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[GreatWyrmGold]

Has anyone found any games for tablets that would help me release my creative urges when I can't play Dwarf fortress?

[Mr S]

You may want to look for an assembly layer SDK for your tablet architecture of choice.  That's about as close as I can think of.

[GreatWyrmGold]

...A what?

[JimmyBobJr]

...A what?

I think its some sort of engine as far as i can tell.

And no, i cant think of any. the few ive tried are really stupid ones - Thinly veiled Farmville rip-offs for terrible ports to a IOS system. You might have a better chance on a non-iphone system, but thats out of my knowledge.

The problem is, is that mobile devices arent suited for heavy duty gaming - Flinging coloured birds and slicing fruit is about as far as it goes. Its a long way from anything truly creative or immersive.

[thvaz]

Majesty and Total War Battles: Shogun are pretty complex little games...

[ed boy]

...A what?

I think its some sort of engine as far as i can tell.

And no, i cant think of any. the few ive tried are really stupid ones - Thinly veiled Farmville rip-offs for terrible ports to a IOS system. You might have a better chance on a non-iphone system, but thats out of my knowledge.

The problem is, is that mobile devices arent suited for heavy duty gaming - Flinging coloured birds and slicing fruit is about as far as it goes. Its a long way from anything truly creative or immersive.

In my past few months of smartphone ownership, I've been able to find one solid game - Nethack. It's similar to DF in some elements (interface), and look to be the best option on the market (it's free, too)

[GreatWyrmGold]

It's okay, but the mobile controls bug me a bit. Free is definitely a pro, though.

[Cruxador]

Majesty and Total War Battles: Shogun are pretty complex little games...

There's a Majesty game on phones now? How similar to the original is it? I was pretty disappointed with Majesty 2.

[Starver]

In my past few months of smartphone ownership, I've been able to find one solid game - Nethack. It's similar to DF in some elements (interface), and look to be the best option on the market (it's free, too)

It better be free.  Nethack is actually a pre-Web game, probably one of the original Roguelikes (relatively speaking), and if it isn't being made available under something like the GPL then someone's taking liberties, or allowed someone else to take liberties.  (I'm sure that 'Hack', the precusor to NetHack, was also a BSD-ish licensing, before the collaborative efforts)

I would imagine that Falcon's/Vulture's Eye/Claw ports are also available, similarly free, on tablet/large-screen-smartphone platforms, being basically the same but with isometric graphics and audio clips punctuating play-events.  Also look out for Slash'Em.  Or port it yourself, with through one of the appropriate aforementioned SDKs.


I think we're talking at the moment about needing Tablets (proper computer-strength power and memory behind them), before something of the background complexity of DF can be ported, though.  But with a bit of clever programming (and the early games were all about clever programming!), there might be something that looks as complicated, but with a lot more trivial on-the-fly procedural generation rather than a WorldGen cycle producing a particular full-story history (and geography) which then gets tapped to produce the environment to play in (whether Fortress or Adventure modes, or equivalent).

Of course, as Smartphones develop their capabilities (or someone sets up an equivalent to Nethack.alt.org for a DF-like back-end, so as to use the phone as little more than a front-end, while connected), it may all change.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I have a tablet and a dumb phone, so frankly what phones can't do yet isn't as much of an issue.

[Miuramir]

http://code.google.com/p/angdroid/
Angdroid, aka Angband for Android.  There are four downloads, available from the above site or via Google Play:

* Angband-3.3.2.4.apk is intended for classic, "vanilla" (stock) Angband in versions considered stable; it includes three versions: 3.3.2 (current stable), 3.0.6 (before a number of significant changes), and 2.4.frog-knows (which was the basis for the DOS version among other early ports, and how many people learned years ago).

* Angband-3.4.b1.apk is the current beta / bleeding-edge version of vanilla Angband.

* AngbandVariants-r260.apk contains three classic major variants; these are generally options that go beyond merely mods into significantly expanded gameplay.  Includes 3 versions: ToME 2.3.4 (my favorite, on the one hand with an overworld and a plot, but also with all sorts of zany over the top classes and races), Sangband ("skills Angband", with a neat skills system), and Steamband (a full Steampunk re-make). 

* RoguelikeClassics-r260.apk contains three retro/classic early roguelikes: Rogue, Larn, Moria. 

All of these are free-as-in-beer, and mostly free-as-in-speech (libre); note that their licenses predate the EFF, GPL, etc. and are not always 100% compliant with modern FLOSS licenses (see Angband and its license: a history.  After a major effort to find people from decades ago, 3.1.1 and more recent versions are generally considered GPL clean. 

I've played 3.3.2 vanilla and ToME 2.3.4 on my Droid 3 smartphone; it's fully playable, but the screen is tiny enough you need good eyesight, and it'd be somewhat less easy to use on a phone screen if I didn't have the hardware keyboard.  Any actual tablet should do fine. 

If you like some of the crazy weirdness of DF, I'd suggest trying ToME; note that some of the more eccentric starting options ("Always Unusual Rooms" and starting as a Lost Soul or Death Mold in particular) are analogous to starting DF on a haunted glacier, and not suggested for beginners (but can provide considerable Fun if you're not afraid of dying horribly within a few keystrokes). 

http://code.google.com/p/nethack-android/
Nethack 3.4.3 is also available, from a different group; not my favorite roguelike but should be similarly playable if that's your thing. 

[BigD145]

You really need a hardware keyboard for any of those, which many Android devices do not have.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Including mine.

[smakemupagus]

* AngbandVariants-r260.apk contains three classic major variants

Oh?!!  Cool,  First thing i've heard that makes me want a smartphone

[thvaz]

Majesty and Total War Battles: Shogun are pretty complex little games...

There's a Majesty game on phones now? How similar to the original is it? I was pretty disappointed with Majesty 2.

It is very much like Majesty 1. A little bit simplified I think, but fun nonetheless.