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[sambojin]

I'm hoping to be working soon on a lovely tropical island for about 6 weeks. The thing is, the net will probably be fairly iffy and I won't be taking my PC. It won't actually be deserted, but I will need something to do in my downtime to chill out.

The good part? My girlfriend just gave me a touchscreen Android phone. It's not particularly powerful, and doesn't have *every-god-forsaken-feature-on-earth*, but it is a touchscreen Android phone. Which, no matter how you look at it, is a massive upgrade from my old workhorse Nokia E63 (which I'm writing this on now. Damn I love hardware keyboards).

So, to the question at hand. What games would you take along with you if you were potentially out of contact from a PC for a few months? I'm pretty net savvy, can sideload stuff, love emulation and have already dumped a few things on the phone. It can handle SNES/Megadrive(Genesis) games easily, old DOS games aren't a problem, and might just be able to pull off a PS1 (maybe).

Here's the list I've gotten so far, if it says (p) after the name, it means there's a bit of fiddling I'll have to do to get it to work.

DOS: Civ1, SC2000(p), Xcom, Master of Magic, Merchant Prince, Tyrian.
NES: Pirates!, Tetris, FF3, Dragon Warrior 4, M.U.L.E, SMB3, Ultima 3, 1942/3, Galaga, other stuff (potentially lots of other stuff).
Master System: Wonderboy 1/2/3, Phantasy Star, Ultima 4.
Genesis: Phantasy Star 2/3/4, Shining Force 1/2, Madden 97, Mutant League Football, Sensible Soccer, Herzog Wei.
SNES: SMW, PGA Tour 97

Haven't chucked Win 95/98 on there (and probably won't for games), but all these are pretty stable, fairly longterm or replayable games.

Can you think of any huge gaps missing in the games list? What would you take game-wise on an extended non-PC mission/work-wind-down-run?

I haven't listed any actual Android games, because I don't have any, so any ideas would be appreciated. And yes, I do own all those cartridges for the roms (and more).

[Hugehead]

You should see if it can run the PSP emulator PPSSPP at a decent speed, it's incredibly well optimized and fast, and if you can run it there's a whole load of great RPGs on PSP you could play.

[sambojin]

Do any in particular come to mind? I was thinking maybe a Dynasty Warrior Tactics or something, or see if I can get an NDS emu to run for Dragon Quest 9(?).

Oh, and I lied. I do have two (sort-of) Android games. Slash'em (Nethack) and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup(p). Meh, at least I'll get to understand why there's not many *real* roguelikes on Android (I think the first thing I'll actually purchase is a decently customizable software keyboard).

[BigD145]

How about Liberal Crime Squad? Humble Bundle is currently not half bad. You have 6 days for that bundle. There's OpenTTD for Android and it's free. Transport Tycoon costs money. ScummVM is always good. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. Uplink. Avernum. Freeciv. Weird Worlds. Star Trader.

All Android.

[n9103]

Might as well toss Master of Orion 1 or 2 on there while you're DOSBoxing.
If you liked the HoMM series, fheroes2 (in the Play store) is a good addition. Be sure to either load up your original Heroes 2 files, or the demo files, before you leave.

GB/GBA emus are also good source for emulated entertainment. Lots of good titles between the two, though, like most emu, controls can be a pain if you don't have hardware buttons in the right place for the shoulder buttons.

[sambojin]

Nice. I've got the TTD box, so I might grab the bundle. That'll be that genre-hole filled.

I'm thinking of dumping Master of Orion 2 on the phone as well (for spacey 4x). Has anyone had any experience with it in DosBox? Civ and MoM were pretty easy to use, so does MoO2 go alright?

Edit: so ninja'd

[itisnotlogical]

Doom and all related games, via a source port like ZDoom. My two-year-old netbook can run them full speed, there's no reason you can't too. Here's a breakdown of the games I mean, along with settings to play them like the originals:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ultimate Doom, Doom II, Final Doom:
Obvs. Not much to say really. If you set ZDoom to add vertical mouselook, then you are a disgusting heretic to be shunned.

Heretic:
It's an alright fantasy-themed FPS. Doesn't quite pack the punch that Doom does, but it's still good fun. You have the ability to look up and down.

Hexen: Shadow of the Serpent Riders and Deathkings of Dark Citadel:
Sequel to Heretic. I'm not a big fan, but it's alright. There's puzzles, platforming and non-linear hub areas like in Quake II. You can jump and look up and down, and set fall damage to "Hexen".

Strife:
My favorite of all Doom engine games, personally. It has RPG elements like a main town area, objectives, shops, upgrades and an inventory system. It's also balls-hard and really difficult to figure out how to accomplish your objective, but I love it even more for that. You can look up and down, jump, and be sure to set fall damage to "Strife". I also like to add a crosshair (ZDoom has this feature, I assume other sourceports do too).

Chex Quest and Chex Quest 2:
Some strange game that Chex included in boxes of their cereal. I really don't see the appeal, but there's a pretty big cult following and a fan-made Chex Quest 3. I have no idea.

EDIT:

With the exception of Strife and the Chex Quest games, I'd like to include that it's possible to buy all these legally, for the sake of forum rules. You can get the Doom games from Steam, and I think you can get Heretic/Hexen from id Software's website. To run them in ZDoom (at least on a computer; dunno about tablets), you just have to get the WAD files out of the game's directory and move them to the same directory as ZDoom.

EDIT NEVERMIND I'M STUPID ZDOOM IS NOT ON ANDROID. You'll have to find a different one. Wikipedia says that AnDoom, Doom Touch, PrBoom and Doom GLES all exist, but I don't know how compatible they'll be with non-Doom games. If you're being charged money for PrBoom, that's a fork from the free original version.

[sambojin]

I'll see if I can get Doom Arsenal going on Android. I miss my DoomRL. Was there ever a DOS version of DoomRL? Mini-linux emu for Android?

PS. Yay, my first touchscreen message ever!

[BigD145]

I doubt you'll find many recent roguelikes with DOS era coding. They could be, but they aren't. I never found a linux emu that would work for what you and I want to do. Too much software uses modern libraries.

DOS: don't forget Wasteland

[nenjin]

NES - Rivercity Ransom, Bubble Bobble, Contra, Crystalis, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, All the Mega Mans, TMNT 2 & 3
Sega - Landstalker, Shining In The Darkness, General Chaos, Shadowrun, Warsong, Smash TV, Tyrants, Dune: Battle for Arrakis,
SNES - Act Raiser, Megaman Soccer, Chrono Trigger,  Megaman X, Shadowrun, Super Punchout, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Dungeon Master, Secret of Evermore, Secret of Mana, Super Castlevania, Super Mario RPG, Super Metroid, Der Langrisser, TMNT 4, Starfox, Soulblazer, Link to the Past, Metal Marines, Illusion of Gaia, Final Fantasy 2, 3 and Mystic Quest.

[n9103]

DoomRL used to be in DOS as well, but hasn't been for awhile.
Good luck tracking down a copy, sincerely.
As for emulating linux to try a work around, you'd need an emu that will run x86 or x64 code, even though Android is ARM.

E: Fully endorse nenjin's suggestions (except for you Mystic Quest!)

[sambojin]

@Nenjin. Cheers, I won't grab them all, but that'd sort of round out the library on a few I've missed.

Any Android freebies or paybies that are must haves?

(if I can get DoomRL going under a mini emu shell (DOS or Linux) I'll tell you. Even if it's an old version).

[casserol]

Ultima 7, parts 1&2 on dosbox. although I'm not sure how it'll play out on a small screen.

[Sean Mirrsen]

If you need to waste some time away without too concentrated an effort, Plague Inc. is a free-to-play (well, it's free, but you can pay to unlock items ahead of time) version of a flash PC game known as Pandemic. A much improved version, I must say. Very effective at wasting time.

[Virtz]

Ultima 7, parts 1&2 on dosbox. although I'm not sure how it'll play out on a small screen.

I was gonna say, not to mention with only a keyboard and touch screen.

If it can emulate the GBA (since PS1 emulation is in question, I think it should), I would suggest Ninja Cop, Metroid Zero Mission, Metroid Fusion, and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. Perhaps some Fire Emblem or Advance Wars as well.