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Author Topic: Pocket games thread  (Read 113943 times)

Yoink

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Re: Pocket games thread
« Reply #720 on: October 29, 2020, 12:17:57 am »

I have a new smartphone for the first time in months.   
I've downloaded a couple of old favourites and a few other odds and ends, most of which are shite. Seems like the Play store is still packed with lazy imitations and cash-grab shovelware, haha. I could use some recommendations. I was rather liking a word game called BAIKOH for a moment, but then it turned out to have non-optional video ads. Some of the mechanics were too frustrating to be worthwhile, too.   


So Sandship: The last engineer, or however it's called in the app store itself. Pretty neat little merger of factorio elements and idle games. You essentially run a big sand crawling thing that has factories strapped to it. Inside them you set up production chains, tech up, solve quests by throwing stuff you produced at them, all the good stuff. It's a tad simplistic when it comes to the actual complexity of the production chains, atleast at first, it seems they introduce a nice amount of complexity as time goes on. Of course one of the big challenges is working with limited floor space, so those of you into optimizing your layouts in factorio might like this aspect. Best of all it doesn't have any ads and the monetization is not terribly aggressive, consisting mostly of boosters and time-skips, which aren't really necessary if you treat it like a proper idle game and check in on it every now and then.
Pretty sure I saw that in the store. Looks kinda interesting, even if I dislike idle games.   
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Re: Pocket games thread
« Reply #721 on: October 29, 2020, 11:03:09 pm »

I have a new smartphone for the first time in months.   
I've downloaded a couple of old favourites and a few other odds and ends, most of which are shite. Seems like the Play store is still packed with lazy imitations and cash-grab shovelware, haha. I could use some recommendations. I was rather liking a word game called BAIKOH for a moment, but then it turned out to have non-optional video ads. Some of the mechanics were too frustrating to be worthwhile, too.

If you don't mind a few repeat mentions... As far as I recall, all of these are nominally free (seeing as I've paid for exactly one game on Android), though I know a few of them allow the purchases of extra lives, additional game modes, etc. None of them, at least last when I played, had obtrusive ads, though some of them (*coughLookYourLootcough*) have gotten more and more aggressive with their pricing.
Path of Adventure, ENYO, MicRogue, Triglav, Rogue Grinders, Wesnoth, 'Look, Your Loot!', Underhand, Decknight, Card Thief, Onirim, Siralim, Buriedbornes, Battle of Polytopia

A particular mention again for Underhand, which was, I believe, some kind of a school project, entirely free, and has a nice degree of polish (love the voiceovers, though they can get repetitive). It feels kind of like a short-and-to-the-point spin on Cultist Simulator.

Also, I still love Black Survival, though that's a live multiplayer one. And you're going to get shredded as soon as you leave newbie tiers and enter unrestricted competition.
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sambojin

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Re: Pocket games thread
« Reply #722 on: January 29, 2021, 03:45:20 am »

Played a bit more of Otherworld Legends today (by Chillyroom, the creators of Soul Knight, a fairly good run'n'gun single-stick topdown shooter).

It's a pseudo-side-on room based beat-em-up, kind-of. Think River City Ransom + Binding of Isaac itemization lite, but in the fantasy genre with knights and skeletons and wuxia stuff. They've released some new characters. Played as Katrina, the elemental'y sorceress one. She's OP af. Finished the game (on easy, mind you, so not that big of a thing).

Killed the lvl1 shopkeeper, because I didn't have quite enough gold for an item I wanted. Proved to be a blessing, and double ice skills just AoE through anything alongside a few dodges. Even bosses.

Ended up with tonnes of gold, and got the boss on 3-3 that you can pay off to not fight, and had gold=power as an item by then too. As well as a decent crit chance and crits-reduce-cooldown, so I could spam the hell out of frost-storms. It was pretty silly by the end. Had poison as well, which works better against high HP stuff. Could've beaten him, but just paid him off because of laziness. Still had max +damage from gold after doing so I think.

Then, onto the final boss. Sure, I had to do some dodges in phase one and two, but phase 3 where he embiggens himself was a bit of a joke. Press two frost-storm cooldowns, dodge a bit, repeat. Even without my silly-high damage, I could've done it. And this is after drinking about a bottle of JD. My reflexes aren't exactly at their best right now.

It also probably helped that I got the "kills add to HP" item from that lvl1 shopkeeper. Having a high armour character that also had 80 odd HP by the end of the run probably gave me the confidence to go splatting harder than I already would have with that final build. Worked well :)
« Last Edit: January 29, 2021, 04:19:30 am by sambojin »
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Re: Pocket games thread
« Reply #723 on: January 29, 2021, 03:58:19 am »

@Yoink, yeah the reply is months and months late. But I just got a new mid-ranged phone too! Seriously, retry all that stuff you could barely emulate properly from the PSP/ PS2 era. Maybe even some Xbox stuff as well. They piss all over most mobile stuff.

I've been playing a bit of the Japanese version of Earth Defense Forces 2. Runs smooth as silk with 30fps (would be more, but that's its cap) and a bit of upscaling. It's wonderful. (My old Oppo f1S would get 7-14fps, my new Oppo a91 doesn't ever drop below 27fps in gameplay. Still a cheap phone too, just with 4-5 years between their creations).

I honestly forgot that this was one of the reasons that I bought a new phone for, for an entire month. Then I remembered
 And now I am happy.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2021, 04:21:34 am by sambojin »
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Uristides

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Re: Pocket games thread
« Reply #724 on: February 18, 2021, 07:33:34 am »

Recently picked up Shop Titans. If you're a Recettear fan and ever wished it was also available in the form of a mediocre mobile game then this is for you. It's cute, it's fun, but it's hella grindy and it's out for your money.

Played a bit more of Otherworld Legends today (by Chillyroom, the creators of Soul Knight, a fairly good run'n'gun single-stick topdown shooter).
This is pretty much the coolest mobile game I ever touched. Too bad I really suck at it, never made it past the Tengu boss.
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woodsmoke

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Re: Pocket games thread
« Reply #725 on: February 18, 2021, 08:10:03 am »

My abosute favorite mobile game is Downwell. I also payed for Desert Golf and Switch'n Shoot.

The free games I can recommend are Hoplite, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup and RVGL (aka Re-volt).
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hops

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Re: Pocket games thread
« Reply #726 on: February 24, 2021, 01:43:36 am »

Hoplite is free? I coulda sworn I remember buying it.

Anyways, people should check it out. It's a perfect-information roguelike.
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sambojin

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Re: Pocket games thread
« Reply #727 on: February 24, 2021, 10:32:12 pm »

I've mentioned it before, but Pathos: the Nethack Codex isn't bad as a roguelike as well. It's very good actually. Not perfect information (you still have to identify stuff), but nice quality of life stuff like being able to hit Help on corpses so you know what will happen to you if you eat it. And so much more.

Oh, and you can have multiple party members to scale difficulty and starting equipment to whatever you feel like. Still hard, but modifiably so. Haven't finished it yet, but I'm hopeless at roguelikes.


@Uristides Tengu isn't too bad, depending on what character you're using and your mods. Or you can just bribe your way past him. After the initial item or two, money isn't needed nearly as much as you'd think. I guess it depends on when you encounter him. Still a lot easier than some of the Cowboy stuff in later levels.
« Last Edit: February 24, 2021, 10:37:34 pm by sambojin »
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Re: Pocket games thread
« Reply #728 on: March 06, 2021, 10:02:54 pm »

Downloaded Magic Survival last night. It's a pretty casual, one handed top-down survive-as-long-as-you-can shooter, kinda like all those "run away from the zombies/ninjas" games you see. Except this one is quite good.

You play as a mage fighting off some kinda virus. Graphics are pretty minimalistic, but they serve their purpose. Sound isn't too bad. While there's not a heap of enemy types, there is a bit of variation such as chargers and blob groups. The main challenge comes from just how many of them you end up fighting after 10mins or so. It's a lot.

The main cool thing about the game is the amount of magic you'll end up throwing at those waves of enemies. There's about 8-10 damaging spells, and they scale beautifully. Incinerate looks terrible at first level, but by third level it's a flamethrower of glorious destruction. Thunderstrike is good, but it gets great, zapping enemies apart with autotargetting blasts faster than seems possible. Tsunami ends up screen-wiping tonnes of stuff. Spirits end up as barrage cannons. Electric field covers half the screen, chip damaging everything. Blizzard goes on forever. And you're running multiple of these spells at once, frying and zapping and whirlwinding everything while frantically keeping just enough distance from them to not take damage. But it's never enough.

There's a choose 1-of-3 perk/spell levelling system (4 or 5 with items and the right character), a big roster of characters with different starting buffs, a starting perks/ research system, some pretty good itemization, and build options to try out. Once you've got your spell to level 3 and level 6, you get to choose a super-option, letting you customise your run a bit more. Once you've got two spells to level 6, you can combine them into a super-spell with varying effects. Some are great, some are just side-grades, and some you would have been better keeping two level 6 spells running instead of one not-so-super one. But at least there's heaps to try out. For a "casual" game, it's really well fleshed out.

I mean, it's simple, it's random. You will die eventually. There is a bit of grind to get characters and researched perks unlocked. But it's fast and fun and frenetic, and is really good at what it is.

I chucked $2 to the devs so I could get my first two perks, which went on haste. But you're not locked into them, you can rebuild your starting perks to whatever. But movement speed is very important in a game about running away from stuff. So is the Shield spell. But so are a lot of things like cast speed, etc. It can be entirely free-to-play, but the haste perk makes it easy.

Anyway, give it a go. It's a nice little adrenaline surge and is very well done for the simplicity of concept. It's not deep by any means, but it's great for public transport trips or lunch breaks (I've only lasted about 20mins so far, though some have gotten up to an hour. I doubt I will for a while)
« Last Edit: March 06, 2021, 11:16:01 pm by sambojin »
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hops

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Re: Pocket games thread
« Reply #729 on: March 06, 2021, 11:01:09 pm »

I tried out Cultist Simulator on iOS and I'd say that on a tablet, it's actually better to play than on PC. Of course, then you can't mod it or hack it, but I don't think anybody has made any relevant mods for the game anyways. Not being able to hack it might be a bit more annoying in Alexis Kennedy's games, but I'm managing so far and haven't been killed by bad luck yet and never needed to use a cheat.

And I guess if you're jailbroken then you could hack it anyways.
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Re: Pocket games thread
« Reply #730 on: March 07, 2021, 12:20:38 pm »

Downloaded Magic Survival last night. It's a pretty casual, one handed top-down survive-as-long-as-you-can shooter, kinda like all those "run away from the zombies/ninjas" games you see. Except this one is quite good.
Will second this one, been playing occasionally the last week or so (though interrupted by hurting my dominate hand wrist, which makes touch screen nonsense... troublesome). It's pretty neat.

... also the enemies are totally just tumbleweeds. Not... viruses or zombies or whatever. Malignant magic tumbleweeds, out for your flesh. It adds a pleasing bit of absurdity to the whole presentation, heh.
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Re: Pocket games thread
« Reply #731 on: March 20, 2021, 09:52:55 pm »

Got up to 61:16 on Sewers with an afk run as an unmastered Shaman. Actually got my mastery from it. But I've got most masteries that I actually want, the rest is just grind.

Got plenty of research (all the big ones doubled, and some quality of life floating ones as well).

I think I might be just about done with the game. I'll crank through the remaining levels over the next few days and put it down for a bit. Hopefully there'll be more content soon.
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Re: Pocket games thread
« Reply #732 on: April 10, 2021, 08:07:25 am »

Played a bit more of Otherworld Legends, but on Hard this time (now I finished it once). It is a bit harder.

Still can't quite beat Asura (the basic boss after a three world run), but I've gotten close. First phase down, anyway.

The game has had heaps of updates. New items, new skills. Still using bow-chick with all the rapid-fire, or magic-girl with all the blizzards. Nice that you can buy new weapons for gold now, and they're pretty varied each run. So you can build towards something that works far more easily now. It's pretty reasonable to buy a new weapon, try and upgrade it, and sell the old one. Or just keep using it and sell the new "didn't quite get what you wanted" one, if the old one was really good anyway. It gives you a chance to build towards actual upgrades or playstyles, without it being a huge loss if it doesn't work out perfectly. It is RNG, but not painful. I kinda like how Chillyroom does that in this game.

Pro-tip: almost always kill the first or second shopkeeper. In fact, he'd have to be selling really bad items, like all three of them, to not kill the first one you meet. At worst, you're not-killing the first one for a re-roll on store stocks for the second one's death and thievery from them. You'll need that gold for weapons or bribes anyway. So three bad items that are free is better than paying for any particularly good item.
They'd have to be a terrible set of items, or you would have to be underpowered as hell, to not splat the poor bastard the first (maybe second, but no later) time you see him.
Sorry bro, it's just roguelite business. If I don't have that for free, how will I know where this run is going?
« Last Edit: April 10, 2021, 08:16:06 am by sambojin »
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Re: Pocket games thread
« Reply #733 on: April 10, 2021, 08:45:11 am »

Played a bit more of Otherworld Legends, but on Hard this time (now I finished it once). It is a bit harder.

Still can't quite beat Asura (the basic boss after a three world run), but I've gotten close. First phase down, anyway.

The game has had heaps of updates. New items, new skills. Still using bow-chick with all the rapid-fire, or magic-girl with all the blizzards. Nice that you can buy new weapons for gold now, and they're pretty varied each run. So you can build towards something that works far more easily now. It's pretty reasonable to buy a new weapon, try and upgrade it, and sell the old one. Or just keep using it and sell the new "didn't quite get what you wanted" one, if the old one was really good anyway. It gives you a chance to build towards actual upgrades or playstyles, without it being a huge loss if it doesn't work out perfectly. It is RNG, but not painful. I kinda like how Chillyroom does that in this game.

Pro-tip: almost always kill the first or second shopkeeper. In fact, he'd have to be selling really bad items, like all three of them, to not kill the first one you meet. At worst, you're not-killing the first one for a re-roll on store stocks for the second one's death and thievery from them. You'll need that gold for weapons or bribes anyway. So three bad items that are free is better than paying for any particularly good item.
They'd have to be a terrible set of items, or you would have to be underpowered as hell, to not splat the poor bastard the first (maybe second, but no later) time you see him.
Sorry bro, it's just roguelite business. If I don't have that for free, how will I know where this run is going?

I remember killing or robbing merchants being a time-honored roguelike tradition.
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sambojin

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Re: Pocket games thread
« Reply #734 on: April 23, 2021, 10:36:29 pm »

Played a fair bit of Angelsaga this week. Essentially it's one of those single-stick auto-aim stop-n-go shooters, like Archero or Tank Hero. You can't fire while you're moving, but you have to move to dodge, so that's the essential trade-off.

It's not bad.

Nice quick levels split into four screens and then a boss level, with each world (of which there's ten) having a "choose a path" thing, so if you want to make your journey to the main boss harder or easier, you can. It does have a stamina system, but it's pretty relaxed, giving you an hour or three of gameplay at any time, enough to finish a world or four at least. And you get a stamina refresh at each player level up, so you'll have heaps (I'm about level 22, and I haven't felt like I was ever in danger of running out). Enemies and bosses are quite varied, with standard pallette swapping with different attacks for harder ones, but they'll keep you on your toes. Controls are tight, though the isometric view takes a bit of getting used to. Sound is pretty good. Graphics are cutesy but good. Story is "meh", and is pretty obvious where it's going. Enemy projectiles are mostly pretty obvious too, which is a good thing, so you can dodge the right things, not your own bullet swarms. It's honestly nice to play a game where you tend to have about as much firepower as the bosses, but can still differentiate between your storm and theirs. Just the right level of "I kick arse" by the end of a world to give you your power fantasy, but still give you choice on the way there (you'll mostly end up pretty similar on each run, but it's hard to complain about blowing up entire screens worth of stuff).

There's a pretty comprehensive perk and equipment system, and I tend to feel that this makes it more enjoyable to play (even though this sort of game can feel pretty "samey" after a while). Levelling your sub-skill perks makes them drastically more useful, though you actually have to pick the perk on level up for it to do anything. But they really do make a huge difference. Reflect-off-walls going from 1 to 3 bounces is pretty huge, for instance, especially with piercing shots doing the same.

Your equipment can also come with perks, so it doesn't feel like such a chore at the start of each run with the right setup. And you do get a fair bit of equipment within the first few days. I can start with 5-way chaining shots, or homing piercing shots for instance. You're mostly limited by playtime by what you can do, which isn't bad for a gatcha'ish system. You can combine three bits of lower tier equipment into higher tier, keeping the chosen one's perks to upgrade, so you actually can end up with what you want. It's kind of semi-controllable gacha.

The cool down spells are nicely varied, with Blizzards/ Airstrikes/ Magma Bombs/ Black holes, etc, all with varying levels of usefulness. They can all be levelled up as well. Every fourth level gets you a super perk, which makes quite a difference. Double Mega Fire balls, huge Frost Novas, massive Magic Missile swarms, there's tonnes to play around with.
(my only gripe with the system is that once you've levelled a few up to level 4, you'll probably always pick them when they come up when you level, because they're better than anything else on offer. Which gives very similar builds each run, which is a pity, because there's plenty to try out. But lvl4 double Mega Fire happens to be super reliable and damaging, so most others never get picked over that. You never feel bad for trying out stuff, just not optimized....)

And the best part is, all your upgrades can be refunded for free or for pretty cheap (the first three on good equipment are free, are always free for bad equipment, and are only 100 gems after that). Spells can be reset for the same cost. And sub-skill perks are a choice of three to upgrade, so you'll mostly get something good (you'll want most things upgraded eventually anyway). It's fairly forgiving, so you never feel like you really messed up while you're just learning.

Difficulty curve is ok. I'm kinda flattening most stuff after playing for about 12 hrs over 7 days, but you never quite feel OP. Even with vampirism and chaining shots and a ridiculous amount of attack/armour/HP, I've still got to be careful on hard (up to world 4 or so), so yeah. It's nice. Progress is easy, but you certainly can't afk it.

Anyway, try it out. As games of this genre go, this one is really quite good. Long-term enough play to sink a bit of time into, but simple to just log-in, grab some freebies, do some sweeps, and leave it be for the day. I'm still free-to-play so far, and I've got 3/4 bits of legendary equipment, 2 pets, and most of my sub-skills levelled, so it's not "super grindy" or paywall'y like some. My only real gripe is that it's in landscape mode, not portrait, so you still need to use two hands to play it on a big phone.

Pro-tip: Level your sub-skills ASAP. They're over on the top-right under Skills, next to all the cool-down spells. When levelling your sub-skills, always prioritize anything to do with your regular attack. Double shot, Split, Reflect, Pierce, Consecutive Shot, things like that. It makes any level-up be like 2-3 levels worth. You do most of your damage with regular attacks in this game, cool-down spells are bonus extras (although some are really good too, most are just ok'ish). Your equipment sub-skills also run off this, so if you have Split and Double levelled, and have that on your equipment, you will start off firing 7 bullets instead of one, and Reflect or Pierce are probably only a level or two away. And then you'll be filling the entire screen with bullets by the 4th screen of any mission. Which is nice :)
« Last Edit: April 23, 2021, 11:31:42 pm by sambojin »
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