Android Games Catch-All

SpaceChem is now on Android! Let the brain melting begin! I really love this one and the touch interface is just perfect on my TFPrime. Highly recomended, I am already through the first 4 worlds.

Cool, I'll have to see if I can get the wife into it now that she has my tablet. I've really been enjoying it on my iPad.

Nice writeup, Ken. I'd suggest checking out Neuroshima Hex as another tbs game.

If you need a good dosbox emulator I recommend anDosBox (I haven't checked if someone recommended it) . It's 4 $ but I think it worth it because it works well , and it's frequently updated . The controls are also easy to get used to. I played XCOM1 (got 3 avengers on my phone's game), Warlords 1, and recently Dungeon Hack. It can run Master of Magic smoothly but I don't have the patience to play it.

So if you don't have the patience for games getting ported to android you can just play old classics. You should edit the config file and raise the cycles to 10000-20000 ( I think 10000 is enough).

Thanks for the writeup BadKen. If Great Little War Game is anything like Advance Wars, I am going to have to get it.

I just recently got an Android phone, so I thought I'd drop a note here with the games I've been having fun with.

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Angry Birds - I don't think I need to expound on this one. Try it on your Chrome browser in the unlikely event you haven't played it yet.

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Dungeon Village - a Kairosoft (developer of Game Dev Story) game. Build a village to support adventurers that kill monsters in the areas around the village. I'm not entirely sold on this one yet, but it does have a lot going for it. Adorable character and monster graphics, interesting dungeon crawl progress indicator, a TON of buildings, landscaping, events you can hold for your adventurers, and equipment you can give to them as gifts to keep them happy.

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Galcon - A fun action game of sending ships to take over planets which in turn produce more ships for you. If you get this, buy the original - there are a zillion clones out there and they all suck.

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Great Little War Game - A game with the soul of my favorite turn-based tactics game, Advance Wars. Great personality, animations and unit designs. There's an expansion available, too.

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Majesty, the Fantasy Kingdom Sim - Yes, this is the same Majesty as the Paradox PC game, and it plays almost the same. A few minor sounds and visuals didn't make the cut to mobile, but the core gameplay is there. If you never played Majesty, it's a real-time game in which you build up a town and train heroes, but you don't control them. You set rewards to lure them out into the wilds to explore, wipe out monster dens and gather treasure and gold, which they come back and spend in your shops.

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Osmos HD - The ultimate chill-out game. Also on XBLA and PC. You are an amorphous blob suspended in a viscous fluid, propelled by taps on the screen. You absorb smaller blobs, avoid traps and navigate tricky areas. Very addictive and with a nice relaxing soundtrack, too. (Headphones recommended).

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Squids - Squids is sort of like Angry Birds underwater with added RPG character development and gear. It's got a lot of personality - in some cases a little too much personality for me. The gameplay is relatively simple, but there's a lot of depth to the character development.

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Townsmen 6 - This is a very Settlers-like game, in which you build a town and assign your Townies to various jobs in order to satisfy the requirements of the area. There's a meta-game played on a map of France, and the setting is a light hearted version of the French Revolution, in which you gradually make your way to Paris so you can behead the king. Whee!

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UniWar HD - A turn-based strategy game with online cross-platform multiplayer. Three factions - Sapiens, Khraleans and Titans battle it out. Those three factions have themes quite similar to another three-faction sci-fi strategy game you may have played... I probably will never play the multiplayer, but I like what I've seen so far.

That's a great write-up, BadKen -- a lot of those I have already, but I'll definitely have to check out the others. Galcon was one of the very first games I bought as soon as the port came out in 2010, and it's still my go-to game when I have a couple of minutes to burn.

Right now I'm digging Cthulhu Saves The World, an old-school console RPG with a hilarious premise and some great dialogue. The Android port isn't brilliant, but it works well enough (after the most recent update, anyway) -- a turn-based RPG doesn't need the most responsive controls, after all.

There's an mobile indie bundle for sale at:

http://www.indiegala.com/

So I now have a Nexus 7 table...what should I be buying? Is there anything really great which would benefit from the bigger screen (I have an Android phone)

Angry Birds is way better on a bigger screen.
so is Alchemy.

those of you with the Nexus 7 tablet, did you consider the low amount of storage as being a detriment? There is no slot for an expansion card and this for me was a big minus.

I have a 32 GB tablet with a 32 GB card and with music and vids on it the dang thang is filling up!

groan wrote:

those of you with the Nexus 7 tablet, did you consider the low amount of storage as being a detriment? There is no slot for an expansion card and this for me was a big minus.

That's the only reason I didn't buy one for the family. Holding out for the inevitable other 7" Tegra 3 tablets that will have to be priced in range with this. Or maybe I'll just skip Android tablets for a Win RT tablet.

MannishBoy wrote:
groan wrote:

those of you with the Nexus 7 tablet, did you consider the low amount of storage as being a detriment? There is no slot for an expansion card and this for me was a big minus.

That's the only reason I didn't buy one for the family. Holding out for the inevitable other 7" Tegra 3 tablets that will have to be priced in range with this. Or maybe I'll just skip Android tablets for a Win RT tablet.

I am in the same boat.
My Acer Iconia A500 is showing it's age and is beginning to chug under its use. I'm getting one of the MS Surfaces but I'm not sure which one yet. Likely the Pro if the price isn't ridiculous..

BreechLoad wrote:

There's an mobile indie bundle for sale at:

http://www.indiegala.com/

Any thoughts on any of these games?

Cthulu is supposed to be pretty good, but otherwise I've heard nada...which doesn't really mean much since there's SO many mobile games I know nothing about.

I picked up Pyramid Rising over the weekend have been very happy so far.

It is a time management game like "My Kingdom for the Princess" on the iPad. It has satisfied my itch for something to play.

farley3k wrote:

I picked up Pyramid Rising over the weekend have been very happy so far.

It is a time management game like "My Kingdom for the Princess" on the iPad. It has satisfied my itch for something to play.

That's a good one for sure, and the full version is pretty reasonably priced.

I've tried a lot more games over the past week, and the one thing I can recommend is:

buy anything created by hexage.

All of their games are interesting, look gorgeous and have very high production values. And they're very reasonably priced.

Radiant Defense (space invaders tower defense with a great personality) has been getting the most play time from me. I haven't bought any of the weapon packs for it, but I like that hexage is making money that way. Somehow it's easier to spend 99 cents at a time than fork over a few bucks at once, even for a really great game.

BadKen wrote:

I've tried a lot more games over the past week, and the one thing I can recommend is:

buy anything created by hexage.

All of their games are interesting, look gorgeous and have very high production values. And they're very reasonably priced.

Radiant Defense (space invaders tower defense with a great personality) has been getting the most play time from me. I haven't bought any of the weapon packs for it, but I like that hexage is making money that way. Somehow it's easier to spend 99 cents at a time than fork over a few bucks at once, even for a really great game.

I have 3 of their games on my phone: the aforementioned Radiant Defense, Radiant HD: A space invaders-esque game w/ upgradable weapons in the same universe as Radiant Defense and no dlc (paid or otherwise)(I spent the $2 for the paid edition/dev support), and Robotek: A game that is both of strategy and luck, where you are reclaiming the earth from robots... using robots (completely free, now w/ multiplayer).
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Each one [of these] is very vibrant in color and design.

I did not see any mention of Rage of Bahamut for Android. Anyone play that? I'm curious how it compares to Ascension for iOS.

I played it and it is nothing like Ascension.

It's essentially a HTML 5 web game. Really poor visuals and gameplay. Play it and see if you wish, but I would pass.

I'm having a lot of fun playing Major Mayhem right now.
As with a lot of free games, all of the weapons, clothes, and bonuses can be earned through playing... or pay real cash to get them now.

I've probably put three hours into this so far. Lots of fun and I haven't dropped a dime of real money.

Gameplay is a tongue in cheek Rambo-like shooter where you tap the screen to aim and shoot.

http://https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.turner.asmajormayhem&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDNd

TraderG wrote:

I'm having a lot of fun playing Major Mayhem right now.

Downloaded and been playing this evening. Lots of fun!

It's been talked about for a while but Triple Town, my favorite match three game.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

It's been talked about for a while but Triple Town, my favorite match three game.

It is hideously addictive.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

It's been talked about for a while but Triple Town, my favorite match three game.

I hate you. I can't stop playing it!

BadKen wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

It's been talked about for a while but Triple Town, my favorite match three game.

I hate you. I can't stop playing it!

Drugs are only fun when you do them with friends, plus you don't feel as bad.

I read an interesting pair of articles this evening, regarding the cost of Android development vs. iOS:

The shocking toll of hardware and software fragmentation on Android development

And a response from the CEO of cross platform mobile game developer Zipline

Zipline CEO: Stop whining about Android fragmentation and do some damn QA!

The bottom line seems to be that while supporting literally thousands of different operating environments may seem daunting, most problems can be dealt with by specifying minimum requirements properly and applying good software engineering techniques.

Just discovered this pretty fun arcade/strategy space ship game called Starfleet Omega. Each level you start with your capital ship that can launch fighters to defend itself against waves of enemy fighters. You direct your ships by dragging a flight path. A bit like that air traffic controller game. As you progress you earn currency which can be used to buy and upgrade your fleet of ships and the various support ships. I've completed the first 5 levels of the campaign and really like it so far. I'm excited to buy the other types of carriers as they become available and try other weapon types. Also, free!

Strikefleet Omega, and you're a filthy skimmer.

Also it's free, but not free. There are two types of currency to buy ships, and eventually even the ships you buy with the one end up using the other. And the other is so rare, I have never seen more than 2 in a single mission. But it's for sale, with in-app purchasing.

I managed to beat all the missions without spending any money, but I was only about to 2-star the last 5-10 missions instead of 3-star. I think upgrades to my ships would have helped, but even the ships I bought with the regular resource required the super rare one for their final upgrade levels, and dozens of them for each one. No way that's happening without $$$.