Android Games Catch-All

It's not bad! I'm really missing some of the features of STS though. For example, a card may say ..."2 injury on opponent", what is injury? I press the key-word and nothing happens. Same goes for "drunk", "weak" etc. There's a bit of learning involved wheras STS is able to tell you exactly what everything does with pop-up text.

That along with a few other missing details makes this feel a bit cheap. But at $1.50, I'm really not complaining. It feels quite nice, I'm having fun!

I'm a little perturbed about the unlock system though. It looks like a freemium game with a pricetag. I'm not necessarily opposed to supporting fun games with some pocket change, but it's an odd move to both charge an entry fee and have a grindy pay-to-progress unlock system.

But eh, I haven't had this much fun since Dungeon Cards. Thanks for the heads up.

FYI, Slay the Spire is finally up for pre-order on the Switch and is coming June 6. So you don't have to play substitutes for long.

Stele wrote:

FYI, Slay the Spire is finally up for pre-order on the Switch and is coming June 6. So you don't have to play substitutes for long.

I dunno, my boss might be a little perturbed if I were to pull out a Switch at my desk.

EverythingsTentative wrote:
Stele wrote:

FYI, Slay the Spire is finally up for pre-order on the Switch and is coming June 6. So you don't have to play substitutes for long.

I dunno, my boss might be a little perturbed if I were to pull out a Switch at my desk.

It's a definite "no" until you ask

I started a team in Golf Blitz if anyone is playing.

Been enjoying Hexonia. It's very similar to Polytopia (which I also liked) with some switches in the tech tree and combat.

Are there other games like this out that I should be checking out? There are so few turn-based strategy games on mobile - it seems like such a perfect fit.

There's a new officially-licensed D&D game out called Warriors of Waterdeep. We're in a time where D&D is undoubtedly more popular than it has ever been, and it's everywhere in pop culture, online streaming, game stores, and other places. Seems like the perfect opportunity go grab a solid chunk of the mobile market and charge forward.

It is mind-bogglingly bad. Bland, and I use this term extremely loosely, "tactical" RPG gameplay, incredibly repetitive levels, and a punishingly bad paywall after just a couple hours. I'm genuinely stunned they managed to release something this utterly crappy at a time when D&D has just exploded in popularity.

Damm, I was actually interested in that from the few screenshots I saw floating around. Thankd for the tip, will avoid.

In the vein of "Android games to avoid", avoid Disney Kingdoms.
There's a good concept in there, sort of a theme park tycoon lite with Disney rides and characters. It's got quests based around all the different characters, you can summon them into your park to interact with the guests, etc.
It's a good idea.
But it's got some of the worst paywall annoyances that I've seen. Most of the characters are event locked, and even when the event comes up, the vast majority of characters that are part of the event can only be gotten from the premium crates. 60 red gems for one crate, or $10 for one crate that's guaranteed to pull an event character. And your trickle of red gems is exactly that, a trickle. I've been playing for 2 weeks and I don't have 60 yet.
Everything takes too long (real world hours) and is definitely intended to annoy you, so you buy red gems to skip.
So yeah, avoid. Which is kinda sad, because a Theme Park Tycoon lite game with Disney branding is a good idea! Just that Gameloft is treating it as a cash grab.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

There's a new officially-licensed D&D game out called Warriors of Waterdeep. We're in a time where D&D is undoubtedly more popular than it has ever been, and it's everywhere in pop culture, online streaming, game stores, and other places. Seems like the perfect opportunity go grab a solid chunk of the mobile market and charge forward.

It is mind-bogglingly bad. Bland, and I use this term extremely loosely, "tactical" RPG gameplay, incredibly repetitive levels, and a punishingly bad paywall after just a couple hours. I'm genuinely stunned they managed to release something this utterly crappy at a time when D&D has just exploded in popularity.

A_Unicycle wrote:

Damm, I was actually interested in that from the few screenshots I saw floating around. Thankd for the tip, will avoid.

I've had it installed for a few days but haven't gotten past the tutorial.

The stuff they were giving during the tutorial (little gold, mostly) gave me the feeling the game wasn't generous and didn't have anything interesting going on.

The other stuff you get is parts of weapons and armor. Collect three of them and you get a robe or a sword. Or can upgrade your robe or sword or hat or shield. Etc.

The upgrades just feel watered down and uninteresting to the point I'm uninstalling it until yall tell me otherwise.

Taharka wrote:

In the vein of "Android games to avoid", avoid Disney Kingdoms.
There's a good concept in there, sort of a theme park tycoon lite with Disney rides and characters. It's got quests based around all the different characters, you can summon them into your park to interact with the guests, etc.
It's a good idea.
But it's got some of the worst paywall annoyances that I've seen. Most of the characters are event locked, and even when the event comes up, the vast majority of characters that are part of the event can only be gotten from the premium crates. 60 red gems for one crate, or $10 for one crate that's guaranteed to pull an event character. And your trickle of red gems is exactly that, a trickle. I've been playing for 2 weeks and I don't have 60 yet.
Everything takes too long (real world hours) and is definitely intended to annoy you, so you buy red gems to skip.
So yeah, avoid. Which is kinda sad, because a Theme Park Tycoon lite game with Disney branding is a good idea! Just that Gameloft is treating it as a cash grab.

Good to know. Game came out three years ago and heard good things. Shame it's morphed into something worse.

garion333 wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

There's a new officially-licensed D&D game out called Warriors of Waterdeep. We're in a time where D&D is undoubtedly more popular than it has ever been, and it's everywhere in pop culture, online streaming, game stores, and other places. Seems like the perfect opportunity go grab a solid chunk of the mobile market and charge forward.

It is mind-bogglingly bad. Bland, and I use this term extremely loosely, "tactical" RPG gameplay, incredibly repetitive levels, and a punishingly bad paywall after just a couple hours. I'm genuinely stunned they managed to release something this utterly crappy at a time when D&D has just exploded in popularity.

A_Unicycle wrote:

Damm, I was actually interested in that from the few screenshots I saw floating around. Thankd for the tip, will avoid.

I've had it installed for a few days but haven't gotten past the tutorial.

The stuff they were giving during the tutorial (little gold, mostly) gave me the feeling the game wasn't generous and didn't have anything interesting going on.

The other stuff you get is parts of weapons and armor. Collect three of them and you get a robe or a sword. Or can upgrade your robe or sword or hat or shield. Etc.

The upgrades just feel watered down and uninteresting to the point I'm uninstalling it until yall tell me otherwise.

Yeah, pretty much. You'll hit a giant wall at level 4; I played this a bunch just to give it more than a fair shake because I'm a huge D&D nerd these days and turn-based games are the only things I play on mobile, but this is just plain bad. Combat doesn't do much, it's incredibly stingy with rewards, and you literally run the same dungeons over and over, and, by dungeons, imagine walking into a room with a few monster, tapping them to kill them off in sequence, then going into a "hallway" which consists of "tap the symbol on the left or tap the symbol on the right", and do it all again. It's amazingly, amazingly boring, and, with how D&D/Wizards of the Coast have been knocking it out of the friggin' park for the last couple years, I'm stunned by how little there is to do. I uninstalled it earlier because it was sending me a notification about every other hour or so to do X challenge or open a chest or blah blah. It's awful.

If you want a good Disney branded f2p game, try Disney Heroes, I'm really enjoying that one.

Taharka wrote:

If you want a good Disney branded f2p game, try Disney Heroes, I'm really enjoying that one.

I tried that one when it first came out but having Boo up on Sully's shoulders while they waded into a fight bothered me on a parental level.

A_Unicycle wrote:

It's not bad! I'm really missing some of the features of STS though. For example, a card may say ..."2 injury on opponent", what is injury? I press the key-word and nothing happens. Same goes for "drunk", "weak" etc. There's a bit of learning involved wheras STS is able to tell you exactly what everything does with pop-up text.

Just saw this. If you hit the settings button there's a Glossary on the bottom left that details all the status effects.

Are there any really relaxing, maybe somewhat mindless games? I tend to turn to my phone when I'm feeling anxious or just need to keep my fingers busy. I was playing with Terrarium (below) but it was just too mindless. I don't really get the appeal of clickers. I did, however, find a lot of joy in the simple pleasure of seeing the plants grow!

IMAGE(https://is2-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Purple118/v4/51/e4/5e/51e45e3c-b2cf-724d-6461-8d6d7d43dd5a/mzl.mfbgrgiq.jpg/300x0w.jpg)

Just saw this. If you hit the settings button there's a Glossary on the bottom left that details all the status effects.

Thanks! That will help.

A_Unicycle wrote:

Are there any really relaxing, maybe somewhat mindless games? I tend to turn to my phone when I'm feeling anxious or just need to keep my fingers busy. I was playing with Terrarium (below) but it was just too mindless. I don't really get the appeal of clickers. I did, however, find a lot of joy in the simple pleasure of seeing the plants grow!

Still an incremental game, but Sprout is really good. A bit more active than a regular clicker.

There's Viridi, but it might be too inactive. Still, it's free, give it a look.

Godville was always fun. And there was a gwj clan/guild thing.

I tried Godville but didn't really understand what was happening. It felt idle to the extreme? You just watch and giggle at all the funny things your person does?

Thanks for the recommendations though! Looking forward to fumbling through 'em.

Yes, that's exactly what you do. It's the original idle game, though it's more detached feeling.

I still check in on my idle idiot every so often when it strikes my fancy.

I really enjoy Auto Chess, but the games are so long. I wish there was a mode with fewer players to maybe make it go faster.

I didn't realise it was playable already! I've been curious about Auto Chess but found the Dota version a bit confusing. I couldn't separate the heroes I've spent thousands of hours with from their Autochess counterparts.

This is really good! The faction/race icons make it a lot easier to understand the differences. It's been a lot of fun seeing off-brand Dota. It's charming! I'm not quite understanding everything, but I won my first two games ever (I'm assuming those games were filled with bots).

My only criticism so far is the 35 minute match time and press-holding to reveal more information is WAY too sensitive! So much so that I couldn't play on the buss because any little bump would make the window go away. Grr!

Looks like Valve's version of Autochess, Dota Underlords is available now. It feels pretty rushed, but there's a very playable game under the hiccups.

The "original"(?) autochess feels more complete, but Underlords has a more appearling artstyle (imo) and some pretty nice QoL stuff. It also feels a bit more straight-forward.

If I had to pick just one, I'd say Overlords feels a bit better despite it's rough beta state. Worth a shot!

A_Unicycle wrote:

Looks like Valve's version of Autochess, Dota Underlords is available now. It feels pretty rushed, but there's a very playable game under the hiccups.

The "original"(?) autochess feels more complete, but Underlords has a more appearling artstyle (imo) and some pretty nice QoL stuff. It also feels a bit more straight-forward.

If I had to pick just one, I'd say Overlords feels a bit better despite it's rough beta state. Worth a shot!

Can someone explain Autochess to me? I checked out an app called just "Autochess" before I knew it was a thing and was kinda underwhelmed. What am I missing? Does a match typically take 20-30 minutes? Not super conducive to my morning bus ride commute.

Autochess is appealing and addicting because it takes the meta aspect of Dota or a CCG and removes the clicks per minute and whatnot.

Games are way shorter.

It's Auto because you're guys fight on their own.

It's Chess because of the board.

It's all about strategy, synergies, etc.

It's basically like a cooler, more action oriented (visually) CCG.

I'm probably describing something incorrectly as I'm not that well versed but that's my takeaway.

not android game specific, but android gaming question.
I'm buying my wife an early birthday gift, an android capable controller with a phone mount so she can play some NES roms during her lunch break. however I'm having trouble finding one that's got consistent good reviews (or even basic spelling/grammar on their amazon page). Has anyone used one that they've been happy with?

A_Unicycle wrote:

Looks like Valve's version of Autochess, Dota Underlords is available now. It feels pretty rushed, but there's a very playable game under the hiccups.

The "original"(?) autochess feels more complete, but Underlords has a more appearling artstyle (imo) and some pretty nice QoL stuff. It also feels a bit more straight-forward.

If I had to pick just one, I'd say Overlords feels a bit better despite it's rough beta state. Worth a shot!

I 100% agree with this. Auto Chess was available first on mobile so I started there. I immediately fell for it. Once, Underlords came out I reluctantly gave it a shot. I haven't been back to Auto Chess. The QOL improvements are huge. It's nothing that Auto Chess can't steal back, but til they do, I'll be at Underlords.

Trashie wrote:
A_Unicycle wrote:

Looks like Valve's version of Autochess, Dota Underlords is available now. It feels pretty rushed, but there's a very playable game under the hiccups.

The "original"(?) autochess feels more complete, but Underlords has a more appearling artstyle (imo) and some pretty nice QoL stuff. It also feels a bit more straight-forward.

If I had to pick just one, I'd say Overlords feels a bit better despite it's rough beta state. Worth a shot!

Can someone explain Autochess to me? I checked out an app called just "Autochess" before I knew it was a thing and was kinda underwhelmed. What am I missing? Does a match typically take 20-30 minutes? Not super conducive to my morning bus ride commute.

20-30 minutes is if you get knocked out early. If you make it to top 3, it's going to be closer to 45 minutes. Garrion is pretty spot on. It's build as you play CCG.

EverythingsTentative wrote:
A_Unicycle wrote:

Looks like Valve's version of Autochess, Dota Underlords is available now. It feels pretty rushed, but there's a very playable game under the hiccups.

The "original"(?) autochess feels more complete, but Underlords has a more appearling artstyle (imo) and some pretty nice QoL stuff. It also feels a bit more straight-forward.

If I had to pick just one, I'd say Overlords feels a bit better despite it's rough beta state. Worth a shot!

I 100% agree with this. Auto Chess was available first on mobile so I started there. I immediately fell for it. Once, Underlords came out I reluctantly gave it a shot. I haven't been back to Auto Chess. The QOL improvements are huge. It's nothing that Auto Chess can't steal back, but til they do, I'll be at Underlords.

Trashie wrote:
A_Unicycle wrote:

Looks like Valve's version of Autochess, Dota Underlords is available now. It feels pretty rushed, but there's a very playable game under the hiccups.

The "original"(?) autochess feels more complete, but Underlords has a more appearling artstyle (imo) and some pretty nice QoL stuff. It also feels a bit more straight-forward.

If I had to pick just one, I'd say Overlords feels a bit better despite it's rough beta state. Worth a shot!

Can someone explain Autochess to me? I checked out an app called just "Autochess" before I knew it was a thing and was kinda underwhelmed. What am I missing? Does a match typically take 20-30 minutes? Not super conducive to my morning bus ride commute.

20-30 minutes is if you get knocked out early. If you make it to top 3, it's going to be closer to 45 minutes. Garrion is pretty spot on. It's build as you play CCG.

Yeah - I generally like it but wish a match was about 15 minutes shorter. I like the MOBA-lite games like Rivals and that Titanfall spin-off where a match was at most five minutes. Perfect for my morning bus ride.