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Mobile gaming question I can't answer

cmdrdredd

cmdrdredd

Lifer
I don't play games on my phone but being a gamer I was asked today what some good ones were. Feeling like I should know something (beyond emulators). I thought maybe someone here may have a shortlist of the ones worth looking at I can pass along. I felt it wrong to name angry birds and the stuff everyone knows about.
 
I like Pixel Dungeon (it's free), even though it is super frustrating at times. FIFA 14 is really good if you have a phone with a bigger screen.

KT
 
Most "good" games on mobile (meaning phones, tablets, etc) are flash games that someone made an app for, it seems. Bejeweled Blitz is a decent one. Words with Friends is another well known "great". Hearthstone is a great tablet game if you're into trading card games.

Sadly, the controls just don't translate well into how developers traditionally look at gaming. So, it is either a substandard "pad and buttons" touch placement, swiping to move stuff, or simple "one button for everything" tap anywhere type of games.
 
I can't get into mobile gaming for the most part other than very few games. Monument Valley is a beautiful game which doesn't require much input which is perfect for mobile. I can't for the life of me get into any racing or action games because touch controls suck
 
I know touch controls suck lol. That's why I never do gaming on my phone and have no idea about what might be out there.
 
Chaos Rings 2 was interesting. It's characters and plot premise amused the heck out of me... the gameplay is pretty simple JRPG stuff, but the visuals push the standards of what you normally see on mobile devices, with a nice mixture of painted looking 2D backdrops and 3D character models.
- Just be aware Japanese voice acting, and the Android version used to have a Root check (not sure if it still does).

Other than that, it's mostly trash. I mean, I like games like Robot Unicorn Attack, as a couple minute amusement, but they're not exactly deep games comparable to a console experience.
 
Anyone play baldur's gate enhanced edition? It isn't free, but is it any good?

Just running down a website with a short list and that one happened to be on it.
 
cmdrdredd said:
I know touch controls suck lol. That's why I never do gaming on my phone and have no idea about what might be out there.
Click to expand...

Touch controls only suck because most developers don't really treat it as an entirely new control medium. That's how you get abominations like virtual joysticks.

The Infinity Blade series on iOS is pretty decent. Controls work well. Hard to describe. Sort of a boss rush, on rails type game.

There's also Minecraft and Terraria.
 
It's really all about just finding games that meld well with touch control. Tower defense games are fantastic on smartphones for example.
 
Best example of context sensitive all touch controls I've ever seen is still Zelda Phantom Hourglass on DS. You can practically play the whole game with a stylus and not feel like you are lacking anything vs any Zelda game ever.

Capacitive touch screens and fat fingers really suck for gaming The DS resistive touch panel and pointy stylus are MUCH better than covering your screen with your fingers or having inaccurate touch with moist or dry skin or confused multi touch or lack of feel or placement feedback. Virtual touch controller overlays are the devil.

Seriously though Phantom Hourglass is like the perfect case study for doing touch controls correctly. Why nobody has bothered to attempt to emulate its controls on a phone action adventure game is beyond me.

Things like constant contact to steer and walk in the direction or path you are pointing with walk or run speed determined by distance from character, slashing or stabbing or whirl attack based on quick touch down touch up and whether the motion is radial or perpendicular or circling your character, rolling by looping the stylus while running, single and double tapping, running to objects by tapping and holding, context sensitive eg walk to enemy and attack vs pick up or interact with an object, etc. The furious rubbing mechanic to shake things off you or break out of being dazed or frozen. There is so much you can do with touch screens. PS this is all single touch even.

DS benefits from shoulder buttons but they are optional. You can hold shoulderto go into boomerang mode and trace a path or you can tap the boomerang icon to toggle the same thing though you have to tap again to exit vs releasing the shoulder button. I swear you could write a PhD paper on touch controls using Phantom Hourglass as the golden reference.
 
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hill climb racing is about the only game i play on my mobile, when i have a few mins for it. I also play emulated SNES games on superGNES, but you said that wasnt an option. I also use a moga gamepad for that.
 
smackababy said:
You mean everything you don't like in your simple mind set.

News flash, there were tons of shovel ware before "today".
Click to expand...

There was more and the shovelware of today is actually higher quality than back in the day. There used to be a time when literally everyone made PC games and new games appeared daily. With no reviews, videos, previews, or other info to go by you would buy a game based on the packaging most of the time. Talk about some real garbage back then.
 
exdeath said:
Best example of context sensitive all touch controls I've ever seen is still Zelda Phantom Hourglass on DS. You can practically play the whole game with a stylus and not feel like you are lacking anything vs any Zelda game ever.

Capacitive touch screens and fat fingers really suck for gaming The DS resistive touch panel and pointy stylus are MUCH better than covering your screen with your fingers or having inaccurate touch with moist or dry skin or confused multi touch or lack of feel or placement feedback. Virtual touch controller overlays are the devil.
Click to expand...

My Mom likes to play Candy Crush on her Galaxy Note, and she mostly uses the stylus. It's a good control input for games. Though admittedly, Phantom Hourglass kinda turned me off the first time I played it. Really do have to revisit it.

The problem with touch screens is a lot of game developers try to mimic conventional controls. Touch is better suited for more natural movements. Tapping, swiping, flicking. This is why Angry Birds works so well.

It's worth noting too that some games just don't work well with touch devices. Largely for the same reasons why RTS games don't work well on console. If your game requires a virtual joystick, stop.

The fact that since the screen is now the controller, you have to account for that in the way the game is displayed. Since the person's hands cover up the screen. The best designed touch screen games only need one finger.

The most successful mobile games work to this formula. Puzzle games, building games, RTS games, and adventure games all work very well on touch devices. That's why the medium has so many of them.
 
Well, I found software that lets you use a controller on your phone. Would probably be better suited for a tablet though. Have to try it when I have extra time to mess with it and see how it works on emulators.
 
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