Current state of phonegames

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Well, no reason to feel sad.

We obviously don't know what we're missing, and we seem to be able to have fun with other platforms when it comes to gaming - so we can probably do without this amazing phone/tablet experience with a minimal amount of tears involved.

Exactly, there are plenty of people happily listening to music on 8-track and making calls on rotary phones … so no tears required.

Yup, I'll be the cranky old man enjoying these archaic games on my high-end PC - and I won't know the joys of experiencing brilliant twists on ancient designs on the superior platform meant for the young elite. Woe is me for not getting the free ticket downloads to the infinite cash-shops of the tablet game design paradigm!

Don't pity me, though, as this kind of suffering will earn me a ton of karma points that I can spend in heaven to upgrade my afterlife

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Yup, I'll be the cranky old man enjoying these archaic games on my high-end PC

haha … totally missed out on your (um, thread-appropriate) game-specific reference as I jumped on the overall sentiment being expressed about smartphones and tablets and touch screens and some of the thoughts expressed.

As for the mobile gaming experience I expressed my thoughts above - which can be summed up as 'disappointment'. We can debate the technical merits of these things all day … but I find it hard to debate that the state of mobile gaming is anything but a disappointment.

As for 'how to play', I continue to spend WAY too much on high end PC laptops to run games well … but love it when I can play something like Divinity: Original Sin quite adequately on my 11.6" Macbook Air that barely outweighs my iPad and can go everywhere with me …

I agree that technology that makes experiencing great games more convenient and pleasant is a good thing.

Something like D:OS is the perfect game for a laptop, as it doesn't really benefit from horsepower, large screen or an amazing sound setup. I'd despise it with a touch-screen, though, unless everything about the UI was redesigned from scratch.

That said, I generally sit at my desk when playing, almost no matter what. I've rarely found a reason to use my laptop or tablet for that purpose.

However, for surfing/reading in bed (I do this quite a bit) - or for the rare occasion when I can't have easy access to my desktop, they're a wonderful addition to my arsenal of technology. Pretty much anything that doesn't involve much interaction works well on my tablets. I can't write worth shit on them, though, so I can't participate on forums using a tablet. Well, I can, but it's a major pain.

But there's a reason I invested in both an iPad and a Google Nexus. I'm very happy to own both, no doubt about it.

In fact, I think they're SO good at what they do best - that I see absolutely no reason to imagine them as something they're not

I travel a ton for work, so I find myself downloading and trying out a bunch of them. Battle Hearts Legacy was actually a solid RPG for iOS, but then the end of the game made me want to throw my iPhone out of the plane at 34,000ish feet. On the other hand, there are some really awesome RPG retro ports available - albeit at a premium - like the FF series, FF Tactics, etc. On an unrelated note, there are also some fairly impressive platformers available (Mutant Mudds is one).

One thing that's kind of puzzling to me is why there aren't more turn-based strategy games and RPGs available for mobile devices. I know I'm biased against Real-time combat as I generally don't really care for it, but I think it's definitely worse on touch screens. When I've tried it, real-time combat on my 10" tablet has been really awkward and prone to lots of screw ups because of how imprecise using a touch screen is (some games have a virtual gamepad on screen but they really aren't nearly as comfortable or reliable as using an actual gamepad, or keyboard / mouse for that matter).

But turn-based combat works pretty well with touch screens and I wish there were more options there. Shadowrun Returns on my tablet basically plays exactly like it does on my PC except I'm tapping where to move instead of clicking… Occasionally there are some difficulties getting characters to go to a certain spot that would be a cinch with a mouse, but it's not too bad. I think turn-based combat on a grid would work really well on tablets, but there's basically no games like that on Android AFAIK.

I recently regained a working smartphone and must give thanks to you mr/mrs Toff dungelot is a very nice game thanks for the tip

I would like to post a question has anybody tried: Call of Cthulhu Wasted Land
Since they have an official license from chaosium I´m a bit intrigued

I'm not going to quote everything that I agree with, but DArt's first post pretty much said what I've been thinking for a while.

I expected phone/tablet games to evolve from the Bejewelled games into more enjoyable games with depth. I kept waiting. I thought that maybe it was just taking time for the good ones to be finished. But, they never came. I scroll through the app store every once in a while and it never changes. It's always just a shit simple game that wants me to buy gems so that I don't have to wait to play more of the shit simple game.

Although, I have to admit that I haven't tried Shadow Sun yet (or whatever it's called). That looks like a rare example of a game made by people that would play their own game.

Even game studios that should know better don't try to make a deep game. Instead of releasing a real civ, they give us Civ Rev 2. I would be happy with Civ 2, but I'll never waste my money on a Civ Rev [again].

EDIT: Not that I'm implying you wasted your money, Mike. Haha!

Mobile games can work but the ui must be usabke with one finger i.e dragon quest 8.

This is becoming rediculous.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=905990

Originally Posted by E-phonk

Complete dutch article translated:

37.000 euro of parents money wasted with "free" game

More than 37.000 euro. That's the amount a fifteen year old boy from Antwerp wasted in only a few months time without the knowledge of his mother. The National Commission for gambling sounds the alarm: "On the internet everything is allowed - we need more strict laws and policies"

Robin (not his real name) had been playing Game of War - Fire Age for only a few months. This internet game is freely downloadable. Players have to build an army and a city in order to destroy their opponents camp.

"Robin has been playing video games for years, just like his brothers", his mother says. "But he never played for money, we had no reason to be worried."

What his mother didn't know, was Robin got more and more involved in the world of Game of War. He wanted to do everything for it.

"When I was planning to go on vacation, I asked Robin to install some e-books on my tablet, something I don't know how to do myself", says the woman. "To buy these books I have given him the credit card of my father." And Robin added this credit card to his own iTunes account, the download service of Apple. He discovered he could buy virtual gold within the game using a credit card. This virtual gold made him progress to the game significantly faster. "While you are playing tons of advertisements are displayed, there is even an in-game casino that you can play. You only have to click once to make a purchase and real money is being spent, which was exactly what he did again and again, not knowing how much money he was actually spending as nothing shows what the amount is that you already payed."

This phonegames "business" that's de facto scam has to stop already!
Will someone please finally outlaw it?!

I'm just depressed i don't have such a game on the app store angry birds' candy crush, flappy bird… I missed all the opportunities

The easiest one would have been selling millions of pixel space for advertisements.

It's beyond me why someone would prefer a "free" game where you are constantly nagged and where you constantly have to pay for imaginary things that are worth nothing, rather than a game for a few dollars that is always yours. It's like a video poker machine in a sleazy, smoky bar in a ghetto that doesn't ever give you any prizes. Plastering it with as many cartoon Flash characters as you want doesn't change its diabolical nature one bit. I know I am never playing any free to play game, not now, or ever.

I know I won't ever let my children play with anything on a mobile phone or tablet.

My sister-in-law got socked with a couple thousand iTunes bill when one of her chldren bought a bunch of in-game stuff for an iPad game. Needless to say the iTunes account was "fixed".

I just bought my first smartphone ever before my vacation, so just a few weeks ago. The combination of "dumb"phone and laptop had been sufficient for me. Which means that the wonderful world of android gaming is completely new to me.

The weird thing is that I own more than 50 android games already, mostly as extras from Humble Bundles. I'm downloading Bard's Tale at the moment and will see how it goes. I had already tried The Shivah, and it seemed decent enough.

It's funny how low my curiosity is to try most of those games. Maybe, if I'm bored somewhere in the city.

I have nothing against you people who enjoy your phonegames. This phonegame concept is just not doing anything for me. I use phone for various things, but gaming isn't one of them.

For me this matter is very clear. I can't enjoy gaming when I have to stare small screen. I want to stare big screen, sit in a comfortable chair, hear quality audio and put my hands on keyboard & mouse.

a cold beer nearby is a plus too

Originally Posted by Dez
For me this matter is very clear. I can't enjoy gaming when I have to stare small screen.

Heh. I can sympathize, mostly because my vision got worse and worse during the last years. That's why I see my excursion into phone games as an experiment. I'm already complaining about font sizes on the big screen. I will see how it goes.

Originally Posted by Dez
I have nothing against you people who enjoy your phonegames. This phonegame concept is just not doing anything for me. I use phone for various things, but gaming isn't one of them.

For me this matter is very clear. I can't enjoy gaming when I have to stare small screen. I want to stare big screen, sit in a comfortable chair, hear quality audio and put my hands on keyboard & mouse.

a cold beer nearby is a plus too

a cold beer or four is definitely a plus! haha

yeah, you're really not missing much, especially if you don't count the FF ports. outside of those there isn't much from an RPG quality perspective on iOS/android.

Originally Posted by anakin57
I travel a ton for work, so I find myself downloading and trying out a bunch of them. Battle Hearts Legacy was actually a solid RPG for iOS, but then the end of the game made me want to throw my iPhone out of the plane at 34,000ish feet. On the other hand, there are some really awesome RPG retro ports available - albeit at a premium - like the FF series, FF Tactics, etc. On an unrelated note, there are also some fairly impressive platformers available (Mutant Mudds is one).

Battle Hearts Legacy is a lot of fun for a quick session here and there but I found it a bit to 'light' on content to play it all the way through. If you dig platformers, check out Ark of Sinners Advance it is gorgeous and fun to play if you like MetroidVania types. Selection is getting better and better all the time in my opinion and there are some really good games in addition to the retro ports popping up as you mention. Some of my favorites are:
*Wayward Souls
*Elder Sign: Omens
*WazHack
*100 Rogues
*Spellcraft

Shadow Sun and Rimelands have been really fun but I haven't finished them.

Originally Posted by mprod
I would like to post a question has anybody tried: Call of Cthulhu Wasted Land
Since they have an official license from chaosium I´m a bit intrigued

Thanks for reminding me, I need to re-install and play this one through. From what I remember it was a strategic combat oriented game but it's been awhile. Seems every time I get the urge for some Mythos, I fire up Elder Sign: Omens since I'm absolutely in love with it. I even bought it on Steam so I can play it no matter where I am when the mood strikes

Meanwhile at Konami: