Old-school RuneScape being on mobile makes it the best mobile game of all time
Minecraft is on mobile, and alot if other platforms…
I can’t imagine it runs any good on mobile considering how it struggles on switch
It runs pretty decently on my phone, the Nintendo Switch has more struggling because it has 2013 hardware.
Not a good game. It even consumed all of my mobile data once. /srs
roblox.
the only good mobile game was MCPE, now it’s minecraft bedrock
PPSSPP but its too hard to use the touchscreen controls for most titles.
There are some pretty decent portable controllers out there though (I.e. Turtle Beach Atom). Plus phone brackets for Series S/X controllers and DS4/DS5.
So there are good controller options, touchscreen controls for games designed for physical controls suck.
But carrying around physical controllers isn’t very convenient.
Idk if there are drivers for usb controllers on androids but pixels and the like come with USB 2 adapters so the potential is there.
Yeah my OnePlus 12 came with a USB-C “OTG” adapter as well.
I actually upgraded to it before going on vacation (BOS–>HOU) in April and got the aforementioned Turtle Beach controller with it.
Very much enjoyed playing Chrono Trigger on the flight, if only because I hadn’t figured out how to get Yuzu working on my phone by then.
Thanks, JetBlue, for allowing me to download an emulator and a few roms without paying for wifi.
I’ve plugged an Xbox controller into a phone before and that worked. I’ve not had an iPhone since they moved over to the USBC so I don’t know about that.
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I can’t believe nobody mentioned Vampire Survivors yet? I know it’s a port, but it’s amazing on mobile.
It’s really bizarre how phone gaming’s golden age was before the smartphone era, having buttons helped a lot. Later java ME games and symbian everything were very cool, I still listen to the songs of Asphalt 4 to this day.
Don’t get me wrong there are cool games too after mihoyo started getting ambitious, but they also ported their games to PC and consoles where it’s better to play.
true, i avoid games on my phone because the touchscreen is just the worst possible interface for most games.
phone gaming’s golden age was temple run and jetpack joyride, cmv
the current day phones gaming capability is massively hindered by the shit storm you have to sift through in order to play any of them. Most of which is due to shitty advertisement companies having malicious ads and intrusive practices. It’s basically a hard requirement nowadays to use some sort of DNS blocker for them
I still remember stuff like dead space mobile, those where true, actual games that showed you the potential phones COULD have
now the gaming industry (conventions and everything else to), is now utterly dominated and muddled by the likes of candy crush and genshin impact, its actually sad
How is a giant open world with a cool campaign not impressive for a phone game? Just play it like a regular game instead of doing endgame content, the story’s combat is easy to not force anyone to pull.
Flow Free is easily the best mobile game of all time, maybe the best video game of all time /hj
Uhh, never heard of that game, but Im here for my handjob?
Second!
Hey, I like that game.
Nothing I’m just being hyperbolic for comedic effect
Here is an article if you need more information on the topic:
Some indie mobile games are great (Nameless cat, Zombie catchers (before being aquired by DECA), Simon Tatham’s puzzles, foss fdroid games (Simple Solitare), Cookie clicker, etc.
There’s an insane number of PC ports. You can play Myst or GTA SA.
On the multiplayer side, genshin is very much your traditional MMO, if you like that. You can also play Eve or Hades star.
In terms of a competitive scene for years we had vainglory (forever in our hearts), and now we have LoL wild rift.
Yea but touch screen controls are the worst. I hate using those virtual joysticks
Genshin is more your traditional singleplayer Gacha with MMO elements in my opinion. Also the first successful open-world Gacha so it gets some brownie points for that.
This really upsets me and periodically bums me out. I used to like trawling through the top lists to see the various games that were on mobile. This is back in like 2011-2013. Typically monetization was either a free/premium version split, or an energy system. Now it’s beyond 99% garbage with 99% of the last 1% being ports. The 1 of 1? Slice and Dice, that game rocks.
The hours I’ve sunk into slice and dice! That game rocks!
Yup! I wanted Slay the Spire, but the port is awful and this fills that void.
The port is fantastic, have you used it since the initial round of upsates?
Wait when? The latest experience I had was interminable loading on start and constant save wipes.
When was your experience, and which device? The 2.2+ version has been stable for me. I tried on android phone, tablet, and ipad.
I think I last used it last winter, but looking at the play store it’s had an update since. Already looks like the startup is faster!
The only games I ever have on my phone now are gachas and paid for games.
Also, I agree that Slice and Dice is awesome. I got the itch version which came with both android and linux versions.
Same. I used to play a number of games, and even paid for a few, but the gems are just too hard to find these days.
So now I pretty much never play games on my phone, which does a few things:
- phone battery lasts a lot longer
- my time on my phone is more productive
- I use a lot less data, so I pay less for my plan
- I don’t need flagship phones (not a photographer)
So now I mostly use my phone for:
- phone things (calls and texts)
- audiobooks
- news
- videos - I restrict myself to downloaded videos to help reduce wasted time
I have a Switch and Steam Deck, and quality game selection is much better there anyway.
Inb4 Gaben announces the SteamPhone
That could honestly be cool. If he could get calls and texts to work on SteamOS, I’d probably buy it.
I would bet they add steam phone to the steam deck instead. Would be something new and with everyone just having wireless earbuds it could work.
Yeah, but then your buds die, and you’re either the schmuck holding a steamdeck to the side of gheir head, or the asshole holding their steamdeck an inch in front of their face with their GP on speaker explaining in grim detail the colour of the fluid seeping from their piles…
You can plug in your buds case to charge on your steam deck. I don’t know anyone who regularly encounters that issue though. That’s like saying your phone can die mid call and then you won’t be able to make calls. Like sure, it’s happened to people but by in large everyone always has theirs charged and we didn’t NOT make wireless phones popular because of this one specific scenario.
and then you go through the top paid games just to find… the same top paid games from the last decade. Nothing of value is being created or getting recognition
There could be a vicious cycle where game devs who want to be taken seriously don’t touch mobile games, so as mobile game devs develop skills and experience, they move away from the platform.
Also a lot of the thick frameworks that many devs rely on these days require a lot of computing resources that maybe mobile devices have trouble keeping up with. I could see scenarios where a mobile game is worked on for a while but abandoned due to awful performance in early testing while a similar desktop game doesn’t get killed because it’s being developed on a high end system and later gets optimized to run better on weaker systems.
Though tbh, I have no idea how top phones compare with high end desktops these days and am just assuming that they are way behind, while low end desktops might be more comparable to high end phones for performance.
I’ve not seen hard numbers but it really seems a high end phone is pretty comparable to a low end laptop performance-wise these days. Both do a great job of displaying webpages, playing web video and can kinda crunch through an optimized enough video game at a low enough resolution
I suspect that most of it comes down to passive cooling, most phones dont have active cooling systems like fans so even if it has decent specs its gonna bottleneck rather rapidly.
Slice and dice, magic research (2), Simon tathams puzzle pack, Bart Bontes color series, unciv, pathpix, pirates outlaws…
There isn’t only ports and garbage, you just need to go deeper than the front page (and not ever browse by “free”)
There’s also a good loop hero port
Dicey Dungeons is an example of a game that I think is actually BETTER on mobile (cheaper too). Awesome game, and the touch controls really streamline it.
Slice & Dice is another game that tge mobile version is better than desktop
Duskwood
Good mobile game = ports from PC games and emulators
miHoYo games could be so much more if they are PC/Console games instead of mobile.
The only truly mobile game that I can think of that I can say is good is Pokemon GO, and I don’t even like it but is the only game that truly uses the uniqueness of the mobile plataform as a game feature.
I, for the love of God, cannot play Genshin on mobile. The controls are absolutely garbage. On PC tho, it is really good.
My problem with Genshin is not even that. The game is a mobile first and that limits the mechanics of the game.
If the basic Normal/Hard Hit + 1 skill + ultimate is shit on mobile imagine if they implemented combos like DMC.
It is way deeper than that though, or at least that’s what I think about the endgame content.
Sure, exploration is piss easy, but the Abyss not so much.
Try Wuthering waves, the combat can get a lot more interesting imo
I remember that the game anticheat doesn’t work on linux, if they change that I’ll try it.
Ah that’s a shame, I hope they change it and you get to try it out some day!
Pokemon Go was good enough that I didn’t even mind that it was a NSA plot!
I’m in a closed beta for WalkScape, which is a single-player RPG that uses your pedometer for all game progress. Travel to another location? Chop down trees? Craft a bronze mining pick? Stomp grapes into wine? All of them progress only as you take steps throughout the day. A great little game to check in on now and then, and I feel utilizes the mobile platform well.
That’s a good idea, but it’s hard to work considering that true gamers don;t walk at all. /s
That sounds like the best things I currently use PoGo for. I love chewing through eggs with my daily bike rides
It’s neat, if fairly barebones. You pop open the game, see if you’ve completed your current activity (reached a destination you walked to, finished crafting through your item stack, gathered materials until your bag is full) then designate the next thing you’ll do. But, it’s F2P, ad-free, and the devs are very genuine! There’s another beta wave soon because they’re showing it at Gamescom! https://walkscape.app
Also, it’s more forgiving than POGO since it uses STRICTLY pedometer (step count), so it doesn’t try to see if you were running too fast, changing location, etc.Looks pretty sweet! Thanks!
This looks very promising. Thanks for linking to it here. I hope it gets launched soon.
Seems like a good idea, maybe we’ll have 2 good mobile games than.
I was early into mobile gaming, and it used to be AWESOME! It was a platform oozing with potential. Every game that came out on mobile was excellently crafted…until Candy Crush came out. It literally ruined the whole genre.
I wouldn’t exactly call Doodle Jump the pinnacle of gaming.
Doodle Jump wasn’t the pinnacle of gaming, but everything about it was polished to perfection. The devs really put in the effort and finished the game, which is a rare feeling even in AAA games today.
Perhaps not, but it was definitely fun.
But the potential was there, not a mtx nightmare in 80 percent of games. I would still say that great games like minedustry or better are still possible nowadays
Not being an MTX nightmare should be the bare minimum, not something deserving of praise.
If you play games like monument valley 1 & 2, dadish, 20 minutes till dawn and games similar to that you’ll see how polished mobile games can be.
Edit: Game name correction
Don’t forget World of Goo
