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[DeKaFu]

So... I guess I could post in the "recommend me a game" thread but this seems more relevant.
It looks like I'm going to be spending a couple weeks soon with no computer, no internet, no cell service and limited electricity, and only my phone for gaming/ebook needs.

Can anyone recommend me a good phone game or two that do not require any internet/data connection after installation? Something engaging but playable for very short bursts and possible to drop on a dime, and that has enough content to last me a long time. I was thinking a puzzle game or something along those lines. Ideally nothing action-based.

Being easy on the battery would be a bonus. So would being free.

[frostshotgg]

I strongly recommend getting a GBA emulator and a few games you like. I'm partial to the megaman battle network games. You could easily sink a hundred hours if you got 3 and 5 and just had the roms sitting on your phone for when you got bored of one.

[Rose]

Well the plants vs zombies 2 I mentioned playing fits your criteria pretty well.

It only needs internet if you want to buy premium plants, otherwise it works fine without.

You can paise it and return back to it whenever, and it will save your progress, and there's tons of levels.

[sambojin]

Pathos (nethack, but quick and can save anywhere)

Polytopia (mini-Civ with some odd strategies)

Stick Ranger (kind of a grinder, but fun to go back to every time)

Cardinal Quest 2 (cool-down based roguelite, but good)

Alien Menace (squad based, turn based strategy lite, levels are quick to play)

Reigns (swipe left or right to balance meters, but with a story. Costs though )

King of Dragon Pass (deeper than Reigns, but still save whenever. Costs)

Slimes Ambition (a voxel Final Fantasy Tactics-like. Not bad, but I haven't played much)

Dungeon Quest (mini-diablo, but still a fun/easy little loot grind. Can be a summoner wizard if feeling lazy. Short levels)
 
Demise of Nations (mini-Total War/Civ. Turn based, save whenever)

Age of Conquest IV (Risk, but with an economy, and just in Europe. By the devs above)

Liberal Crime Squad (made by Toady One, so you know it's good)

OpenTyrian (just for a shoot'em up. The old classic)

Virexian (great little twinstick shooter, for adrenaline pumps when needed. 12 level version is free. I think it costs a dollar for the full version though)

Pathfinder Adventures (a card based dungeon crawl. Apparently it works without a net connection, kind of, just with no gold rewards)

Xenowerk (another twinstick shooter, but looks REALLY good. Been meaning to make a post about it. Short levels, with saves in between. Might chew some battery life)

Star Traders RPG (somewhere between turn based Elite and Pirates!. Not as complicated as it looks)

Star Tactics (mini Battlefleet Gothic/ Xwing Miniatures. Kind of a strategy, kind of a puzzle game. Turn based ship combat)

YAPD (Yet Another Pixel Dungeon. Roguelite, slightly easier than the original)


Pirates! on an NES emulator (it's just nice and easy to control)
M.U.L.E on an NES emulator (for when you're feeling business'y)
Nostalgia.NES Lite for an emulator, because it's free (there's others too)

Some of these are action based, but they all control pretty simply, and only Virexian (and maybe Xenowerk) takes any real reflexes. But between all them you'll have something for whatever mood you're in, no net connection needed.  Two cost some money to buy (a one-off purchase), but they're worth every penny. The rest are free, and damn good examples of various genres for mobile. No microtransactions needed to finish them either, so properly free as well. Battery use doesn't seem too high on any of them, but I don't really know with my current phone (bigger battery than my last one, but you should have plenty of playtime on any of these if needed).

[sambojin]

Fist of Truth got an update. Proper PvP is in. A couple of new races too. Easier daily quests for freebies. And I think there's a new resource for getting cards (not necessarily a good thing). You now also have a HS style discard at battle start, so you really can start to make more reliable decks.

You get 6 gold per PvP win, so yes, you can grind the fuck out of it for free cards if you want.
(25 games for early packs, 30 for later. Just in friendlies that don't affect your ranking at all, but are a daily quest anyway)

Just glancing at some of the new cards, some of them seem insane. Then again, there's some doozies in the first 3 races anyway, so it just depends what flavour you are leaning towards. I'm going early board control and buffs with Empire/Harbour still, but it feels like a "win more, or don't" deck right now. Some disruption, a tiny bit of draw or enemy discard, but mostly just hoping I can get on the board and stabilize and buff/synergize my way to victory. Which probably describes every early deck.

Love that Shield Jannisary.  2 armour, 3/2 for 3 mana is amazing. Though the Darkwater Swiftblade (2/1 Firststrike for 2), Elite Archer (3/1 Firststrike for 3) and even the Crafty Trainee (2/1, but clears a troop just summoned across from them on debut, for 2) are all nice to establish early lanes and control.

So yeah. There's heaps of good cards. Most of which I don't have yet. But I'm inclined to think that this game is "better" than Hearthstone, simply due to the format of play and the massive design-space it allows.


Check their forums (available in-game)  and read the "Lessons of Truth #x" posts. Especially #2 and #4. They describe what all the keywords in the card texts do. Very handy.

[sambojin]

Well, I did the p2w thing in a CCG and got their monthly pack. Used half of the initial in off-deck daemonic packs, just to see what they draw like (3 packs), and it kinda drew crap. Meh, I've got a pack a day plus a little extra for Imperial/Harbour/Weald from now on.

I was actually surprisingly happy with my two decks (Imp/Harbour and Harbour/Weald) before I punched the "imma-gonna-win!" button. The sheer number of PvE campaign levels, daily freebies and basic progression stuff they throw at you within a week or two means you can certainly make a "semi-competitive" deck within that time. I'm just lazy, recently grabbed a gift-card, and don't mind supporting devs that are trying to make good games. $12-15 for 30-55 packs is a lot less than you'd pay in Hearthstone, considering how many freebies you get in this (having cards gets you gold as an achievement, which gets you more cards). Plus, I like the "flavour" of the various races, and that you can mix and match them however you want within the two-race limit as well. There's synergies everywhere, and it feels more MtG-like in that you can make any "two-colour" deck, but even within those decks, there's several archetypes that vary a bit on how they play (even though all mana is colourless and it always comes down to fist-to-face, which I like). There's no "you are a warlock, this is what you do" in it, and every race has a few things that they do very well.

Anyway, not 20 mins, not a few hours, I'd recommend giving this one a whirl for a few weeks. It's good. Even though I just paid money to play it. You don't actually have to. Yay!



But, yes. It's a CCG. No different from hearthstone or mtg. Better cards are.

[sambojin]

Spending the day trying to cheese the hell out of the crafting system in Pathos......

Is it doable? Yep. Especially with a priest.

If you don't mind kicking your food clock along a heap, you can craft individual crossbow bolts if you want. Just to spread the rolls and give a good chance of getting some nice ones. With decent Dex you WILL end up with a stack of +1/+2 bolts eventually, which rarely break. Dex is something priests aren't renowned for, but with enough stat rerolls at the start, 16dex plus high everything else is doable, because it's the fourth stat that gets set (keep rerolling as you stare at the Dex stat. When 16 comes up, it means all major stats are good). And you can easily get two decent crossbows too (just cart a broken chest you kicked open down to the Minetown work bench so it always gets "wood" as a thingy it can do. Crossbows are cheap to make and are one handed, plus they have recoverable ammo. Good, recoverable ammo in this case). Mmmmmmm, dual wielded crossbows....

Bam! Better than a gunslinger!

Kind of. Eventually. After you get proficiency.

It's just that with the beatitude skill, you know exactly what got crafted right or what you need to scrap. Which saves a tonne of karma. And it let's you scrap whatever you don't want early on (ring intrinsics you'll level into, cursed amulets, etc). Plus, it works with anything, not just crossbows/bolts. Make a few of anything, scrap the bad ones (that incidentally give you more scrap because they're "half identified" on b/c status). Make more. Need a better mace because you haven't shot enough stuff with crossbows yet? Make em. Better armour? Make some. A tonne of magic markers or wands of healing? Sacrifice everything to the item god (maybe with an ice box, a rock and a gem for plastic/rock/gems as "thingies" it can make) and the world's your oyster. If you've found it and identified it, it's yours.


Yeah. It's micro managey as hell (the very thing Pathos got away from, and makes it an enjoyable roguelike to play). But since I know I'm going to cheese something, at some point (it's Nethack, after all), basically choosing my equipment and even being able to get a bonus boost is fun. Kind of.

Hey. I just played some incrementals. This is a lot better use of my time


(just make sure you're Main Wielding the first crossbow you make, so you're a shooter, not a melee'er. Otherwise you will walk up beside whatever you're fighting, when you could have shot it from miles back. Dual wield whatever in the other hand, probably another crossbow, shield or melee weapon, but always keep your main weapon as a crossbow. Pathos gets dumb otherwise. Yes, I am going to make a dual wielding SMG "build", not because it's good, but because I can)

(you probably could just "sell identify" everything crappy or in a small stack in Minetown, for ammo at least, letting any dex'y build do this without stat or start constraining you to the Priest class. But rerolling priests is easy, because there's exactly one thing to look at, high Dex. You might get a magic marker, you might not, but 14-16dex means Wis, Str and Con are all equal or higher than that)

[hops]

Iron Marines is a pretty great mobile RTS made by the Kingdom Rush guys. The levels are moderately challenging, and there are rooms for mechanical improvements and strategic inprovement without it being a frantic micromangement-fest like Autumn Dynasty. The game costs money but it also has microtransactions which is a little... irritating, but the microtransactions are only really for novelty heroes.

Fair warning, though: it doesn’t have multiplayer.

[sambojin]

Yay! Got my Fist of Truth deck to where I'm really happy with it. Only at grade 6 or so now, but rather than a "win more or don't" deck, it's a "maybe win, or win heaps, opponent regularly concedes" deck. Imperial/Wield thing, with a few rejuvenation and synergy buffs, heaps of vaguely reasonably costed minions, and a little bit of "does a thing" cards. Should get up to rank 7-8 easily enough, because when it does win, it wins HEAPS, but it has a bit of open stall time as well.


On "other mobile crap I have played a bit of recently News", does anyone here play Dragon Project? Because it's a fantastically well made MMO,  with great graphics, and a fairly slow combat system, very much like Monster Hunter or Phantasy Star Online 2, but slightly crappier (it's on mobile, afterall). No stamina system, no bullshit chat, fairly long load times (instanced areas, etc). But it actually seems like a really good rendition of the genre considering the platform it's on.

Like, really good.

Plus, you can play it with one hand. No, not like that, it's not overtly sexualized. It just has a really good control scheme, that is often my biggest bug-bear in these sorts of games. To the point that I will happily "borrow" the idea for a future project.

So check it out. It's not great or perfect, but for the platform, it's really fucking good. Even if you're a dev and want to know what "can be done" for 3d first/third person slash'em ups, it's worth a look. Nice business model too. I don't even know how they'll earn any money. So check it out before the servers get ripped down

[hops]

I’ve been playing more Clash Royale. It’s... a weird blend of RTS and TCG made by the Clash of Clans people. As can be expected from them, the game is sort of casualish, but amazingly they seem to have avoided most of the pay to win bullshit. You can definitely progress much faster if you paid money, but from what I’ve seen it’s entirely possible to use relatively common cards and have a good time (I’m not F2P entirely myself, though) and Rares and Legendaries aren’t as much overpowered as they are just... weird. They seem to be designed more towards raising the skill cap than lowering it, as I have found on Draft events that Legendaries tend to be hard to use, but bizarrely powerful.

If you liked Hearthstone and don’t mind the long downtimes, you might like this game.

[sambojin]

I just didn't like it because it's "pay to rank up" (ie: you can play really bloody well in all your matches, but you won't "progress" easily unless your cards are close to your opponent's "level"). It's still a good game (I watch gendrago a bit on twitch, one of the best "yeah, I know that" players of CR ever). But it has a huge set of hoops to jump through if you want to "get good" or play "competitvely" (ie: stand a chance at a high level due to cards having "levels". A VERY solid 3-4 months of play or $$$ at the very least to play "competitively" at medium-high levels of play).

Incredibly pay-to-win, but not necessarily a "bad" game because of it.

[hops]

I find that levelling in Clash Royale is just something you wait for rather than actively work towards. Unless you pay an absolutely obscene amount of money you’re going to spend years before you get to the final arena.

Also, Draft Challenges cards are progression-independent and so it’s just purely skill, matchups, and luck.

[sambojin]

Yep.

[hops]

Maybe I just don’t feel the progression pinch that much because, being at Royal Arena, everyone who got to this point absolutely have to have some basic competence in the game. It’s no longer viable at this skill level to toss overleveled cards at people, because cards start getting more level-independent (though it’s still painful when the minion horde tanks my Zap)

[sambojin]

You're a funny man. Lol.

But I will agree. At tourneys with level caps, or at royal arena, it's a little more level independent and just more positioning and timing dependant.

But ssooooooo many hoops to jump through, for it to be a skill and knowledge dependant game. I just couldn't be bothered doing it. Congrats.