Mobile Games, Gacha, Android/IOS games

[Finarfin]

Warcraft is dead my guy. These ******* people can't help themselves and will now add a Pride Event into the game.

https://www.wowhead.com/news/darkspear- ... 0-5-380974

[anvi]

I hate mobiles, I have an android and all the apps want you to accept data sharing with "3rd party partners". You can click no to the main company itself but there is a link hiding which has 3rd party partners... The only way to stop that it to tap it and then go through a huge list of shitlord phony companies and tap each one... I stopped using it after that for anything other than phone or texts. Also I think mobiles were just a way to get an explosive device in the pocket of every goy.

[ManjuShri]

Is there a turtle-approved list of mobile games that are good/acceptable?

I can only name:
Slice and Dice
Puzzle Quest 3
Dungeon RPG Abyssal Dystopia
Wizardry Variants Daphne
Mahjong Soul

[rusty_shackleford]

Is there a turtle-approved list of mobile games that are good/acceptable?

I can only name:
Slice and Dice
Puzzle Quest 3
Dungeon RPG Abyssal Dystopia
Wizardry Variants Daphne

If I were forced to play mobile games I'd probably just emulate stuff, likely some dreamcast games I'd want to play or something

[ManjuShri]

Tried playing the free Sonic games, but using the touchscreen is awkward as hell, would definitely have to link a controller.

[yangg]

I can recommend mumu player for PC: works flawless as android emulator and you can customize macro and controls.
Or, if you are determined to play games on mobile you can use that emulator for android that can play ps2 games, NetherSX2 and then the horizon of good games on mobile suddenly expands.

[Kalarion]

Is there a turtle-approved list of mobile games that are good/acceptable?

I can only name:
Slice and Dice
Puzzle Quest 3
Dungeon RPG Abyssal Dystopia
Wizardry Variants Daphne
Mahjong Soul

Occidental Heroes - Dev is a bit of a libtard but the game is great, turn-based low-fantasy hex tiled combat.

Gurk III - fun 80s aesthetic RPG. Highly recommended.

Unknown Knights - real-time roguelike, possibly the only real-time game that I enjoy.

Exiled Kingdoms - Rusty mentioned this already. It's fun as **** but diablo-like on a phone is clunky as hell, I've never finished it. Made by the dev of Archaelund (DavidBVal on the Codex), great guy.

Old SEGA/SE collections - Phantasy Star I-IV, Final Fantasy I-V, Shining Forces, Shining in the Darkness.

King of Dragon Pass.

Heroes of Steel and most other Trese Brothers games - decent popcorn RPGs, not very well suited to mobile imo but fun time-wasters. Devs are woke I think? So I've stopped buying their games.

Questlord - comfy first-person RPG, not deep just fun.

Lowlander - Ultima-like, also not deep just fun.

Punch Club - auto-battler. Fun, silly.

GACHAS - I've played a couple. Mostly Final Fantasies (Mobius, Dissidia Opera Omnia, Brave Exvius and Record Keeper), they're all shut down though I believe. I play a gacha TD called Watcher of Realms right now, it's fine. Don't spend money on them. Played RAID for awhile, got tired of how ridiculously focused absolutely every mechanic is on sucking money out of you. It's a shame because there's potential for a great game in there.

Silversword - Bard's Tale-like. Very fun but incredibly grindy in the end-game.

Lootbox RPG - very fun.

Crowntakers - okayish boardgame roguelike.

Talisman - absolutely fantastic boardgame. Great fun.

Elder Sign - cthulhu mythos boardgame. Also fun.

Final Fantasy Dimensions - deserves to be highlighted. Really great character development system.

Warhammer Quest - Paradox-tier DLC model, but the base game is pretty fun. Turn- and mission-based, not really an RPG. More like a battle simulator.

Dungeoneers Quest - really fun blobber. Was supposed to be expanded/sequel but never got one.

Knights of Pen&Paper - fun and silly little RPG.

Ash - decent RPG, may have been delisted from the store. Was supposed to get a sequel but the devs imploded in some kind of drama (probably ******-related idk).

Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls - very good but difficult to play on mobile.

Endless Nights - RPG by the developer of Loot Box. Fun.

And others throughout the thread. I agree on Slice and Dice and Abyssal Dystopia, they're pretty good. I think I or someone else has mentioned Aetheria, another fun little Wizardry-alike dungeon crawler.

[Demonic Fate]

I can recommend mumu player for PC: works flawless as android emulator and you can customize macro and controls.
Or, if you are determined to play games on mobile you can use that emulator for android that can play ps2 games, NetherSX2 and then the horizon of good games on mobile suddenly expands.

There are also Windows emulators for Android that are now at the "good enough to play 10+ year old games" stage. Wine on Android is roughly where it was on Linux a few years ago, and getting better quickly.

Of course, you need to either carry a controller around with you, or carefully pick games that can be reasonably played via the emulator's touch controls. Turn-based games without too many keyboard shortcuts, stuff like that.

[ManjuShri]

Will any bluetooth controller do?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Is there a turtle-approved list of mobile games that are good/acceptable?

Jet Cars 1 & 2 are great and worth the purchase. You are doing time trial platforming using a car that has a rocket in the back with limited fuel. The game uses the gyroscopic sensors in your phone to act as a steering wheel and as a flight stick when your car is airborne. It can be challenging trying to drive off of a ramp and then control the pitch/yaw/roll of the car and timing when to use your rocket fuel (and for how long) to reach a distant platform at odd angles.

Jet Car Stunts 2 - Out now on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch and Android


There are plenty of other games available on mobile like Granblue Fantasy, Honkai Star Rail, Genshin Impact, etc, but they are best experienced on PC with a larger monitor, better speakers, a keyboard or controller, etc. Jet Cars is the only one I can think of where it's really something you want to experience on mobile.

[rusty_shackleford]

Will any bluetooth controller do?

You'd probably want one that has the little clip for your phone, or maybe they sell those separately, I dunno

[DecadeRiptide]

Will any bluetooth controller do?

I got the GameSir X5 Lite for around £30 off Amazon. Works pretty well for older games imho. The anologue sticks are not great for FPS tho. It's got a Matt black finish and looks and feels really nice. It's not Bluetooth it just connects to your phones usb c port when slotting it in

[yangg]

So Genshin released the area that appears every time you start the game, it seems the game getting closer to some conclusion.

[rusty_shackleford]

it seems the game getting closer to some conclusion.

it will be receiving updates 40 years from now

[Val the Moofia Boss]

So Genshin released the area that appears every time you start the game, it seems the game getting closer to some conclusion.

They announced at the launch of the game six years ago that there would be 7 arcs. We finished arc 6 Natlan a couple years ago and we were supposed to head into the final arc in Sneznhaya for the final confrontation with the Fatui and Celestia, but then last year they did a detour arc to Nod Krai. They are also trying to stall for Sneznahya by waiting out the end of service for the PS4 version of the game, which was holding back what they could make. After Sneznaya, we might see the game transition into a second saga like what happened with HI3rd, FGO, GBF, etc.

Teyvat Chapter Storyline Preview: Travail\uff5cGenshin Impact (Contains spoilers)

[yangg]

Yes, I know they are going beyond, but there has to be a conclusion with Teyvat chapter as seen in preview released at launch.
They are upgrading NPC, gave them unique look here and there, so it seems that they will go full on upgrades in the near future. They are even talking about some playable characters spouses or parents more often (Alice husband mentioned, Jean and Barbara father makes appearance and their mother is also talked about a lot) - again, fandom in shambles which I like.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Yes, I know they are going beyond, but there has to be a conclusion with Teyvat chapter as seen in preview released at launch.
They are upgrading NPC, gave them unique look here and there, so it seems that they will go full on upgrades in the near future. They are even talking about some playable characters spouses or parents more often (Alice husband mentioned, Jean and Barbara father makes appearance and their mother is also talked about a lot) - again, fandom in shambles which I like.

I am half anticipating that Klee will turn out to be a homunculi rather than Alice's actual blood birthed daughter, like what happened with Rorona's "daughter" in the Atelier series. Every girl has to be available for YOU. The Genshin devs are deep into otakudom, so sane human relationships and progression seems to be beyond them. Varka is so far a one-off.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The long awaited Blade SP - Mortenax Blade - has finally been officially announced after having been leaked a year ago! Slated to release in 4.3 in June. According to the latest leaks, he will be the main advertised unit for this year's 4.X expansion, similar to Phainon and Castorice from last year. They are saying that he has two ultimates and he will be spectacularly animated.

Torn flesh, tempered a thousand times into a blade... what kind of answer will it forge?

It is interesting that the blurb refers to Blade's earlier life as an apprentice blacksmith under General Huaiyan on the Zhuming. I wonder if he will make Helobi swords like Huaiyan's other apprentice.






As for game mechanics, apparently he will be Nihility (debuffer). Maybe he will have some sort of hammer and anvil theme where he applies a debuff to the enemy which records and stacks damage dealt by the other party members, and then when Blade hits the enemy he detonates it. But maybe that would be too similar to Acheron. If he has two different ultimates, maybe he rotates between them, with one having him craft weapons or armor for the other party members, and the other being his attack.

[yangg]

Those who have original character should have guaranteed pull for alters (if not given free) and alter should be evolved version of standard (switch on/off, not separate playable). With me at helm, all gacha will EoS

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Those who have original character should have guaranteed pull for alters (if not given free) and alter should be evolved version of standard (switch on/off, not separate playable). With me at helm, all gacha will EoS

Gacha companies like Cygames, Hypergryph, Mihoyo, etc all do intensive data tracking and analysis. They have heavily scienced this out and have figured out what works and what doesn't. A lot of gachas have stopped doing R and SRs or 4 star characters, only releasing characters branded as SSRs or 5 stars now. You rotate what kinds of characters you release, ie a cool badass character one month, and then maybe a girl character another month, and then maybe a gimmick character the month after, etc. So that way you can tap into different demographics who want different things, and you do not exhaust any one particular group by releasing multiple badass guys back to back so that the people who are interested in that run out of spending money before their next paycheck. Etc.

Alternate character classes baked into just one character release/unit seems to have been another one of those things that fell along the wayside. HSR experimented with it for March 7th Hunt, and then when they made her Remembrance form they just did it as a new unit rather than something you can toggle on for March like with her Hunt form. Maybe the idea that you have to spend jades on her makes her seem more prestigious and thus sought after/valued by players than if she is made available to everyone for free like with her Hunt version.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

New HSR 4.2 anniversary stream happened.

We finally have a teaser trailer for the HSR anime by Mappa. Still no word if it's a show or a movie.

Honkai: Star Rail x MAPPA Animation Concept Trailer \u2014 \u0022Death in the Afternoon\u0022


They showed off a event where Blade appears to be really far up in front meleeing a boss, and even moving around a bit. It seems that this might be some sort of new experimental real time battle system? With a frontline and backline?




New Castorice outfit. Better than her original design with the bandages.




New Pom Pom outfit




If you spend $200 before June, you will get the Furbo pet.

[Valter]

New HSR 4.2 anniversary stream happened.

We finally have a teaser trailer for the HSR anime by Mappa. Still no word if it's a show or a movie.

Honkai: Star Rail x MAPPA Animation Concept Trailer \u2014 \u0022Death in the Afternoon\u0022


They showed off a event where Blade appears to be really far up in front meleeing a boss, and even moving around a bit. It seems that this might be some sort of new experimental real time battle system? With a frontline and backline?




New Castorice outfit. Better than her original design with the bandages.




New Pom Pom outfit




If you spend $200 before June, you will get the Furbo pet.

is MAPPA the new Ufotable? All the big franchises go and hire it.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

New HSR 4.2 anniversary stream happened.

We finally have a teaser trailer for the HSR anime by Mappa. Still no word if it's a show or a movie.

Honkai: Star Rail x MAPPA Animation Concept Trailer \u2014 \u0022Death in the Afternoon\u0022


They showed off a event where Blade appears to be really far up in front meleeing a boss, and even moving around a bit. It seems that this might be some sort of new experimental real time battle system? With a frontline and backline?




New Castorice outfit. Better than her original design with the bandages.




New Pom Pom outfit




If you spend $200 before June, you will get the Furbo pet.

is MAPPA the new Ufotable? All the big franchises go and hire it.

They were never comparable. Ufotable and Kyoto Animation are the exception in the industry for operating like how Walt Disney Animation Studios used to, with a building and everyone showing up for work there each day every day for years on end. That is not how most anime "studios" work today. The name "studio" is a misnomer. The default is that a studio is really just a producer and some other administrative staff, and then each time the producer tries to get a project off the ground, he has to call up his friends or contract freelancers for the show. This is part of the reason why the anime industry has been in shambles for years with shows taking years to happen and when they do there are massive behind the scenes production issues. Mostly everyone is fighting for the same talent which is booked, scrambling to put out fires, etc.

Mappa is a typical anime "studio" in that they (the executives) try to take on a lot of contracts and do a lot of stuff. Ufotable meanwhile takes it slow and only does what it is capable of, which is why its Genshin Impact anime has been stuck for several years in a queue while they work on finishing Demon Slayer and Fate.

[rusty_shackleford]

Any good non-anime ones yet?

[Finarfin]

No. Seems like everyone else is too incompetent. I just want a cool Arthurian Legends one. Or a 100-year-war one.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Any good non-anime ones yet?

No. RAID Shadowlands is the most well known (due to sponsoring lots of youtubers to advertise it near the start of their video), but it is not well regarded as a quality product. There are a few other cashgrabs like Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes.

The rise of the gacha genre in Asia was artist driven. JRPG and VN studios were dying left and right during the 2000s and early 2010s. The economics of the high cost of production with an aging and dwindling domestic audience base made it increasingly unprofitable and risky to try to produce box purchase games. A lot of the survivors were being squeezed down into the handheld market, but mobile was overtaking it due to unique factors in Japan (people commuting to work via train rather than having to touch the steering wheel of a car, so they have time to look at their phones. Better internet connectivity). The gacha monetization model was safer business wise to go with. At the same time, there was a talent exodus from Square with veterans such as Hideo Minaba, Akihiko Yoshida, Nobuo Uematsu, etc. And the novel industry was dying, but award winning writers were still wanting to write and were willing to try their hand at other avenues. So you had a lot of unemployed talent still around wanting to make games. Mobile was what they had the resources to do. The conditions were there to produce quality gacha games. Gacha games in China were also similarly artist driven, with Hai Mao (Lowlight) being famous from Pixiv Fantasia contests and going on to found Hypergryph to realize his Arknights illustrations as a game.

The West has not had such an artist driven scene for mobile games. You don't see ex-Blizzard or Bioware staff or award winning novelists trying to deliver a quality story via what they can afford to produce via mobile games. You do not see big names on DeviantArt starting their own companies trying to realize their imaginations.

[rusty_shackleford]

Raid Shadow Legends is my favorite game from Israel

[rusty_shackleford]

Just jealous that weebs get to play games with regular content + story updates. Sad.

[Valter]

Just jealous that weebs get to play games with regular content + story updates. Sad.

Careful what you wish for, lest you find yourself grinding an hour of daily quests every day to get your characters high enough level to access the next chapter of the ATOM story.
The timegating/levelgating is probably the aspect repelling me the most from gachas. I wish my weebdev overlords did more offline games with regular DLC updates instead.

[Lhynn]

Just jealous that weebs get to play games with regular content + story updates. Sad.

Careful what you wish for, lest you find yourself grinding an hour of daily quests every day to get your characters high enough level to access the next chapter of the ATOM story.
The timegating/levelgating is probably the aspect repelling me the most from gachas. I wish my weebdev overlords did more offline games with regular DLC updates instead.

Wow, Swtor and other mmos are the most similar thing, with "regular" story content drops.
The thing is that while Asians seem to have some degree of passion of what they put out, they consider lore and characters voices important, and their storytelling is improving by leaps and bounds.
Westerners are too corporatized, they do not give a flying ****, and they will give their properties to any ****** with the right politics.

I was playing WWM last week, doing a quest in the desert. The quest followed the story of a man people called "burlap sack", on his journey through the desert, as he tried to reach some mythical city on the other side of it. The experience was miserable but in a good way, you got to see how weak, how cowardly, how full of regret this old man was as the mystery of what was in the burlap sack was slowly revealed, bit by bit. As he survived encounters by the skin of his teeth, coming into contact with several groups. It was a very humanizing story, a story about regret, about moving on, about searching for a future and celebrating old friends, you suffered alongside Burlap Sack.
It was a small story, not too short, took a few hours, but it was ultra small in scope. But it felt like a period piece, as the story was inspired by items exhibited in their national museum.

Then came another small story, about a bard meeting a girl that pretends to be an immortal fairy. And at first you think the story is going to be about a romance between two young people. But no, it slowly turns into a mystery, and as you solve the mystery it becomes about family, home, and identity. And it is again, ultra small in scope.

Its an anthological storytelling format that is very easy to get into, and shows that these people give a ****.

The west keeps devolving into corporatized ****, or recyling ideas from 30 or 40 years ago, and I cant help but think that the unifying western culture is stagnating, or dying.