Yeah unfortunately the cell phone gaming world dictates that if a game is going to succeed it needs to be free and it needs to have cheap ways of siphoning money from your wallet.
Luckily the game is very low on the gacha meter, and it looks like the only thing you really pay for are retries and stamina refills.
While I hate the energy/timer/in-game currency model of mobile gaming, I truly believe that a bigger part of the responsibility and blame fall on the consumers. While people support this business model, it'll stay. Unless people stop spending money on these practices and just buy 1-time cost games, this will continue.
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
While I hate the energy/timer/in-game currency model of mobile gaming, I truly believe that a bigger part of the responsibility and blame fall on the consumers. While people support this business model, it'll stay. Unless people stop spending money on these practices and just buy 1-time cost games, this will continue.
These things are designed to psychologically manipulate you into spending money. You’re never going to get movement from the customer end because of that.
If you want a resource for cell phone games where you just pay money once and play, here ya go.
What is this site? Does it list paid-only games and review them?
It's like IGN or Kotaku or (insert video game website here), only for mobile games. It's a fantastic resource, and they've been around for a while. Yes, they do cover some freemium games, but they specialize in mobile games that are, well, actually good.
I haven’t downloaded (free or paid) an iOS game since one of the big updates meant several of my favorite games were no longer supported.
And I got sick of separating tne whearfrom the chaff in the store just because apple couldn’t be bothered to do it themselves
The top ~50ish games for each of the various categories really solidified at some point, so even trying to filter by popularity has become something of a lost cause. I still go dig through Touch Arcade and Pocket Gamer to find a treasure every now and then, but it’s definitely gotten harder to break through the stagnancy for developers and consumers alike.
Free stuff rotates more regularly, though I attribute a lot of that to review shenanigans.
I just bought One Deck Dungeon on iOS. Heard good things about it so thought, why not? Anyone here played it (digital or physical) and have any thoughts or protips?
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
I just bought One Deck Dungeon on iOS. Heard good things about it so thought, why not? Anyone here played it (digital or physical) and have any thoughts or protips?
I had a good time with it a few months back, but I fell off after a while. It can be kind of difficult, even on easy - it felt a lot like Dream Quest in that regard. That said, I’d definitely recommend using two characters early on. It didn’t necessarily make the game easier to learn, but it made the game easier to play (you can split damage and start with an extra dice vs one character), so I stuck with it longer. And as a general strategy, you’re usually going to need to a lot of versatility - you can’t necessarily specialize in a single attribute and win. Also, the abilities when playing with two characters are different from when you play with a single character, and typically less useful.
It’s a pretty good game, I think. Takes a while to get a real grasp of, but I enjoyed it for sure.
Edit: Oh, and don’t underestimate abilities. I tend to focus on getting as many dice as possible, but the more abilities you get, the more options you have.
While I hate the energy/timer/in-game currency model of mobile gaming, I truly believe that a bigger part of the responsibility and blame fall on the consumers. While people support this business model, it'll stay. Unless people stop spending money on these practices and just buy 1-time cost games, this will continue.
The funny thing is most people aren’t doing that. The money comes from a small minority of rich players cynically called “whales.” So the game is built from the ground up to abuse people with more money than sense, and the rest of us suffer because the whole game design is gutted to accommodate the bullshit.
One Deck Dungeon is eating up all my time. I'm currently getting the 5 starting characters stats unlocked and having a great time. Focused mostly on dice, then abilities. Haven't been able to tackle a dungeon with a single character yet though.
And I finally noticed that all of the characters are women. That's pretty cool.
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
Tiny Tower added a one-time VIP premium purchase. Lego Tower has something similar (Tower Club), but it isn't a permanent buy. You can get 5 days for free, and then it looks like you buy additional "Club Days".
thatgamecompany's Sky: Children of Light just hit the app store. It's the spiritual successor to Journey.
Glide across gorgeous cloud banks. Make friends with total strangers who all look identical to you. Master powerful spells like "Sit," "Point," and "Shiver." See your phone battery drain faster than ever before.
I've been playing Sky for the last couple of days, and it's pretty enjoyable! It has a very similar pleasant exploration feel to Journey. It's a nice way to relax.
Using my Xbox controller to play Exit the Gungeon feels great. My phone is suddenly a better portable option than the Switch for indie games, which is kinda wild. Especially since I was looking at Sayonara and Overworld on the Switch until I realised they are included in Apple Arcade. Also was looking at Hot Lava and Cat Quest 2 on Steam, but don't gotta buy them now either! Not to mention a half dozen other games I've never heard of that look really great. They hit it out of the park with this service.
Yeah apple arcade is mind blowingly good so far, I have an android phone and an ipad and i think i'm going to keep paying for it after my trial just for ipad gaming; so far overland and various day life (lolwut @ the name) are my favs
There is just a crazy amount of heavy hitters here. I don't know how Apple can make this profitable for everyone long-term.
Grindstone - From the makers of Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, it's a push your-luck connect-the-gems type puzzle game.
Various Daylife - A linear(?) light-weight(?) story driven life sim by the Bravely Default folks. It's mostly menu-driven, but the combat system seems like it has a lot going on. The UI odd too; the split screen layout looks like a 3DS title that moved to iOS halfway through development.
Bleak Sword - a low-fi black-and-white Dark Souls diorama thingie that you can play with one hand? You really feel like a dark soul.
Card of Darkness - I will play any dumb thing that Zach Guage makes (Ridiculous Fishing, SpellTower, Really Bad Chess).
Overland - I've been subscribed to the weird development newsletter for five years and I had no idea this would be in Apple Arcade.
Seriously, the Overland devs sent out stuff like this. What is this?!
Excerpt - "The Siberian Dilemma", unnamed collection
1984: Unexplained seismic disturbances trigger an escalating political confrontation.
Edit: And Oceanhorn 2! What. I'm waiting until Arcade hits Apple TV on the 30th to start playing this.
There is just a crazy amount of heavy hitters here. I don't know how Apple can make this profitable for everyone long-term.
Grindstone - From the makers of Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, it's a push your-luck connect-the-gems type puzzle game.
Various Daylife - A linear(?) light-weight(?) story driven life sim by the Bravely Default folks. It's mostly menu-driven, but the combat system seems like it has a lot going on. The UI odd too; the split screen layout looks like a 3DS title that moved to iOS halfway through development.
Bleak Sword - a low-fi black-and-white Dark Souls diorama thingie that you can play with one hand? You really feel like a dark soul.
Card of Darkness - I will play any dumb thing that Zach Guage makes (Ridiculous Fishing, SpellTower, Really Bad Chess).
Overland - I've been subscribed to the weird development newsletter for five years and I had no idea this would be in Apple Arcade.
Seriously, the Overland devs sent out stuff like this. What is this?!
Excerpt - "The Siberian Dilemma", unnamed collection
1984: Unexplained seismic disturbances trigger an escalating political confrontation.
Card of Darkness is also brought you by Pendleton Ward (Adventure Time creator), which is awesome. So many little "oh shit this is from them?!" moments while looking through these games.
I kind of hope there isn't too much of a constant flood of new games added to this thing, because it already feels like there are way too many games I want to check out. Never thought a backlog of phone games would ever be a thing, as I kind of have been over mobile gaming for the past few years, especially since the Switch came out.
The contract on my phone has been up for over a year now, and I've been putting off upgrading cause I just didn't feel like there was much of a point for what I use my phone (6s) for, but I think I might be getting a new phone this weekend now.
Apple Arcade is a tab of the app store when you update to iOS 13.
A game I've been working on for four years came out on Apple Arcade today.
Please check out Spelldrifter if you like strategy/tactics games. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spelldrifter/id1474012584
It's one of the top 5 games on the arcade*!
*If you sort by size
The only thing I've had time to play so far is Chu Chu Rocket, but it's some good chu chu.
Ugh, I'm still on an iphone 6, which means I can't get to iOS 13 even if I wanted to, and Apple Arcade is the first thing that's made me actually want to upgrade. I guess the iphone 11's seem to have significantly improved cameras, too, which would be nice but they are so expppeeensnssiivvve..... and it's not as if I have the time to play the games I've bought already, for that matter.
On which note, OXXO is another puzzler by the guy that did Zenge/Scalak/various other puzzle games, and it does a fantastic job of introducing new puzzle mechanics in a way that totally makes sense, and also (at least so far) not going too far with them, so I get to keep on feeling super smart because the levels never get too hard.
(and I particularly appreciate that it's obvious how he _could_ have made really difficult levels with some of these mechanics; I'm at about the 10th new way for sliding shapes to interact with one another/the world and it feels like lesser devs would have stopped after the first two rules and just made a huge heap of indistinguishable levels that got bigger/more laborious to solve -- but no, the previous levels had bits of the world rotating, and then after a half-dozen of those, now the world folds and unfolds itself if I put tiles next to wires that are connected to hinges, and I don't know what'll come next but I'm looking forwards to it)
0
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Itll be interesting to see if Apple goes down the epic route and buys exclusives away from the switch and other mobile platforms.
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Android is a bit of an outlier though. Would anything in arcade have actually sold on android? Its always been a platform that expected everything to be free or.99. I could see a lot of devs just not wanting to bother.
That's pretty much where iOS gaming has been headed too. That was how Apple justified this Arcade subscription model, and I bet quite a few indie teams were all too happy to give this a try rather than descending into F2P madness.
Posts
Luckily the game is very low on the gacha meter, and it looks like the only thing you really pay for are retries and stamina refills.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
These things are designed to psychologically manipulate you into spending money. You’re never going to get movement from the customer end because of that.
What is this site? Does it list paid-only games and review them?
It's like IGN or Kotaku or (insert video game website here), only for mobile games. It's a fantastic resource, and they've been around for a while. Yes, they do cover some freemium games, but they specialize in mobile games that are, well, actually good.
And I got sick of separating tne whearfrom the chaff in the store just because apple couldn’t be bothered to do it themselves
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
The top ~50ish games for each of the various categories really solidified at some point, so even trying to filter by popularity has become something of a lost cause. I still go dig through Touch Arcade and Pocket Gamer to find a treasure every now and then, but it’s definitely gotten harder to break through the stagnancy for developers and consumers alike.
Free stuff rotates more regularly, though I attribute a lot of that to review shenanigans.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
Your Ad Here! Reasonable Rates!
I had a good time with it a few months back, but I fell off after a while. It can be kind of difficult, even on easy - it felt a lot like Dream Quest in that regard. That said, I’d definitely recommend using two characters early on. It didn’t necessarily make the game easier to learn, but it made the game easier to play (you can split damage and start with an extra dice vs one character), so I stuck with it longer. And as a general strategy, you’re usually going to need to a lot of versatility - you can’t necessarily specialize in a single attribute and win. Also, the abilities when playing with two characters are different from when you play with a single character, and typically less useful.
It’s a pretty good game, I think. Takes a while to get a real grasp of, but I enjoyed it for sure.
Edit: Oh, and don’t underestimate abilities. I tend to focus on getting as many dice as possible, but the more abilities you get, the more options you have.
Oh yes, the very one. It has a sequel too! That also has the unique feature of paying money for it once and getting all the content!
They also have another game, Waking Mars, that I recommend. It’s on iOS and Steam.
And I finally noticed that all of the characters are women. That's pretty cool.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
But is it $5?
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
The app is free to play. Tiny Tower had decent monetization, this seems to be similar so far. It's a somewhat idle game.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
Multiplayer is also tough? Although half the time I'm not sure if I lost because I wasn't as good or because the other person had a better loadout.
Glide across gorgeous cloud banks. Make friends with total strangers who all look identical to you. Master powerful spells like "Sit," "Point," and "Shiver." See your phone battery drain faster than ever before.
Holding hands with people is totally a thing, and it's adorable.
Getting back into Kingdom Rush: Vengeance. I always forget just how perfect the KR games are at Tower Defense.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
Seriously, the Overland devs sent out stuff like this. What is this?!
1984: Unexplained seismic disturbances trigger an escalating political confrontation.
Edit: And Oceanhorn 2! What. I'm waiting until Arcade hits Apple TV on the 30th to start playing this.
Card of Darkness is also brought you by Pendleton Ward (Adventure Time creator), which is awesome. So many little "oh shit this is from them?!" moments while looking through these games.
I kind of hope there isn't too much of a constant flood of new games added to this thing, because it already feels like there are way too many games I want to check out. Never thought a backlog of phone games would ever be a thing, as I kind of have been over mobile gaming for the past few years, especially since the Switch came out.
The contract on my phone has been up for over a year now, and I've been putting off upgrading cause I just didn't feel like there was much of a point for what I use my phone (6s) for, but I think I might be getting a new phone this weekend now.
Apple Arcade is a tab of the app store when you update to iOS 13.
A game I've been working on for four years came out on Apple Arcade today.
Please check out Spelldrifter if you like strategy/tactics games.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spelldrifter/id1474012584
It's one of the top 5 games on the arcade*!
The only thing I've had time to play so far is Chu Chu Rocket, but it's some good chu chu.
On which note, OXXO is another puzzler by the guy that did Zenge/Scalak/various other puzzle games, and it does a fantastic job of introducing new puzzle mechanics in a way that totally makes sense, and also (at least so far) not going too far with them, so I get to keep on feeling super smart because the levels never get too hard.
(and I particularly appreciate that it's obvious how he _could_ have made really difficult levels with some of these mechanics; I'm at about the 10th new way for sliding shapes to interact with one another/the world and it feels like lesser devs would have stopped after the first two rules and just made a huge heap of indistinguishable levels that got bigger/more laborious to solve -- but no, the previous levels had bits of the world rotating, and then after a half-dozen of those, now the world folds and unfolds itself if I put tiles next to wires that are connected to hinges, and I don't know what'll come next but I'm looking forwards to it)
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
They're already doing it, to an extent. Several of the games released today also come out on consoles, but nothing in Apple Arcade is on Android.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981