Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

It’s Monday ! ~ Mobile Games

AH ! You expected a follow up after this discussion about the Summer Sale right ? Especially now that Green Man Gaming is doing their own (amazing) Summer Sale. But nope. Cliffhangers are the best and I’m too tired today to continue this interesting discussion (feel free to speak about GMG in your comment though, I’m not the one who will stop you from doing so !)
Today I thought it would be cool to speak of another sort of games I’m playing, Mobile / Tablet games.


SNAAAAAAAKE !

I got my first mobile phone in 1999 (yes, 20 years ago), because I was working away from home and finishing at 1AM, which meant I was coming back home with my small scooter on small road without a single light and anything could have happened to me. It did by the way, I once got a car pushing me on the side, because it’s so nice to do so when you’re in a car. Of course I fell on the floor. Of course the car and a few others didn’t stop, only another guy in motorcycle did and helped me. Can’t tell you how much I thanked my bag for nicely slide on the side as I fell, allowing me to free my left leg and roll above the scooter. I wouldn’t be there to tell you that story otherwise.
BUT LET’S SPEAK ABOUT MOBILE GAME ! YAY ! I had an old Nokia, the one you can change the cover for a YELLOW one (yet, I had the yellow, because everybody else had the other color, so I had the yellow) and since it was costing one arm and a half to send a text or call for help in case of crash, I was mostly using it for playing Snake, because Snake is a great game.

Honorable Mention : Game Boy

But I don’t forget the fact that before that I had this heavy grey thing called Game Boy. Which still works to this day (those stuff are freaking robust) and on which I still have not only Tetris, but also The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Final Fantasy Legend I and II and Pokémon Blue and Yellow. The only Pokémon games I ever owned, don’t ask me the non French Pokémon names after the 101, I have no idea.
Before that I had a NES. And also a Commodore 64, but those were less easy to bring with you, I mean, you could, but you needed a screen and TV at that time weren’t exactly flat.

Evolution

I don’t know for you, but I’m completely amazed by the quality of the games we can find on mobile those days. You can even play the games you had on Playstation, something I couldn’t even imagine at the time. I had a lot of different phones before getting my first iPhone (I never had an Android, only stuff that had one or two games.. And not always even SNAKE), so discovering games (!), in color (!!) like the big classic Candy Crush (which I’m past level 1000….. I think.. checks 1071), was super cool, and I played a lot of the Kings games before realizing that there was a lot more which all requested your money at some point because everything is about money nowadays.

The worst pick pocket virtual are most of the Visual Novel ones where you have to pay a lot for each chapter / route, to the point that you could buy yourself at least 15 VN on your computer with one route unlocked.
Of course there are exception, you can play Cinderella Phenomenon as well as Locked Heart (yes Dicesuki made another VN before Cinderella and it’s also free) on tablet, there are other excellent VN such as Amnesia or Hakuoki which are also available on phone for a cheaper price than on computer, but most of VN will leave you access to one or two chapter, then ask you to wait forever or pay.

Nowadays, I’m mostly playing Final Fantasy : Brave Exvius and AFK Arena.
The first one having a surprisingly amazing story and a lot of characters. Too many characters. Tons of characters. And of course rare ones that are easier to get if you pay money. Though I do find it easy to play those games without the need to invest money in it, the only thing I buy being the Fountain of Lapis which appears once every blue moon in the shop.
AFK Arena is really beautiful and is more strategic than you may think at first sight, but since you don’t have any other control on your characters than launching the Ultimate attack (you can set it in auto), you need to think of the best way to build your party yo beat the crap out of your enemies.


Do you play games on your phone or on your tablet ? If no, why not ? If yes, what sort of games are you playing ? Do you invest money in those games ?

(I apologize for the smallitude of that one post, I’m really tired since 2 weeks and barely manage to stay sitting more than 2 hours in a row. Chronic illness suxx).

Lucky Thirteen

You expected a follow up after this discussion about the Summer Sale right ?

No, not really :D

My first phone was an old Motorola, it even had a little antenna lol. It was like… 18 years ago? My favourite phone brand was always Nokia btw, even though now I have a Sonny phone and loving it (didn’t want a smartphone with Win OS, so no Nokia for me).
Snake ruled! It’s a shame that nowadays, you can’t really find the old Snake anywhere - there are “remakes” that add stuff or polish the graphic or whatever, but it’s just not the same, you know?

As far as mobile games go, I have a mixed opinion. On the one hand, there are a couple of really solid mobile games that are designed as actual games, meant to be played (imagine that!). On the other hand, there’s a lot of blatant cashgrabs that are designed to be payed for and that sucks big time. It creates this stigma that all mobile games are and always will be horrible, even though that’s not always the case.
Like with Diablo Immortal recently, people were hating on it automatically right from the start because “mobile games are shit”, I found that quite upsetting. If it turns out to be an awful cashgrab, then I’ll be among the first to be vocal about it, but until then? Give it the benefit of the doubt, might as well turn out fine. Might not, but we’ll see.

Trent

Diablo Immortal ? Wha? <runs off to Google>

Edit: Oh, that vaguely rings a bell. Looks like it’s basically multiplayer only, so pass.

Cece09

Currently I own high school story and disney magic kingdom. I dont know how much I put into both but way over £100 between them. I used to do the vn on phone but you are so right. You get 1 chapter then next thing you know please pay so much money for the rest of the route which actually only accounts for 1-2 hours worth of reading. Its why I loved when dogenska labs came to steam since it was finally my chance to read them

robilar5500

I typically play HoG’s and the more puzzle/escape room style games along with a few choose your own adventures as well on my Kindle Fire or my phone. I just bought the fourth game in the Room series for my phone (the Old Sins), so I’ll end up playing that pretty soon. Generally speaking, I only download them if they are part of the Amazon Underground program though (devs aren’t allowed to have MTX or what have you for games added to that program). Or if I buy them outright, although that is rare. The Room series is notable, but also Monument Valley was quite the stand out. HoG’s, by and large don’t deviate from certain basic design choices, so it’s really more about the story for those, which I find to be hit or miss. The Go games are also decent for tablets I think (Lara Croft, Hitman, etc…).

Although, if you download the Humble app, it does open up your non MTX gaming pool quite a bit on tablet or phones as well.

I do also own both a couple Vitas and a Switch as well. Obviously your options open up with both even though the Vita is largely just for VN’s these days. :)

Amitte

Hmm… I’m not sure if I recall correctly, but my first phone was this Hello Kitty model. Got it around 2008, I think? And I’m not a Sanrio buff, but aside from that one, I only ever heard of one other Hello Kitty phone, and that was when smartphones already became a thing. Didn’t get that one though, now I’m just perfectly fine with a plain-looking phone.

I couldn’t agree more about mobile visual novels. What is the point of reading them on your phone if you spend more time gathering currency to dedicate more than two minutes at a time to read “chapters”… or even worse, spend actual money to get to them faster? Even the worst VNs are just that tiny bit better if they end up on PC or any game console, because that gets rid of this awful pay-to-play system.

There were at two VN/clicker game hybrids I downloaded and played to completion back in the day and I really loved them, because they weren’t forcing me to pay or wait for anything (and as long as I played them offline, they didn’t show any ads either), but now the developer seems to have removed all the games that were documented on VNDB, which sucks :/

That being said, I am still playing Cheritz’s Mystic Messenger, which is probably as good as you’re going to get when it comes to mobile-only VNs… but it has its flaws too. The wait for progression is split evenly between the player and the game, but if you want to read all the segments, you’re gonna have to be awake through the night as well (some people went around that by changing the time on their phones, and the moment I realized I could have done just that, Cheritz decided to ban the accounts practicing this method and it caused a small ripple in the community). There’s some content that wasn’t available when the game first launched and I find it really unnecessary and total fan-pandering, but I still didn’t get through the main storyline, so whenever I feel ready for said content, I pray I’ll find it less annoying. And last, but not least… well, the huge design change was something I got used to, but I still can’t get over how much more of a pay-to-play the game has become. Wanna skip the common route you’ve read three times already? Sure, but only if you pay. Wanna save your game to be able to load it later, on another phone? Sure, but pay us. Wanna do this other thing we didn’t even think of yet? Sure, but… You get what I mean. On one hand I’m glad it’s not like all the other mobile VNs with weird dress up elements and such (or even that it doesn’t make you pay for your choices, their new game does that so I didn’t even toy with it a lot), but on the other hand, even though I haven’t played either of their PC VNs, I still wish they just came out with another one instead of just focusing on this one… but I guess the moment a company discovers an opportunity on the mobile platforms, it’s lost forever. (Even though I can’t imagine where that mobile following is? In 10 y/o kids who can barely speak English?)

Trent

Aw, that phone is so cute. Don’t let my daughter see it…she’s only 7 but already thinks she needs a phone. Although tbh I don’t know if she even knows what Hello Kitty is.

Amitte

Oh yeah, it really is! Don’t worry though… that model should be out of stock for ages now. :/ Though if I got it around 2008, that would make me 7 y/o… which would be wrong, now that I think about it… I feel like I might not have gotten that phone until I was 9? Time is complicated. Anyway, Hello Kitty has some cute cartoons, I think. Although maybe I’ll sound like a grandma talking about showing them to her… if she wants a phone now, what will she want next year? Kids change so fast, man. I barely turned 18 this year and I already feel old talking about kids.

Trent

Heh, well there’s no chance she’s getting a phone this year OR next, so I guess we can wait and see how phones evolve further. :)

Amitte

I know for a fact there was a Hello Kitty smartphone available somewhere recently, because it was even advertised, but yeah, phones sure evolve fast. Recently I compared my current phone to my first smartphone and believe me when I say that the one I currently use turned out to be literally twice the size of my first one! It’s crazy :o

Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

Tell her that Hello Kitty is made by the same people who also make Aggressive Retsuko x)

Trent

I have no idea what Aggressive Retsuko is and I have to think that neither does she. But maybe not?

Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

You can watch that on Netflix, but it’s more for adults, it’s just funny how cute the characters are while being so adult.

Trent

I haven’t owned a phone capable of actual games until last November. I had a bunch of games from previous Humble Bundles that provided an Android version, so I installed a few of them. I’ve played two of them– Message Quest which was on my Steam wishlist until I got it for free on Android, and Deep Dungeons of Doom. My kids have also played Plants vs. Zombies on my phone.

But that’s it. I’m not really a mobile gamer. I had to look up what MTX stood for. :p

Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

Thanks Trent, I didn’t know what MTX stood for either, viva acronyms (I hate acronyms, that and idioms are my personal plague as non native speaker).
There are also other nice things you can do with a phone, for example you can read books, with Amazon Kindle or simply by installing them if you have epub or pdf on your computer available, there are also really nice free comics to read on Webtoon and content for kids can be found easily as well both as game and reading.
Lately I’m also trying audiobooks and also an app called “Hooked” which is a short story app which tries to keep people who dislike / aren’t used to read by giving access to cool and mysterious stories that you read like you’re reading text messages.
And yeah, none of that are games, but I didn’t have a phone with game for really long as well, so I tested a lot of things and still like to have my phone to read when I’m too tired to carry even my ebook reader !

Forsaken

I’m only here to say that I enjoy reading your contents. Thanks for making the feed interesting and enjoyable. Sorry for not adding anything to the discussion.

Amitte

I’m not Ylthin, but hey, that’s a really nice comment! Your name reminds me of this Lenor.

Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

Thank you Lenor, you have no idea how much I needed that after reading a few other stuff that dragged me down so much that I considered stopping any update as I came to cry like an idiot after reading some things that felt a little too personal.
It’s ok if you have nothing specific to say, if it made you smile or gave you even one minute of positive feeling, this is already perfect ♥ .

Trent

Lenor is the best. We all miss her.

Deleted

This comment was deleted over 4 years ago.

Forsaken

What you said is only one of the reasons why I quit writing updates or generally replying to any posts here so I can find it a bit relatable.

I merely wanted to write what I did because I wanted you to know that even though I don’t reply, I read your stuff and really enjoy them. I hardly checked the feed before. But then I noticed one of your posts and now I check it somewhat frequently to see if you have a new update published.

I’m quite glad my reply meant something to you.

vigor

I have 10€ in android as budget (some survey rewards) and haven’t found something worth to buy for that money.

Now, I’m more into programming than games(playing them) so I’ve been searching for something that I can afford with that related to english grammar (like grammarly, too expensive) or something for Python.

I used to play mobile games ( a lot), those free to play but play to win games, with a maximum investment of 5€ for VIP status, but got out of the bubble and unistalled for good. Now that I have PC I play mobile no more. Only use it for netflix and news while a coffee or long travels.

Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

Did you have a look to that website called Alternative To ? I did a quick check for Grammarly and found a few that may help you, I remember having used Druide Antidote for some time, which does both French and English but I’m unsure it’s what you’re looking for.
If you had $20 I would tell you to buy my favorite game Valkyrie Profile : Lenneth but I’m biased, it’s the game with which I learned English and I love it to bits.