If you find a good developer, it's worth checking their catalogue. For example, Butterscotch Shenanigans is one I am a fan of. Another to look at is Noodlecake.
Space Marshals 1 and 2 Anomaly Warzone Earth and Korea ...
Holy shit I am not able recall anymore decent games I have enjoyed on mobile! 😂
Well definitely ports of old games from other platforms, like Professor Layton and Ace Attorney series.
I mean the bitter truth is, mobile games nowadays are completely plagued with the same cancer of trying to sell you stuff inside the game. Virtually every "worthwhile" game on mobile has become a flea market in on itself. So even the decent games a chore to get through to the actual meaty part. I used to enjoy PUBGmobile and CODmobile with my friends but even that I stopped playing because it was just rinse and repeat live service model of trudging through gutter waste. It became just an obligation to my friends rather than anything I would enjoy so I quit.
Problem is that nobody takes mobile as a serious platform for gaming. And somewhat sad reality is that the huge user base you see in mobile space, especially Android, is coming from people who are not going to spend a single penny on anything software.
Simon tathams puzzle pack! They're all puzzles, all procedurally generated, but I challenge you not to find one you absolutely love out of the whole set.
I would argue that the problem with gaming on android isn't as much the quality of the games as it is the quality of google play.
Most games on the platform are not something I'm interested in, and while that goes for any platform google aggressively don't care about my preferences and would rather use most of the available space for ads instead. Sure, it has an algorithm suggesting stuff to you, but when "no" isn't an answer the algorithm isn't really useful to me (which is by design). There's no search for tags, no way to filter and even searching for the exact title of a game will present you with several other games before the real result shows up.
It also doesn't help that the ratings system is terrible. When (almost) every game has a 4.1 rating it isn't really of much use.
Time is too precious for wasting it playing subpar games on mobile phones.
For me the best gaming experience is on the PC.
Cultist Simulator, Stardew Valley, Minecraft, Slay the Spire and Dead Cells are all good options. Admittedly they're all PC games you can play on mobile but they're still good.
Virtually all free to play games are. The most popular are designed in a way to lure you in with freebies and gameplay that tickles you lizard brain in a pleasant way. Then, when you are invested enough, they annoy you with waiting times and artifical speed bumps just enough to make you spend bucks in their cash shop but not enough to stop playing. These games are basically slot machines masquerading as a game, where the only goal is to milk you dry of your income.
I would suggest to use the website: darkpattern.games to find fairly designed games.
On the other hand, I fell for a pseudogacha but really engaging card game: Marvel Snap.
It's been years, and I see that it contains ads now, but I absolutely loved Super Stickman Golf 1 and 2. It is a simple 2D golf platformer with a ton of courses (at my time of last play you could download like 15 extra courses individually, on top of 6 or so to start). I'm sure it has been ruined by the freemium model, but it was a joy back in the day.
If you like freelancer. Try Galaxy on fire 2. It's one of the best mobile games ever in my opinion. The controls can be a little clunky but they balanced it with the enemies being as accurate as storm troopers.
Your sample range of one that you saw out of tens of thousands of existing games means that no, you haven't seen every mobile game and cannot use that one experience to tar all titles. The barrier for entry is low so you will find a lot of rubbish, but there's plenty of gold out there which you maybe be familiar with such as Stardew, Final Fantasy pixel remasters, Slay the Spire, and some not so much, like Yellow, Stumble Guys and Deemo.
These are my picks.
Infinitode 2: Pretty good standard Tower Defence.
Gravity Box: Very simple platformer where your only movement is rocket jumps. People say it has occasional ads but I've never seen any.
God Field: fun tacky card battle game. Quick games. Can play bots, private lobbies, casual or ranked. Anywhere from 1v1 to 9ffa. I would look up a guide online to find out how to play, as it doesn't have a tutorial (just a glossary).
Arknights: DISCLAIMER - Gacha game, I play f2p though just fine. You're only allowed a certain number of missions per day. Unique Tower defense game with levelable Pokemon for towers, except it's waifus instead of pokemons. Has lots of story (though you'll get through slowly).
Emulation very possible (though I dislike touch controls):
I've seen these mentioned in other comments:
I'm a big fan of BuriedBornes. Great little old school rpg to pick up and play. Lots of in depth mechanics and replayability.
If you’re a football fan (American football that is), Retro Bowl is the best football game on mobile. It’s free, but the full game purchase is a whole $.99, and it’s the best buck I’ve ever spent. I’ve played that game more than any other on my phone. It’s surprisingly deep with quite a bit of strategy for a little football game, and it embarrasses the garbage that is the iOS Madden franchise. Here is a link to it.
And if you like futball, give Retro Goal a shot, it’s from the same developers.
I really enjoyed BloonsTD6 on my phone. I play it almost every day.
It's definitely not you. You're right and most of them are complete garbage. Idk what kind of game you are looking for but Bloons TD6 is great. It does have an up front fee but if you buy it it's actually playable. It does have some microtransactions unfortunately but it's 100% totally playable without spending any money beyond what you paid to buy it. The Stardew Valley mobile port is another great one that does come with an up front fee and no microtransactions. Since the mobile version isn't actually done by concernedape himself though it isn't always up to date with the latest and greatest updates he has added to the game.
I play Genshin Impact. It's an extremely good game. The downside is the predatory gacha, but the characters are far from essential and there's no competition.
Yes, there are some good ones (mostly indie games like stardew valley, poly bridge etc) also some like minecraft, the basic problem with mobile games is, that you would never payn60$ for a mobile game but for console games its normal
Let me introduce you to: Arknights. It's an anime-themed tower defense game, which is unfortunately a gacha but it's generous and well-balanced enough that if you don't want to you don't need to pay a cent, and this is speaking as an F2P player. And don't get me started onnthe story, which is amazing (though the first few chapters are a little dull).
Yes, almost all of it is bad. But that's only because there's a lot of bad games on there. There are certainly great games on mobile, you just have to find them.
It is not you. There is a glut of terrible games on mobile. The reason: Most of the time, they are free to download with in-app purchases. The point isn't to play the game. The point is to try to see how much money people will pay for the in-app purchases.
There is a card game called Rogue Adventure that I've poured hundreds of hours into over the years. Love it to bits!
The answer to everyone looking for a new game is Super Snail, I believe full release is Aug 4th? Enjoy!
Well... I have GTA: San Andreas on mobile and that shit is damn near as good as console or PC
I have rarely encountered a game made specifically for the mobile market to be good. There are some ports of, what I call, real games that work well on a phone. There are some open source versions of things that exist on PC that give the same experience on a phone (like OpenTTD being a nice "rip off" of roller coaster tycoon).
There are only two made for mobile games I can even really give praise to: Galaxy on Fire 2. It's as good as those kinds of quick play arcadey space games can be without going full on Elite or Star Citizen. Perfect for a phone. The other was Synapse and I don't even think you can find it anymore. It was, at the time, the only turn-based tactical game like Firaxis' X-Com games. But since both of the newer XCOM games are officially on the phone, it's not a genre devoid of good stuff.
Half the time I hear about a mobile game getting popular or is touted in these kinds of questions threads, it's something like Clash of Clans. Just crap that lets you play for like 15 minutes every 24 hours unless you start shelling out money. 😮💨
Commenting in here so I can try out some of the games listed because I have found very, very few games that weren't totally trash - either shit quality or an endless begging for money.
The very few that I do enjoy are Word Feud, The Kingdom Rush series, Flow Free, Block Puzzle and only a few other ones.
If you want to play mobile games but don't want to wade through the shit to find the good ones, I recommend getting Google Play Pass, it's mostly premium games (and a few standard ones with ads removed). It makes it easier to find the good games cause you just look at the play pass games. I stopped playing mobile games for years until recently when I got this. There's some classics on it too so it's been nice revisiting some games I used to play on my iPod Touch as a kid.
There’s a free game on iOS called Builderment. It’s basically Factorio without the hostile mobs. An automation game with unlimited resources so you can solely focus on optimization. I have over 500 hours in my current world.
I think perspective is key here. Setting aside the low barrier of entry that can't possible keep the truly dreadful garbage out, on mobile you're super limited on your input method (touch screen and not so great motion controls). This tends leads to devs gravitating towards the sort of genres that were historically plagued with low quality shovel-ware on platforms like the Wii. As others have said, true gems exist, although I'd argue that the best of the best do tend to ports from more capable platforms. Titles like Dicey Dungeons, Slay the Spire, and others along those lines have rich play mechanics underneath of the simple touch interface. It really all depends on how how far you want to dig, and how deep of an experience you want (there are hundreds of good enough match 3 games if that's your jam).
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