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[JimboM12]

A new phone game has appeared that has me addicted, Star Wars Force Arena.

Its a surprisingly good deck-to-mobs (you build a deck of cards that can be deployed as battlefield units) MOBA for mobiles based in Star Wars. I had this idea way back when and its good to see it done.

Its also free, with acceptable timegates for free players.

I also made a guild, just cuz, called EliteNoobery.

[Reelya]

There are definitely *_Mobile_Games_Industry_Forces_* in effect with Alphabear, but I've ignored them mostly because of why I play.  There's an energy timer (40/hr, iirc); once full (120), it'll let you play one timed (50) and one untimed board (70). 

There are multiple reasons why mobile games have energy bars and the like. One reason is that without them, people binge on it, then either get bored quickly, or they've seen all the content, then on to the next game, then your game gets buried in the app stores because it has a low averaged number of users per week (the metric is how many people played your game per week or something similar, not how many hours they played. So if you can make it so that people only get to play so much per day, then they'll be around longer). So games with timers that make you take breaks, this pushes the game up the rankings, extends out the play experience for more people, and gives them time to produce more content before you've binged the current content. A very small number of people will pay for extra turns now and then, and they finance the whole thing.

Having to take a break from playing a specific game because you ran out of energy isn't much of an opportunity cost (just do something else) compared to how much extra content each game can generate because of that model.

Overall, you should consider games that are both free and don't have any timers or any other "mobile game" type management built into them on them. They tend to feel very sparse as they lack content.

[Frumple]

... extra content is only so compelling when it takes like a month realtime to see any of it, ehehe. I haven't really sunk into mobile games, much, but I've poked at a few dozen and... timers usually just mean I binge for however long the initial glut lasts and the uninstall the thing 'cause I ain't waiting a week to see the next layer of whatever. Functionally ain't a difference between a game with sparse content you burn through in a day and a game with profuse content you only see a day's worth of, yeh?

Totes is a potentially pretty substantial opportunity cost, though, having to stop and do something else. Not all time is equal. Sometimes only being able to put in, say, an hour in a day means the player is only going to be able to touch the thing once every four or five days at most. Ain't met too many folks in my life that's going to put up with that, in most cases. Game'd have to be a hell of lot more unique and well made than almost any of the sorts of game that uses timers/energy have managed to date to pull something like that off, heh.

[JimboM12]

A new phone game has appeared that has me addicted, Star Wars Force Arena.

Its a surprisingly good deck-to-mobs (you build a deck of cards that can be deployed as battlefield units) MOBA for mobiles based in Star Wars. I had this idea way back when and its good to see it done.

Its also free, with acceptable timegates for free players.

I also made a guild, just cuz, called EliteNoobery.

I should mention the timegate's only for new cards and unlocks; matches arent limited in anyway, so far as ive binged.

[Reelya]

... extra content is only so compelling when it takes like a month realtime to see any of it, ehehe. I haven't really sunk into mobile games, much, but I've poked at a few dozen and... timers usually just mean I binge for however long the initial glut lasts and the uninstall the thing 'cause I ain't waiting a week to see the next layer of whatever. Functionally ain't a difference between a game with sparse content you burn through in a day and a game with profuse content you only see a day's worth of, yeh?

Totes is a potentially pretty substantial opportunity cost, though, having to stop and do something else. Not all time is equal. Sometimes only being able to put in, say, an hour in a day means the player is only going to be able to touch the thing once every four or five days at most. Ain't met too many folks in my life that's going to put up with that, in most cases. Game'd have to be a hell of lot more unique and well made than almost any of the sorts of game that uses timers/energy have managed to date to pull something like that off, heh.

It's just the economics of the thing. A free game that you just play through once is going to be a case of "you get what you pay for", and it won't get updates either because it'll sink really fast. In other words, games like you want that are free will be ones you won't want to binge through, because there will be no content there to actually binge. The payment models they use are responsible for their being any content in the first place.

It's one of those "pick 2/3" scenarios: "Free game", "no limitations", "lots of content": pick two.

So that's probably why people are saying there are no good mobile games that match their requirements (i.e. free shit). They're just not economically viable.

[Wiles]

I tried the Star Wars Forced arena game. It's pretty neat and I think I'd like it a lot if it didn't have your typical shitty mobile game business model. It's pretty much a clone of games like Clash Royale with the added twist of being able to control a leader character directly which I think makes the game much better.

[JimboM12]

Yeah, its a strange combo of one of those "deploy units and watch" style games and a 1v1 or 2v2 MOBA with Star Wars heroes and villains. It works much better than most other f2p games I've downloaded in the past tho. The freemium time gates are within acceptable levels of bullshit for a game I can play and have actual fun with while I wait in lobbies for interviews and such.

[Wiles]

I guess it's a bit above the kind of bullishit I'm willing to put up with. You win a game, you get a pack, cool right? Oh but you have to wait 4-8 hours to open said pack. That kind of sucks, but I can live with that. You can store up to 5 packs from winning games, but you can only open one pack at a time. That wouldn't be so terrible if you didn't have to log in every time a pack is ready to be open so you can press a button to start the process of the next pack unlocking. It's designed to be annoying as possible to make you want to spend your premium currency to expedite the process.

The other problem I have with competitive games like this is that skill will only get you so far. Take a game like DOTA2 for example, if you're a skillful player you'll rank up to the point where you are playing with equally skilled players. In a game like this however you rank up until you hit a progression wall where you run into to people who have either spent and ungodly amount of time grinding or they have spent money.

[Jopax]

GrowCastle anyone?

It's kinda hard to explain it shortly but the closest I can think of is a weird combo of tower defense and a clicker game I guess. You have your town/castle and you upgrade the defenses and hire units to fight while you turn away wave after wave of enemies, it's fairly simplistic in terms of controls where you tap units to activate their abilities and you mainly manage cooldowns and mana. Where it gets interesting is the metamap of conquering areas for extra income or unlocking new classes, upgrades and items. It's also rather nice how the game gradually opens up with more and more stuff as you beat more waves (which is where it's closest to clicker games but a bit more involved I guess) and upgrade certain buildings. Best of all I think is how they handle the monetisation, there's premium currency of sorts which is used for faster advancement trough waves and special upgrades but you get it at a steady pace and so it's not a big issue. There's ads but those are rather minimal and non-intrusive so you barely notice them for the most part, and of course there's the regular watch a video to get a bonus thing that everyone seems to be doing these days. The translation is a bit rough at times and the game is suprisingly demanding on the battery for such simple graphics but other than that it's a pretty fun little timewaster that you can play on the side or focus a bit more on if you want to.

[Aoi]

Alien Path

Staring with the cons:
Energy based system, though after 3 hours, I've only run out twice so far. You can also view an ad to get enough energy for about one more stage.
Lots of different currencies, some of which can be bought for real money.
A bit of RNG.
A real headache to minimax, due to a finicky minigame. And RNG.
A lot of optional ads.
So basically, the typical cons of your F2P micropay mobile game.

Now that everybody who's liable to be scared off is gone... It's basically a puzzle game where your unit moves on a grid from its current position until obstructed, passing over tiles that have various effects, and your objective is to kill all hostile units on the board. After your move, the hostiles all attack and move. The trick is to figure out how arrange the board in such a fashion that you get the most benefit out of it-- since you move until you're obstructed, and there are tiles that adjust your movement, and you move through units you kill, you can hypothetically clear the entire board in one go. (Often impossible, due to RNG or lack of stats, but all the stages I've seen so far have the bonus turncounter set high enough that if you can kill one per round, you're good.)

You have a few card slots that have activated abilities for mana (well, lets call it that), sometimes passives, and stat boosts. Rare cards tend to have higher stat boosts and more useful passives, but also cost far more to upgrade. Ironically, I find the cheaper active skills to be much more powerful-- I can either hit all four monsters on the board for like 20%, or I can randomize the board three times to try and get a layout where I can one-shot everything, or drop a directional tile right where I need it.

Based on my memory of reviews from years ago, I want to say it's like Chuchu Rocket with stats.

Update 1: Oh, and it's bound to make you feel REALLY stupid. "Okay, if I move right, it'll go up, right, up, left, through the portal, left, up, left, and I'll pass with my last turn. Well, I would've passed if I set that first arrow to up, instead of leaving it to the right..."

Update 2: That's what feels like a pretty nasty difficulty hike at the start of the third world-- which is incidentally right where all the easy new player resources start to dry up, so if you were careless with your upgrades, or just had bad luck and nothing combos well, it goes from "Hey, this is moving along pretty nicely." to "What just happened here?" And, of course, stages are 'soft' failures, so you can just keep throwing money at it until you pass...

[Ghills]

Just got Reigns, and I'm loving it.  It's a bit random and not nearly as good as King of Dragon Pass, but it's also quick enough that I don't mind when I die horribly.  I can just keep following up with my heir and eventually get to new decisions. 

[Sappho]

GrowCastle anyone?

It's kinda hard to explain it shortly but the closest I can think of is a weird combo of tower defense and a clicker game I guess. You have your town/castle and you upgrade the defenses and hire units to fight while you turn away wave after wave of enemies, it's fairly simplistic in terms of controls where you tap units to activate their abilities and you mainly manage cooldowns and mana. Where it gets interesting is the metamap of conquering areas for extra income or unlocking new classes, upgrades and items. It's also rather nice how the game gradually opens up with more and more stuff as you beat more waves (which is where it's closest to clicker games but a bit more involved I guess) and upgrade certain buildings. Best of all I think is how they handle the monetisation, there's premium currency of sorts which is used for faster advancement trough waves and special upgrades but you get it at a steady pace and so it's not a big issue. There's ads but those are rather minimal and non-intrusive so you barely notice them for the most part, and of course there's the regular watch a video to get a bonus thing that everyone seems to be doing these days. The translation is a bit rough at times and the game is suprisingly demanding on the battery for such simple graphics but other than that it's a pretty fun little timewaster that you can play on the side or focus a bit more on if you want to.

Ha! Just got this and playing around with it, it's surprisingly fun. Just got my first colony producing gold for me... Muahaha.... And I love watching my giant worm dispatch bosses for me

In other news, I got the mobile version of Evoland as part of a Humble Bundle at some point and DEAR GOD NO, MY TABLET IS NOT A GAMEPAD, OH GOD, DO NOT PLAY THIS. So frustrating to see yet another developer say "just drag your finger across the screen and it works like a D-Pad!" NO IT DOES NOT, IT DOES NOT WORK. Just so, so bad.

[sambojin]

ShooMachi is a nice little bullet-hell vertical shoot'em up on android. I love shoot'em ups, but usually of the Tyrian "nice and easy and customizable" style, so bullet-hells usually scare the crap out of me on mobile. Except this one. This one's great.

It's in the fantasy RPG mould, using weapons instead of guns, you can level-up/grind for more HP/damage, and you can take a few hits without instadeath. No penalty on death either, just re-try from the level you were up to, or from one before it. So yeah. A nice, easy bullet-hell made for people like me

There's no weapons customization (each character has a single weapon set) but there's a few different types of weapon setups available early on. It's got a nice little "the closer you are to the enemy when you kill it, the higher the points you get" thing going on, and these points charge your super weapon, which gives even more firepower and points, which levels you up quicker, so there are some nice risk/reward mechanics at play here.

Graphics are bright and colourful, sound isn't bad, and unlocks of "costumes" (additional stats for each character) are easy enough to get for free with a tiny bit of grinding. Pretty small footprint on your phone too. One handed play is standard, because it's just movement and a double-tap for your super. I never thought a bullet-hell would work so well on a phone, but this one does.

If you've ever wondered just how many sprites your phone can manage onscreen at one time before it slows to a crawl, this'll find that out for you within 10mins. It's a lot, even on a crappy phone like mine. It'll also make you feel like you are an arcade ninja master, even though you're not. A really quality example of the genre, so give it a go for some brain-free shooty dodging fun some time.

No energy system, no paywall, no bullshit. No online requirement either, unless you want to check the scoreboards or get achievements. Just a nice fun little game that you can get good at, or get unbelievably awesome at, if and as you want. I highly recommend it for anyone searching for a decent shoot'em up on mobile. Only real IAP is perma-xp gain/no banner ads, and I'm going to throw the dev the $3.49 Aussie for it, simply because I've never liked bullet-hells on phone before this one (and I've tried a few).



(the hit-box is at your feet, despite where the rest of your character sprite is. I think. Or that little heart thing I just noticed, probably. It's incredibly lenient anyway, which is why I like it. The lvl 10 boss has been the only real difficulty bump so far. Easy is easy'ish, hard is actually hard. It's nice like that. I can finish lvl1 on hard with a lvl20 sorcerer character without an outfit, so it is possible, but it gets pretty friggen insane in later levels. Poor 8mil score, but done )

(it loops after 10 missions, then it gets slightly harder, but nowhere near the easy/normal/hard mode difficulty jump. And you unlock more characters. The magician (the flamethrower one) is great for big scores, the archer is good for the lvl 10 boss, and the sorcerer is great for general progression. I only have the +70 alchemy/0.3%vamp/-1hitbox outfit on the archer (killed the boss at lvl24'ish, so late as, but wasn't trying it "safely" before that. Damn scores....), so it's easy enough to loop within one day with a bit of level grinding on easy. I've got a 159mil score on lvl8 already, so I'm pretty sure the highscore boards are legit considering how hopeless I am at this sort of game, and I've only played it a bit)

("Ever wanted to play a bullet-hell shooter, but you're a white guy with poor reflexes like me? ShooMachi is for you!"
This game seems to have the right difficulty curve, progression and lack of barriers to entry to the genre compared to so many others. It still gives a real sense of accomplishment, but it doesn't drag you all the way back to the beginning, sobbing, when you're just learning a level or stuff up a bit. It doesn't really hold your hand, but it doesn't kick you in the nuts either. You feel like you're getting better at it, and it didn't cost you a cent.)

[sambojin]

But back to my usual thing on phones. Roguelikes/lites. These all deserve more than a quick paragraph, but meh. Try 'em out and give 'em one yourself.

Cardinal Quest 2 is a light hearted little romp through a few areas killing bandits for reasons (haven't quite finished chapter 1, died at boss area) with a nice little stat and cooldown based skill system, a bit of randomish loot and some nice maps. Grabbing whatevers from houses is a Zelda bonus, but it's fun. Simple skill tree, simple items, very Pixel Dungeon-like, but better in many ways. Nice interface, easy enough character unlocks, is fun.


Caves (roguelike) is another goody. It's got a bit of roguelite progression due to you keeping your gold/emeralds and starting item blueprints, a fair amount of customization for your starting character due to choosing stats, items and weapons/armour choices all being available straight away, with further permanent progression available longterm as well. The goal? I'm not sure. Get more gold, more loot, and kill stuff. I like the aesthetic, I like being able to mine out walls to set up strategic areas from the get-go, and I love being able to either invest previous gubbins into a run or be given real options from the start even without this. I'm surprised I don't see more people lauding this as an amazing roguelike.


WazHack is a side scrolling roguelike with great graphics, an easy/complicated interface, and more "normal" roguelike systems. Yep, everything from completely unidentified potions/scrolls/weapons/armour/gems, right down to the floor level 2 cursed Amulet of Strangulation (and you not bothering to pet-check it first). It's semi-shareware (try it out to 300 foot depth with any character, but it's $1 per character-group "unlock" to actually play the game beyond that. Once unlocked, use those character-types as much as you want), but I've got an idea that this might be worth it for a couple of the more interesting ones to play. Very Nethackish, but with lightsourced 3d'ish graphics all in a 2d side-on perspective. Weird, Waz, but probably wonderful.

[Aoi]

Second on CQ2; love it on tablet, want to throw my phone out the window. It's actually surprisingly consistently winnable, which is good because one of the more advanced achievements involves win streaks. I've finished all three chapters with all primary classes at least once, and most of chapter 1 on the higher difficulties... the later bosses have much harder mechanics to work with. If you're using the base fighter, just save your healing pots, keep buff skills, and summon scrolls are consistently very powerful.

I remember WazHack when it was an alpha/beta product... is that 50c per character slot, or PER CHARACTER? Because, well, i have one of the highest death counts in the entire DC:SS competition, two tournaments ago...