There's still good ones out there, folks. This is the thread where we collaborate and collude to navigate the minefield of the App Store "Games" category.
― Not the real Tombot (El Tomboto), Saturday, 25 March 2017 00:18 (seven years ago) link
i have had zero luck recently.
pockettactics.com used to be a great source for iOS strategy games, a very lo-fi kind of operation run by 2-3 people (and mostly just one dude) with good taste in games. then they were bought out and upgraded to shit-fi, cover a bunch more games, and hired a bunch of terrible writers. guess i should give touch arcade another try
― Karl Malone, Saturday, 25 March 2017 00:23 (seven years ago) link
typeshift is cool
― devvvine, Saturday, 25 March 2017 00:24 (seven years ago) link
*200 seconds pass*
ok a quick glance at touch arcade makes this sound enticing:
http://toucharcade.com/2017/03/24/toucharcade-game-of-the-week-death-road-to-canada/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOoB64QuOWA
― Karl Malone, Saturday, 25 March 2017 00:26 (seven years ago) link
what is typeshift? because if it involves typing on an iphone it could be my least favorite game of all time. it takes me 3-5 tries just to type my email address in correctly
― Karl Malone, Saturday, 25 March 2017 00:27 (seven years ago) link
i can confirm it does not involve typing and it is free
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8PJUnezGa8
― devvvine, Saturday, 25 March 2017 00:33 (seven years ago) link
still just playing the heck out of plants vs zombies: heroes which is a heartstone/magic ccg except with a much lower curve and some fun twists.
― the klosterman weekend (s.clover), Saturday, 25 March 2017 00:41 (seven years ago) link
Looks Typeshift is from the same guy who made Spelltower, worth a try certainly for freeNot sure I want to pay $8 for Death Road to Canada but it's by the Punch Quest people, so I am tempted
― Nhex, Saturday, 25 March 2017 00:43 (seven years ago) link
I bought Death Road to Canada this morning and will try it out v.soon -as soon as I beat Real Grinder, just hang on a sec
― Not the real Tombot (El Tomboto), Saturday, 25 March 2017 01:21 (seven years ago) link
Ok I just got wiped once, almost immediately, but I see the fun in it. Need to adjust my control layout for sure.
― Not the real Tombot (El Tomboto), Saturday, 25 March 2017 04:58 (seven years ago) link
All I've done in DRtC since my last post is make custom characters.
― Not the real Tombot (El Tomboto), Wednesday, 29 March 2017 22:27 (six years ago) link
I'm mostly enjoying Fallen London, as a prelude to delving into Sunless Sea. FL is for the phone, SS is on the tablet (durr) and I actually think the daily limit on actions helps the FL experience
― Not the real Tombot (El Tomboto), Wednesday, 29 March 2017 22:29 (six years ago) link
i think FL is actually the better more fully realized game but SS is def worth playing - and the sequel is being kickstarted right now
― Mordy, Wednesday, 29 March 2017 22:33 (six years ago) link
my favorite twitch streamer said SS made him so happy it was like when he was a kid and first got into Escape Velocity on his Mac, and I was "like well that was college for me kiddo but if you loved EV, I loved EV and this game scratches that itch then here you go App Store here's $9.99 make sure this army vet weirdo in Texas gets a cut ok"
― Not the real Tombot (El Tomboto), Wednesday, 29 March 2017 22:49 (six years ago) link
the highly compelling clicker SPACEPLAN (originally brought to your attention last August via The Best Free Online (in-browser or downloadable) Games) is now on iOS
I am still Realm Grinding away, though, so I don't think I need to repopulate the potatoes on my phone
― your cognitive privilege (El Tomboto), Saturday, 6 May 2017 17:29 (six years ago) link
also thanks to realm grinder I now know the differences between scientific and engineering notation, and the names of a lot of extremely large numbers. the math in this game is ridiculous
― your cognitive privilege (El Tomboto), Monday, 8 May 2017 00:08 (six years ago) link
nintendo released a fire emblem game for iphone and i was super excited because i've never played a fire emblem game and i've always wanted to. it was a smallish download, and then it asked me to download a 50 MB update as soon as i started it up. after a few battles, it asked me to install a 500 MB update, which i grudgingly did even though i have a shitty iphone with not much storage. i took leave of the reception areas in the united states for a few days, and when i returned and started up fire emblem, it asked me to install another 700 MB update and i racked up my first ever rage quit/delete on a screen asking me to download a patch
― Karl Malone, Thursday, 18 May 2017 00:01 (six years ago) link
Wow. Better you than me!
I'm finally playing Lifeline on my phone.
Getting this Taylor kid into shitty situations is not quite as fun as intentionally wrecking your dude in one of those bmx / snowboard / tony hawk games.
I do have a feeling the ultimate goal is probably more satisfying, though.
I'll keep at it.
Tombot is busy.
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 18 May 2017 02:23 (six years ago) link
Waiting for a busted elbow to heal have given me time to get back to mobile gaming, until I can shake public transport and get back on my bike.
Grim Fandango Remastered: the first two acts are still the greatest adventure game of all time, the third loses it a little (though at least it doesn't crash when I get in the crane, like the last two torrents of the PC game I tried), and the last act is both a touching return to the earlier acts and too bitty.
Monument Valley: Lovely aesthetic perfectly married to the platform - I'm sure there'll be a PC port at some point but using a mouse to rotate one of the chunky pieces of architecture won't be as satisfying as doing so by hand. Also I appreciate a game that's good at manipulating my emotions.
Tomb Raider Go: Decent selection / curation of a different aesthetic here, breaking some of TR down to basically a game of Sokoban (with a slight hidden object game not even bolted to it but rather laid beside it in the same box).
― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, 18 May 2017 14:24 (six years ago) link
Spaceplan was amusing but I didn't expect it to play through so fast and have no replay value.
― El Tuomasbot (milo z), Monday, 22 May 2017 01:10 (six years ago) link
I'm starting to really wish the hero in Love You To Bits could just WALK A LITTLE BIT FASTER FFShe could learn a lot from Taylor in Lifeline imho, this guy trucks, even with a fucked up ankle
― El Tomboto, Monday, 22 May 2017 15:45 (six years ago) link
Has anybody tried Subterfuge?
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 27 May 2017 16:34 (six years ago) link
Bunch of stuff on sale for 0.99 in the US App Store today btw
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 27 May 2017 16:51 (six years ago) link
I kinda don't want any of them because I never finish adventure puzzlers, suck at touch platformers, and hate RTS/Tower Defense. but I guess mini metro is going to get a shot.
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 27 May 2017 16:54 (six years ago) link
I was a big Advance Wars fan in the GBA days, so I love Warbits. Great graphics and gets most aspects of the genre right. It doesn't seem to have boats and other water units, though, just land and sky :/
― Dan I., Saturday, 27 May 2017 20:46 (six years ago) link
Uh, I think it came out last year, though.
― Dan I., Saturday, 27 May 2017 20:47 (six years ago) link
MiniMetro pulled me in for a couple weeks.
― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 27 May 2017 21:48 (six years ago) link
Thread title time frame is not intended to prevent posting about out old games. Most good games on iOS are from <2016 anyway imho
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 27 May 2017 22:21 (six years ago) link
Most good games on iOS are from <2016 anyway imho
It's true. What's the deal with that?
― Karl Malone, Saturday, 27 May 2017 22:25 (six years ago) link
It's about ethics in video game journalism
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 27 May 2017 23:28 (six years ago) link
This?
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/180322771/rogue-wizards-fantasy-role-playing-game-rpg
This isn't bad at all. I might actually pay for the gem doubler (the "here fine here's five dollars for your game you gave away for free" purchase)I'm pretty annoyed your character choices are "white boy" and "white girl" though - like, even Spirit Lords did better.
― El Tomboto, Monday, 29 May 2017 03:49 (six years ago) link
iOS games kinda not being good this year shocka
― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses), Monday, 10 July 2017 04:29 (six years ago) link
I'm having trouble finding anything that holds my attention. Every goddamn thing has IAP.
― Jeff, Monday, 10 July 2017 09:39 (six years ago) link
Some recent faves:
Card ThiefPolytopiaSwing KingCordy 2Bike Club
― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Tuesday, 11 July 2017 19:11 (six years ago) link
I am still playing Marvel Puzzle Quest
help me
― this iphone speaks many languages (DJP), Tuesday, 11 July 2017 19:12 (six years ago) link
expansion for 868.HACK?
his description is utterly opaque to me because i haven’t played it for a long while, but ,ugh this be a good time for anyone who hasn’t to give it a go?
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 11 July 2017 19:13 (six years ago) link
not sure what ugh is doing there. some kind of phone typo.
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 11 July 2017 19:14 (six years ago) link
it's so hard to find anything good in the store apps (ios or android). all of the lists are freemium crap.
― Einstein, Kazanga, Sitar (abanana), Tuesday, 11 July 2017 23:23 (six years ago) link
pocket tactics used to be a reliably good source of info on strategy/rpg/puzzle/war games, written by like 3 dudes, but then they got bought out and became a terrible website
― Karl Malone, Tuesday, 11 July 2017 23:25 (six years ago) link
I suspect starting 868 with the expansion would be an exercise in frustration
― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Thursday, 13 July 2017 21:27 (six years ago) link
This needs to happen
http://toucharcade.com/2017/06/21/darkest-dungeon-ios-release-chance-extremely-high/
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 15 July 2017 17:10 (six years ago) link
might finally get around to playing it
on the leaderboards for the 868 hack expansion! i am just way more attuned to this than imbroglio i guess
― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Sunday, 16 July 2017 14:31 (six years ago) link
Also it looks like toucharcade is about to go out of business? So basically nowhere left doing independent reviews of App Store games as far as I know.
― El Tomboto, Sunday, 16 July 2017 14:36 (six years ago) link
I got Lowerlander yesterday. It's pretty fun so far. The save mechanism is kind of annoying in 2017 but it's no game breaker.
― El Tomboto, Sunday, 23 July 2017 15:43 (six years ago) link
I can actually see this causing me to blow a subway stop on my commute which no game has done for a good while (usually it's work email)
― El Tomboto, Sunday, 23 July 2017 15:55 (six years ago) link
^^ loving this, it is totally making me late for meetings
― stet, Monday, 24 July 2017 13:37 (six years ago) link
started playing at your suggestion tombo, really scratching that ultima itch
― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses), Monday, 24 July 2017 14:22 (six years ago) link
Fucking Flappy Dunk. I hate myself.
― Jeff, Tuesday, 25 July 2017 01:30 (six years ago) link
Galaxy of Pen and Paper, the sequel to Knights of Pen and Paper, is out today for iOS (and steam and android) at $4.99. i haven't played it yet but the kotaku review says it's similar but better than the original, which i enjoyed. given the lack of good iOS games recently i'm inclined to give it a shot
― Karl Malone, Friday, 28 July 2017 01:56 (six years ago) link
another pen and paper game already? god dammit that's my beer money
― El Tomboto, Friday, 28 July 2017 04:11 (six years ago) link
(all the pen and paper games are worth it btw)
― El Tomboto, Friday, 28 July 2017 04:12 (six years ago) link
(they do get silly towards the end, not in a great way, but then what RPG doesn't)
Terraria for mobile might be getting a major update soon, praise moonlord
Target Timing for release of Mobile 1.3 remains a few months after Console, so you can expect this in the second half of 2017; hopefully sooner rather than later!
― El Tomboto, Friday, 28 July 2017 04:14 (six years ago) link
http://www.pockettactics.com/reviews/review-miracle-merchant/
Agree with this review, solid game.
― Jeff, Thursday, 10 August 2017 12:31 (six years ago) link
Layton Brothers Mystery Room, which is like a terrible version of Phoenix Wright, and Layton's Mystery Journey, which is a lot more like the original.
― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, 10 August 2017 13:28 (six years ago) link
On the shame and loathing front: i feel like seriously, after 4-5 years, I've finally broken free of the psychological grip that Puzzle and Dragons and Marvel Puzzle Quest had on me. Basically barely want to even login daily any more. Feel like this is progress.
― Nhex, Friday, 11 August 2017 04:45 (six years ago) link
find someone who looks at you the way Nhex looks at MPQ
glad you escaped! :)
― Karl Malone, Friday, 11 August 2017 04:53 (six years ago) link
Tsuro is the free app of the week in the US app store and I highly recommend it. We just spent a couple of hours on it in a very device-heavy "family board game night"
― As an ilxor, I am uncompromising (El Tomboto), Sunday, 20 August 2017 01:19 (six years ago) link
My daughter is now playing Tiny Tower! I had no idea they kept updating that thing. It's been 6 years! Last update was in January though so maybe they're finally done? There are like, so many new elevators, you guys.
I pulled Ticket To Earth back out and for some reason I feel way better at it than I was before.
― As an ilxor, I am uncompromising (El Tomboto), Sunday, 20 August 2017 22:14 (six years ago) link
also lol, as soon as I blow away all the ep1 content it turns out Episode 2 is coming out this week as a free update. Hooray!
― As an ilxor, I am uncompromising (El Tomboto), Monday, 21 August 2017 04:28 (six years ago) link
1. I thought I broke my save on Lowerlander but I emailed the dev and he fixed it for me - on a Saturday.
2. Ticket to Earth episode 2 is so far all my favorite stuff about the first one but might be too easy
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 26 August 2017 22:36 (six years ago) link
Lowerlander update: once you get the ship that has long-range cannons, bombarding mobs from the sea is truly satisfying
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 29 August 2017 21:16 (six years ago) link
― El Tomboto, Saturday, July 15, 2017 (one month ago)
It totally happened - I think yesterday actually
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 31 August 2017 18:27 (six years ago) link
I have a backlog of ipad games I need to work through now
and meanwhile, remember this post? aw man
iPhone games (also Ipod Tooch/iPad games too)
I loaded up TT again on Tuesday because my wife and daughter twisted my arm since they started last weekend - I was starting from scratch but then when I went to enable cloud sync, the Nimblebit server goes HEY LOOK WHAT WE FOUND and here it is, all 194 floors, lightspeed elevator, and now a "historic landmark" sign on the roof.
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 31 August 2017 18:45 (six years ago) link
would like a list of that backlog plz
― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses), Thursday, 31 August 2017 19:06 (six years ago) link
I bought darkest dungeon & sunless sea this week, adding to my ridic backlog (because I'm playing assassin's creed 3, so at least I'm in the right decade now)
― droit au butt (Euler), Thursday, 31 August 2017 19:16 (six years ago) link
I feel like this is almost everything but I'm sure I've forgotten one or two:
A. to give a real playthrough / get started on:
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 31 August 2017 19:52 (six years ago) link
C. The ones I forgot
_* Broken Age (start)_* Death Road to Canada (DR2C) (get anywhere)_* Out There Omega (finish? Or see DR2C)_* Penny Arcade Adventures 3: The oh I should just fucking delete this _* Pixel Heroes (i can't really figure out why this one is so hard tbf)_* Terraria (waiting on a major update before i spend much more time on this)
There's other stuff too but it's all super casual like pocket planes, realm grinder, mini metro, and uh tiny goddamn towerrrrrrr
― El Tomboto, Friday, 1 September 2017 02:36 (six years ago) link
Nabbed oldies but good rep'd Beat Sneak Bandit and Device 6 for $0.99
― Nhex, Friday, 1 September 2017 04:24 (six years ago) link
thanks for the list tom; will give many of those a try
― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses), Friday, 1 September 2017 15:37 (six years ago) link
If you like Rubik's cubes you might like my friend justin's game Shift'd.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shiftd/id1219537563
― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Friday, 1 September 2017 20:24 (six years ago) link
Finished everything in Ticket to Earth. Good but game is half done since they are releasing it just an episode at the time. Like I got all these nitrium shards but there aren't enough of them in the game yet to refine to good stuff.
Lost all interest in Miracle Merchant since I became the best player in the world. So back to looking for something new. I don't care if it only leaves me with 10 games, if there was a no IAP filter in the App Store it would be so great.
― Jeff, Friday, 8 September 2017 14:02 (six years ago) link
What is freeways? Can’t find it on the App Store.
― Jeff, Tuesday, 26 September 2017 12:38 (six years ago) link
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/through-the-ages/id966245474?mt=8
terrific game, exceptionally well adapted
― Roberto Spiralli, Sunday, 1 October 2017 16:33 (six years ago) link
Apple store removing the wishlist is literally “oh okay I guess you don’t want my money”
― Andrew Farrell, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 22:58 (six years ago) link
Think it’s a couple of years old but Citadel 1986 is enormous BBC Micro-esque fun
― stet, Tuesday, 21 November 2017 20:36 (six years ago) link
Oh shit the iOS Animal Crossing game is out
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 22 November 2017 01:24 (six years ago) link
iOS game pet peeve: when the game forces you to download a bunch of extra data after you’ve installed the game. Most recent example: Puzzle Fighter, which was a ~150 MB initial download, then needed to download an additional 100 MB update when I first launched it, and is now making me download a 330 MB update upon completing the tutorial.
― Karl Malone, Friday, 24 November 2017 04:43 (six years ago) link
I think this ruse is to get around the limit on size of app you can download on mobile data
― stet, Friday, 24 November 2017 11:00 (six years ago) link
kinda surprised that the only conversation about fire emblem heroes is KM's rage-delete due to the 700mb patch above... (which is totally granted!)
is nobody else playing this? it's lowkey replacing mpq in my brain after years of mpq dominance. it took me a few months to get really into it but it's safe to say i'm completely hooked now -- i've got ~30 gold heroes at level 40 (including all four of the brave heroes, who are badass), reinhardt, ryoma, some other good ones... version 2.0.0 just dropped with some all new story levels (which I slammed through in like an hour to get orbs for the new 8% gacha, earning me a 5* celica for my troubles). i love this game!
am i the only one?
― flippy bard (Will M.), Wednesday, 29 November 2017 08:58 (six years ago) link
Gave it a go but it just didn't grab me.
Hearthstone tends to be my goto mobile game though these days and tbf nothing else is going to match that level of polish.
― JimD, Wednesday, 29 November 2017 10:18 (six years ago) link
Bridge Constructer Portal. Controls are kind of finicky, but interesting enough.
― Jeff, Thursday, 21 December 2017 13:58 (six years ago) link
It’s from last year but I just started Iron Fish and it seems all right.
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 21 December 2017 14:10 (six years ago) link
heavens to betsy I'm playing BLOCKY FARM
― droit au butt (Euler), Thursday, 21 December 2017 15:19 (six years ago) link
hahaha
i finally tried out Reigns (or at least the sequel, which just came out and is supposed to be pretty much the same as the first). it's decent fun, but every other time i open the app, it completely forgets that i've ever played before and puts me back at the very beginning. there's no option to manually save or load a saved game. sometimes, i open the app and it instantly remembers everything that i've done and i'm back in the game. and then other times, a few seconds after opening the app it offers me the option to load my saved game from some cloud, somewhere. so it's fun, sometimes, when it works. i fucking hate apple right now. using their products reminds me of being a windows user back in 2002
/iOS problems
― Karl Malone, Thursday, 21 December 2017 17:14 (six years ago) link
somehow i got back into clicker heroes, wtf is wrong with me
― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses), Thursday, 21 December 2017 17:23 (six years ago) link
game idea: clicker heroes, but sometimes when you try to play it all your progress is reset
― Karl Malone, Thursday, 21 December 2017 17:26 (six years ago) link
Life, Kid
uh, did Civ 6 just get released ON IPAD? dang.
― droit au butt (Euler), Thursday, 21 December 2017 18:24 (six years ago) link
i finally tried out Reigns (or at least the sequel, which just came out and is supposed to be pretty much the same as the first). it's decent fun, but every other time i open the app, it completely forgets that i've ever played before and puts me back at the very beginning. there's no option to manually save or load a saved game
I've only played the first one but never experienced this. Might be early days bugginess. But I don't really think of the game as something where you're loading a saved game. The content you unlock by playing seems more like a board game expansion than making progress, per se.
― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Thursday, 21 December 2017 18:31 (six years ago) link
Yeah - that’s a better way of putting it. I’m not trying to “beat” it so much as just see everything that can be unlocked. But I keep getting forced to start back at the beginning with nothing unlocked, like a punishing roguelike. I should probably just wait iOS gets another dozen updates and try again. One terrible night, about a month ago, I updated both my MacBook and iPhone to the latest OS, and ever since then everything has been awful.
― Karl Malone, Thursday, 21 December 2017 18:38 (six years ago) link
i have been playing the digitized version of the card game 'sentinels of the multiverse', playing all of the hero decks myself, and i must say it is an alarmingly well-constructed skinner box
― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Friday, 22 December 2017 07:06 (six years ago) link
new michael brough rogue-like cinco paus in the app store. haven’t played it yet but imbroglio, 868-HACK and corrypt were flawless masterpieces so it’s an instant buy.
pic.twitter.com/tXKlQR0jkd— Michael Brough (@smestorp) September 16, 2017
I’m digging that this game is purposefully in Portuguese, no English! Better than some fake language because I can make out some words, just not enough. This is how I imagine learning magic, tantalizing but beyond my immediate comprehension.— Douglas Wilson (@doougle) December 25, 2017
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 26 December 2017 15:31 (six years ago) link
Sproggiwood is sorta old by now but it’s been worth every penny so far
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 19:29 (six years ago) link
i am purchasing cinco paus right now, will report back later. but i'm sure it's great. i really loved both 864-HACK and Imbroglio
― Karl Malone, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 19:38 (six years ago) link
It's annoying the shit out of me right now but hopefully I'll get through it
― badg, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 20:18 (six years ago) link
age of rivals
― Mordy, Wednesday, 17 January 2018 15:57 (six years ago) link
cinco paus is annoying but more-ish. they let thing is to get through as many cycles as possible imo. i like the mystery. find out what the paus do in the first zone. aim to get extras in tu second maybe third depending on health. race through four and five. i’m shit at it and don’t fully understand the powers. fully understand at all.
― Fizzles, Thursday, 18 January 2018 20:04 (six years ago) link
I loved Imbroglio - would you go for Cinco Paus next, or is it 868 HACK better?
― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 22 January 2018 03:00 (six years ago) link
I really like cinco paus (it’s actually a love/hate kind of thing but I keep playing it, so that’s something) but 864-HACK is my favorite of his games.
― Karl Malone, Monday, 22 January 2018 04:18 (six years ago) link
rusty lake paradise came out this month. it's a step down from RL roots, which was the most ambitious and best game in the series. but if you like surreality and easy puzzles it's good enough.
― adam the (abanana), Monday, 22 January 2018 04:31 (six years ago) link
Yeah, I agree - there was a free game in between, Cube Escape: The Cave, so going back to a larger game has been nice for me.
― Andrew Farrell, Monday, 22 January 2018 10:24 (six years ago) link
age of rivals is v good. mordy, have you tried the ios through the ages?
on the subject of czech games digital ports, galaxy truckers is tons of fun. a great conversion would've been enough but they put together a v good campaign mode too. highly recommended
― Roberto Spiralli, Monday, 22 January 2018 18:15 (six years ago) link
it's called Through the Ages? i haven't. i'll check it out.
― Mordy, Monday, 22 January 2018 18:17 (six years ago) link
what's the general consensus of civ revolution 2? i know the release reviews were full of complaints, but it seems to have been updated to fill in some gaps and fix some bugs?
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, 22 January 2018 18:18 (six years ago) link
I’m never going to finish the tutorial of Through the Ages. Game seems fun, but here are so many things to remember.
― Jeff, Monday, 22 January 2018 18:19 (six years ago) link
the original board game version of Through the Ages is one of the bet i've ever played, and czech games generally does a really good job of translating them to iOS
― Karl Malone, Monday, 22 January 2018 18:21 (six years ago) link
I’ve played a lot of Civ Rev 2. I like it bc a game only takes a couple of hours. No serious bugs iirc
― droit au butt (Euler), Monday, 22 January 2018 19:43 (six years ago) link
I hear it's more of a port of Civ Rev 1 than a new game.
― adam the (abanana), Monday, 22 January 2018 21:55 (six years ago) link
gradually making progress through cinco paus - currently at a feeble looking best of 32 em 3 jogos.
― Fizzles, Sunday, 28 January 2018 08:47 (six years ago) link
i'm still playing as well. my best score was 55 em 4 jogos, but i got really lucky that time. i've only reached the third jogo a handful of times, and most of the time my attempts tend to end in the first couple zonas of the second jogo. the things that are probably most frustrating to new players - it's in portuguese, and all of the wands are imbued with 0 to 5 random abilities chosen from a pool of 50 possible abilities - are non-issues after playing for a couple hours. there are still a handful of abilities that are confusing to me, but now i can generally understand almost all of the others and try to use them with at least some strategic intent. i admire his commitment to the portuguese idea. it almost certainly decreased the sales for the game, and i would guess that quite a few people bought it on brough-reputation and then ditched it during the frustrating first hours of gameplay. but it is interesting to be forced to gradually learn what these abilities do through repetition and observation.
what's ALSO interesting (sorry for length) is that it's not really 50 abilities, but rather...back of the envelope calculation...50x49x48x47x46 = 254,251,200 possible ability wands! each wand has 5 abilities slots, and many of the abilities interact with each other (for example, one ability can cause an explosion at the end, another that can travel through walls, and you can have a wand with both abilities that will travel through walls and then explode). this leads to surprising discoveries. there's one ability that duplicates monsters, and it really sucks when you discover that misfortune in a tense moment. but that same ability can also be used to duplicate treasure chests and keys and the like, so once you know it's imbued onto a wand, you can use it to your advantage. etc etc, x 250 million possibilities.
my main beef with the game is that it is so committed to it's randomness that you end up getting screwed far too often with bad wands. there are some runthroughs that would be seemingly impossible given the crappy wands you're given, and the cold laws of probability mean that you could wind up with a "you're fucked!" scenario on one of the very first times you play the game, which must be demoralizing. with 868-HACK (my fav brough game i've played) it seemed like you would occasionally run into difficult scenarios like that, but with enough skill and experience it was possible to persevere. HACK was a bit more balanced that way, i think. The amped up randomness of CInco Paus introduces scenarios that are virtually impossible, but on the flipside it also leads to much more variability and even more replayability.
8.2
― Karl Malone, Sunday, 28 January 2018 17:17 (six years ago) link
enjoyed that, thanks karl. agreed on the randomness sometimes just sticking it to you (tho the fact it seems to stick it to me v early in the second jogos suggests i may just need to learn a bit more). brough order of favourites:imbrogliocorrypt 868-HACKcinco paus zaga 33 (which bears some relation to cinco paus - randomised effects)destroy, that bad geometry wars rip. but those top three can switch v easily. i keep find myself coming back to cinco paus despite its frustrations. it’s aesthetic - both the portuguese and the feel - are really appealing.
― Fizzles, Sunday, 28 January 2018 18:16 (six years ago) link
i still haven't played corrypt *ducks*
― Karl Malone, Sunday, 28 January 2018 18:21 (six years ago) link
(tho the fact it seems to stick it to me v early in the second jogos suggests i may just need to learn a bit more).
this is also where i typically lose. i hate to suggest improvements to a brough game because i'm sure he's considered all this, but i think it would help if the requirement to get a powerup (the "gema" pickups) were reduced from 5 to 3 or even 2. i've only gotten 5 gemas ONCE, in all this time playing. getting through to the higher jogos seems like it would be easier if you had power-up to help, but by the time i lose i typically have only collected a couple only a couple gemas, if any.
― Karl Malone, Sunday, 28 January 2018 18:24 (six years ago) link
― Fizzles, Sunday, 28 January 2018 18:33 (six years ago) link
that sounds cool! and unexpected (to me) because none of his other games i've played really have much of a narrative or story at all
― Karl Malone, Sunday, 28 January 2018 18:34 (six years ago) link
yes, much more of a static dungeon + puzzles game. good, tough and laugh-out-loud when you solve them puzzles. then solving the puzzles takes you into a different dimension and you think “i shouldn’t have been so quick to feel triumphant, what have i done”
― Fizzles, Sunday, 28 January 2018 19:24 (six years ago) link
you need to break the game to beat it. idk i may be overdoing it (certainly gameplay isn’t better than the others) but i love the way it breaks form to tell story.
― Fizzles, Sunday, 28 January 2018 19:39 (six years ago) link
509 em 25 jogos
― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Saturday, 3 February 2018 14:25 (six years ago) link
i may have accomplished nothing else in months but
― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Saturday, 3 February 2018 14:32 (six years ago) link
Having also rage quit Fire Emblem Heroes on the basis of the initial downloads, I've drifted back to it and am gradually getting into the insane intricacy of it all. They're really pro-active with providing new content (almost to a dizzying degree at first) and although there are timed releases of energy, it's pretty much impossible to run it out when there's so much of it and refills are so easy to come by. Which means it's dangerously easy to never stop playing, ever.
Cinco Paus looks great...I'll definitely give that a try.
― Launch of new ILM school business management programmes! (tangenttangent), Saturday, 3 February 2018 14:49 (six years ago) link
thomp, whoa. i've gotten up to 88 em 6 jogos and thought i had hit my limit. how did you do it, generally? i guess it's because as you keep going and gaining special abilities the game actually gets easier and easier?
― Karl Malone, Saturday, 3 February 2018 16:01 (six years ago) link
i struggle to do 10 most of the time -- current one is 168 in 8
the enemies keep gaining abilities too, and the long game of that i think is probably its own source of randomness (though i was only up to, what, six enemy abilities when i was done) -- there were certainly points where i felt 'ahead' though. otoh i just started a new game and i'm pretty sure the portuguese for the new chicken ability says 'eats corpses in order to heal,' which is both metal and concerning.
i should admit i started letting myself look at viva fringe's ability list a few hours in -- https://vivafringe.wordpress.com/2017/12/27/cinco-paus-wand-ability-list/ -- and learning that four of the abilities were tied to hitting specific sides of the field really helped. the implication of this is that you can test for recharge, heal, powered-up attack even when you've got rid of the enemies, and you can test for 'turns corners' at the same time on most maps.
it helps to remember you don't have to kill anything -- perfectly valid to look at a level and just peace out. this is easier with some of the artifacts -- swapping places, particularly.
that first look at the level is pretty important, try and think a couple steps ahead and see if you have some wonky combo that will take everything out with minimal damage, even if it means a couple of shitty turns or taking a damage at the beginning. also stopping to think how to best use resources when you've dealt with the enemies. abuse recharge and identify if you have them.
― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Sunday, 4 February 2018 05:05 (six years ago) link
and learning that four of the abilities were tied to hitting specific sides of the field really helped.
i had no idea! every once in a while i would use a wand and it would seem to fizzle out unexpectedly and i could never understand why! i will check out that link for sure.
― Karl Malone, Monday, 5 February 2018 00:01 (six years ago) link
Final Fantasy XV has a Pocket Edition coming out this Friday. Huh.
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 8 February 2018 04:09 (six years ago) link
Not about iOS or even mobile games per se, but this article about publishers as key signals in an overcrowded market full of garbage makes a good, if obvious, point https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-03-05-boutique-publishers-are-the-future-of-indie-games-market
― El Tomboto, Sunday, 11 March 2018 05:47 (six years ago) link
i didn't see this from earlier! i was getting ready to flaunt my 192 em 8 jogos :-|
― Karl Malone, Friday, 23 March 2018 19:01 (six years ago) link
Evoland 2 is pretty good. I’m even used to the touchscreen controls. Too much dialogue though.
― Jeff, Thursday, 29 March 2018 01:41 (five years ago) link
Cartoon Network Match Land (itself a reskinned version for the developer's first game) is another Match-3 RPG, super polished and addictive. Definitely an iterative addition to the Marvel Puzzle Quest/Puzzle and Dragons genre, and way way better than the last time around CN tried this, I think with an Adventure Time game.
― Nhex, Thursday, 5 April 2018 17:51 (five years ago) link
Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle rules
― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Wednesday, 18 April 2018 23:31 (five years ago) link
glad to hear that's good, it looks fun
― Roberto Spiralli, Thursday, 19 April 2018 02:23 (five years ago) link
It's not super deep or anything but it's free and pretty charming
― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Thursday, 19 April 2018 02:39 (five years ago) link
It is good fun and also reminds me of Hitman Go (in the tradition of Lara Croft Go), which is very turn based and bloodless.
― Andrew Farrell, Monday, 23 April 2018 10:18 (five years ago) link
Oddmar is a good platformer, once you get used to the controls. Great level design.
― Jeff, Monday, 23 April 2018 16:20 (five years ago) link
i might give it a shot! it looks great. is it difficult?
― Karl Malone, Monday, 23 April 2018 16:24 (five years ago) link
Not terribly so, yet. I’m only 5 stages in. The jumping is gesture based seems very forgiving at this point though. And plentiful check points.
― Jeff, Monday, 23 April 2018 16:31 (five years ago) link
Gurk III is almost completely satisfying my need for more lowlander in my life. It's pretty funny how that and pocket planes (a cheap, stupid way to teach yourself geography trivia, imo) have completely distracted me from FFXV Pocket Edition, which is a buggy fucking mess and I should leave a shitty review for, now I think about it.
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 12 May 2018 13:19 (five years ago) link
Minesweeper Classic. Still good.
― Jeff, Friday, 8 June 2018 19:11 (five years ago) link
i finished a 50-game run in Cinco Paus AND finally escaped a character in imbroglio. also i think I have rsi now
― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Wednesday, 13 June 2018 09:56 (five years ago) link
Pocket run pool. Not great, but the high stakes mode is satisfying.
― Jeff, Wednesday, 13 June 2018 10:16 (five years ago) link
I am LOVING 868-Hack. It costs $5 but it's very smart and complex but the rounds are short enough where you can like play it for a few minutes at a time. A+ very recommend.
― the masseduction of lauryn hill (Stevie D(eux)), Wednesday, 20 June 2018 17:21 (five years ago) link
868-HACK is sooooo good. it's funny that we're all kind of trained to balk at a $5 iphone game, but i've spent more time playing it than the typical $60 AAA game. Even more true with Cinco Paus. i have no way to track the hours but i'd guess i've played at least 100 hours by now
― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 20 June 2018 17:23 (five years ago) link
What are other games like this that are kinda simple but require an almost chess-like level of thoughtfulness and strategy? like playing a round of this is so much more fulfilling than like Temple Run or even Drop7
― the masseduction of lauryn hill (Stevie D(eux)), Wednesday, 20 June 2018 18:02 (five years ago) link
i wish i knew of more! really the only ones that engage me on that level are the brough games - they've accounted for >90% of my iphone gaming over the last couple years, easily. i also appreciate that this dude has a blog, he speaks candidly about his process, the financial lack of success, the pressures he feels, the things he's struggling with in game design: http://mightyvision.blogspot.com/
― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 20 June 2018 18:12 (five years ago) link
I am 100% fine with paying up front money for a game that's not engineered to, like con me into spending more or isn't very challenging. I'd prefer it, even.
― the masseduction of lauryn hill (Stevie D(eux)), Wednesday, 20 June 2018 18:32 (five years ago) link
i have no way to track the hours but i'd guess i've played at least 100 hours by now
http://osxdaily.com/2017/06/15/see-how-much-time-ios-apps-used/
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, 20 June 2018 18:33 (five years ago) link
^cursed link
― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, 20 June 2018 18:45 (five years ago) link
i always forget that you can track it now, at least for the most recent 1-day and 7-day periods. i've played cinco paus around 3 hours in the last 7 days, and i've been consistently playing it at least that much since it was released in christmas 2017, so i'd guess my 100-hour estimate is about right.
― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 20 June 2018 18:51 (five years ago) link
What are other games like this that are kinda simple but require an almost chess-like level of thoughtfulness and strategy? Parks Seasons
It starts simple and you can't skip the easy levels. However, the bigger grids which require 2 trees per row, column, and colored section are super fun and logical.
― He said captain, I said wot (FlopsyDuck), Thursday, 21 June 2018 13:02 (five years ago) link
Just started but Card Quest seems fun.
― Jeff, Thursday, 12 July 2018 01:14 (five years ago) link
…Holedown
― devops mom (silby), Sunday, 29 July 2018 05:53 (five years ago) link
I went home last weekend to see my niblings, and they are always keen to play games on my phone - Monument Valley was a big hit, except you can only give it or its sequel to one of them at a time. Anyway, the App Store had a special on gentle puzzle games so I got:
_Prism: this looks lovely and 3-d, but it's a pretty cover for a game of moving switches to get points to line up - it's not very long, it looks lovely, but the hit detection of the non-massive iPhone is not quite up to the bits where you're trying to get three fingers on the screen at once.
Push - tap the buttons on the screen in the right order, sometimes using other switches to rotate or switch the 3-d surfaces that the buttons are on - it all looks very clean, and the buttons seem weirdly tactile - it's a good game if you've got 10 minutes and would like to feel smart for solving something.
_-_ - get all the horizontal lines roughly in the centre, sometimes when you pull up on this line, those lines move up or down by other coefficients... I haven't played enough with it to see if there's much more to it than that.
LVL - you move solid shapes of colour on the sides of a cube, trying to completely block out the light in each of the three faces. Each cube is effectively (again, as far as I got) three separate games where you're working both opposite faces, but you can't overlap the shapes on any given side - there's some "okay that has to go here so I have to move this there first" even once you figure out what each side has to be.
Vignettes - this is good but a little fiddly - you can rotate an over-saturated object around in the centre of the screen - sometimes when the silhouette matches another object there'll be a slight tug and it changes - so you might turn a bowl so that the white circle of the inside entirely faces you, but when you turn it some more, it's now a lightbulb viewed from the top. The problem is that this is both fiddly and temperamental.
Flower - this is the PS3 game! You fly around being a petal and flying through other flowers to gather more petals and it's really really really not very high tension. It looks lovely though.
.projekt - literally no-one involved in this game doesn't have at least two 'k's in their name. It's a simple 3-d builder, you place/remove blocks in a 5x5x5 grid to match silhouettes on two axes. After a while you get a point for the minimum vs the maximum number of blocks, and past another while there's a picross version - 80 stages, the time passes well.
Rubek - I know there's a canonical version of this type of puzzler around - you roll a cube around a cell-y surface, sometimes you have to pick up something on one face and then deposit it elsewhere.
― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 24 August 2018 22:14 (five years ago) link
Slayaway Camp is free on ios and android this week. It's great.
― dat, Saturday, 25 August 2018 20:52 (five years ago) link
Subwords is my new thing to do after the crossword puzzle. Might not last long, though, unless I get within striking distance of the leaderboards on classic mode
― Paleo Weltschmerz (El Tomboto), Sunday, 16 September 2018 03:27 (five years ago) link
So like... a bunch of my older games don't work on the current iOS, as happens every year. But since they killed iTunes app backup/management, if i delete it off the phone, it's gone forever unless I can redownload it from the App Store, right?I have a ton of these games I've just been deleting over the last few years that I carried from phone to phone. Alas, Gravity Hook, looks like you're gone forever.
― Nhex, Sunday, 7 October 2018 06:03 (five years ago) link
Endless Archery for Desert Golfing fans.
― Jeff, Monday, 19 November 2018 21:24 (five years ago) link
Picked this up recently and am enjoying it:
https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/13/13262994/really-bad-chess-zach-gage-iphone-ipad
― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Tuesday, 20 November 2018 00:01 (five years ago) link
I just want to say I'm very disappointed Trainyard never got updated to work with later iOS versions.
― vision joanna newsom (Stevie D(eux)), Wednesday, 6 February 2019 15:20 (five years ago) link
Donut County isn't doing much for me but Florence is good.
― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Wednesday, 6 February 2019 17:01 (five years ago) link
pocket city is a good handheld version of sim city 2000
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, 6 February 2019 17:54 (five years ago) link
hard disagree on that one
pocket city made me angry
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 6 February 2019 18:04 (five years ago) link
pocket city was ehhhhhh
(I did break my brain playing too much sim city 2000 as a kid so ymmv)
― JD Salinger - King of Trainers (King Boy Pato), Thursday, 7 February 2019 12:06 (five years ago) link
dowd mentioned Night of the Full Moon on another thread recently so I gave it a shot. it's really fun! what is the genre...CCG/rogue/rpg, sort of? it's $1, although you can pay more to unlock additional character classes. it's one of the rare games that has voice acting that is actually good, especially on iOS. it actually even made me LOL, the first time a game has done that in forever (a pumpkin head enemy said something like "how would you know what it feels like to be in the cutting baaaawrd?!" in a ridiculous accent - hard to explain but it was good).
― Karl Malone, Saturday, 2 March 2019 16:51 (five years ago) link
I like Alphabear 2 a lot but despise the insane amount of ads. Even if you buy it there’s still the “TV Time” bonus for watching 3 ads every four hours...
― Nhex, Wednesday, 20 March 2019 19:27 (five years ago) link
New Michael Brough game P1 Select for those who like these things. (I do). Sounds like he hasn'tried (or had the time) to do anything new, but is happy with that.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 13 July 2019 17:31 (four years ago) link
Thank you! I will always check out his games
― Karl Malone, Saturday, 13 July 2019 18:15 (four years ago) link
I need new rpg for iphone 11
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 18 March 2020 00:56 (four years ago) link
Dungeons of Chaos look good.
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 18 March 2020 01:00 (four years ago) link
Nope
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 18 March 2020 01:26 (four years ago) link
Lol
― DJI, Wednesday, 18 March 2020 02:59 (four years ago) link
Not new but I was psyched to see that Knights of the Old Republic is available for iPhone. Maybe this is a good time to start it.
― Unparalleled Elegance (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 18 March 2020 03:26 (four years ago) link
Super late to this party, as I just picked it up as a freebie a few weeks ago, but damn yeah Alto's Adventure is probably the best endless runner. Just completed all 180 goals and got that "survived for three days" achievement.
― Nhex, Wednesday, 15 April 2020 14:06 (three years ago) link
Alto's Odyssey is a nice follow-up too but very much more of the same
― stet, Wednesday, 15 April 2020 15:18 (three years ago) link
new BROG - well large expansion for Imbroglio:http://mightyvision.blogspot.com/2020/05/preview-for-imbroglio-mizzenmast.html
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 5 May 2020 16:34 (three years ago) link
nice
― silby, Tuesday, 5 May 2020 16:39 (three years ago) link
yes. i mean cinco paus is just wonderful but i love imbroglio as well.
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 5 May 2020 17:05 (three years ago) link
I 100%ed Hidden Folks and now I’m sad
― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Monday, 31 August 2020 17:15 (three years ago) link
instead of developing speed run routes for hidden folks I just went on a little spree today and picked up the phoenix wright trilogy, black box, and soda dungeon 2.
is meteor fall any good?
― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Saturday, 19 September 2020 20:46 (three years ago) link
Good Sudoku is good.
― Joey Corona (Euler), Sunday, 20 September 2020 12:37 (three years ago) link
I burned out on it after about a month, but yeah, it's good. I hate the mode that takes away all the improvements though (Classic?) but the others worked nicely
― Nhex, Sunday, 20 September 2020 18:44 (three years ago) link
Yeah I accidentally played a classic one today and I messed it up good
― Joey Corona (Euler), Sunday, 20 September 2020 19:20 (three years ago) link
Cosmic Express is a great little one-screen logic puzzle game. I even like the background music, which is usually the first thing I turn off.
― wasdnous (abanana), Monday, 21 September 2020 16:35 (three years ago) link
Any decent graphic adventure/visual novel/point & click games on phones recently? Feels like the high point was The Room and its sequels, and now developers are making gacha games instead.
― wasdnuos (abanana), Monday, 29 March 2021 15:09 (two years ago) link
The Cube Escape games are great but probably not recent
― Andrew Farrell, Monday, 29 March 2021 16:19 (two years ago) link
i'm near the end of kentucky route zero, which is unfortunately not for iOS, i don't think. but maybe this will help?
https://www.50gameslike.com/games-like/kentucky-route-zero/ios
― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Monday, 29 March 2021 16:30 (two years ago) link
is it my imagination or is apple shifting any game that looks good or interesting at all to apple arcade
― na (NA), Monday, 29 March 2021 16:41 (two years ago) link
cupe escape / rusty lake games are great yes
I found the first chapter of KRZ too slow but that list has some games I've liked and others I've added to my wishlist.
― wasdnuos (abanana), Monday, 29 March 2021 16:46 (two years ago) link
Ooh The Silent Age is good! Syberia II is not.
― Andrew Farrell, Monday, 29 March 2021 22:07 (two years ago) link
Luck Be A Landlord is my new favorite iOS game. Addictive.
― Jeff, Thursday, 28 December 2023 13:25 (three months ago) link