundreds of years?
Mobile gaming is such a disappointment to me. There's so much untapped potential with touch screens and gaming. Everything just turned into these formulaic, grind-based games.
This is true for 98% of them, but there are the rare 2% that are gems, really fun to play, and are sold as full games with no mtx. They're hard to find though. The app store doesn't promote / surface them so you need someplace like /r/iosgaming for instance to dig them up.
Marvel Snap, though while the gameplay is fun the monetization is getting a bit out of hand. I think it can still turn around, though. I’m more of a DC guy myself too!
I also do a lot of crosswords haha. I have Magic Arena downloaded but I don’t really enjoy playing standard.
Finally I have been getting back into Pokémon go a little bit. My partner recently picked it back up too!
Shattered Pixel Dungeon. Turn based so you can pick it up and put it down. A lot of depth and learning how to exploit the items to best effect. Random level generation, so good replay ability. Fixed price, no monetization.
I've seen this recommended several times...I think I should give it a go!
Idle Slayer is really cool. Love the art and the progression is fun! Also one of the few "idle" games that you can actually play. It's a simple platformer, but you earn while the game is off and upgrade and change the play style.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a cool rogue-lite game with great mobile controls. Even if you don't have much time, it saves your run's progress so you can do a few floors here and there.
Rotaeno, it's a rhythm game that uses the gyroscope of your phone making it one of the more unique mobile rhythm games out there, granted the anime artstyle can be off-putting for some
The F2P stuff rarely if ever get me but some of the premium games are very nice. Teeny Titans, Rebuild, Dungeon Maker, Dungeon Princess, Dungeon Squad, Pocket City, and Monument Valley are all very good games, especially on mobile.
The only F2P game that is keeping my interest is Marvel Snap but the monetization is really pushing me off.
Slay the Spire. There's an iOS port of it which is well worth the money.
Love StS…it works so well on mobile!
I love Mini Motorways, but it requires an Apple Gaming subscription.
The other game I’ve been hooked on lately is Tiny Towers.
The good: it’s chill, and it doesn’t force any ads on you unwittingly. There’s even a setting to turn off video ad offers, which makes it even easier to avoid ads.
Downsides: it’s F2P with micro transactions. That being said, it’s 100% possible to play without paying a cent.
PostKnight is really cute and a good time waster.
I've been quite into the zachtronics solitaire collection lately. It's a solid collection of 8 unique solitaire iterations that were featured on various zachtronics games. The one made specifically for this collection especially is really good and I've spent hours over the last few weeks getting better and better at it
If you don't mind that's an anime-style "cute girls doing cute things" game (but with "guns") Blue Archive isn't that time consuming to play, and the storyline, music, and art are very good.
Taiko no Tatsujin is on iOS through Apple Arcade iirc, if you like rhythm games.
Hook, a puzzle game, and Sudoku Mega Bundle, a sudoku app with a lot of gamemodes. 10/10 x2
All puzzle games by Rainbow Train and Hamster on Coke Games are my absolute 10/10 go-to mobile games. Hook 1 & 2, Klocki, Push, Up Left Out, Naboki, OXXO, Scalak. Also Traffix which is an arcade-puzzle mix.
Slice & Dice is a turn based roguelite with dice. Super not talked about enough IMO.