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[AzyWng]

So there was this game that was released a while back in 2018 called "Black Command". Player is in command of a PMC or somesuch, participating in conflicts around the globe. One thing you have to give you an edge is the "Black Command" system, which apparently lets you see not only your own units, but the enemy's.

Gameplay on the main story consists of two sections: A mission selection screen where you can see the status of your own base, the enemy's bases, and what level of supplies and weapons you and the enemy have. You can also see what missions are available and how much ammo they cost. By tapping on a mission and before hitting "accept", you can see what the effect of the mission is if you complete it, how many turns can pass before the mission disappears, if there is one, and the effect of what the mission is if it expires, if there is one. You can also use things like the ARMS system to unlock new weapons for purchase, and use favors acquired through "Free Prisoner" missions.

Gameplay is basically moving your squad's cone (yes, all five soldiers collectively count as one unit) onto the enemy units and making sure the enemy's cones don't touch your lead unit. You do this by tapping a hexagon where you want your unit to move, and dragging the line from your units to their destination to change the route they take to their destination. The cones represent the cone of vision/fire for a unit, and vary from unit to unit. Some units have small cones of fire, others have very large ones. Depending on the weapons your soldiers (especially the leader) equip, your cone of fire will be different. SMGs will make the cone quite wide and relatively short, LMGs and ARs will make the cone somewhat "normal", neither too wide nor too far, and SRs will make the cone very long and narrow. If you manage to get behind an enemy and then hit them with the cone, you'll perform a "surprise attack" that uses no ammo, will always wipe out the enemy, and will not attract the attention of nearby enemies.

Aiding in the act of attacking enemies first is the ability to change movement modes. Standard is full speed, with the enemy spotting you almost as soon as you touch their cone of vision. Caution lets you be inside the enemy's cones of view unless you get too close, and also widens your own cone of vision/fire. Stay makes you stay still, and turns the cone of vision into a full circle.

Enemies include soldiers (standard bad guys), APCs (fewer but somewhat harder to take on using guns), tanks (which basically require the use of Anti-Tank Rockets), elite units (which move about a lot in a manner similar to your own squad of units), and mortars (which fire at certain positions that you must run the hell away from otherwise you'll take severe damage).

One thing to keep track of is ammo. On the mission selection screen, you'll have a limited amount of ammo available per turn, and the amount you recieve (added to any ammo you saved from previous turns) is dictated by your supply level. This affects what missions you can or cannot take. Most non-fort/HQ missions require anywhere between 50 and 400 units of ammo to take on, and that number is the amount of ammo you'll have for the mission (so the 50 ammo mission would only give your troops a measly 50 ammo with which to fight). If you run out of ammo during a mission, your soldiers will be forced to use handguns, which have a very small cone of fire and are generally a last-resort weapon.

Your own soldiers are quite easy to acquire and then lose - you'll always have about ten soldiers available to recruit each day, most of them for quite cheap, and for a fairly low amount of non-premium currency (the icon is a stack of bills), you can refresh the list to get ten more soldiers. As for losing them, well... When soldiers take damage, they can go from white to ded quite easily. And when they get ded, they stay that way, forever. Thankfully, you can keep their equipment and weapons, and if you have a service ticket, you can recover any skills they may have learned, and then teach them to your new troops.

The way the game makes money is through Premium currency, this time creatively called "Gold". Gold is used to get a better deal on items and to bypass the limits certain items have on being purchased, purchase certain exclusive items that you'd otherwise rely on luck to find, get extensions/retries of missions, and, if you're lucky, revive soldiers that would otherwise have died.

Seeing as the gameplay seems to at least rely somewhat on skill, there's not too much of a pay-to-win element save purchasing items with gold, and there's no energy system, I'd say it's not a half-bad way to make yourself feel a little clever, considering it's free.

[Yoink]

I've been playing a few mobile games on my new smartphone, primarily PuBG these past few days. I guess you could safely say I'm addicted to it at this point.

Had a lot of good (as in successful) matches, but the one I just finished was amusing indeed... plenty of boat and LMG shenanigans with a side of suicidal teammates drowning themselves or disconnecting. I am very, very surprised at both how enjoyable this game is on mobile and how decent I am at it.
If I'm honest the two factors are probably quite closely related...

[Parsely]

Oh holy crap, Runescape is on mobile... I never thought I'd want to play it again but that's so convenient and I accept a much lower quality of game when I'm on my phone...

You can also see what missions are available and how much ammo they cost.

You do this by tapping a hexagon where you want your unit to move, and dragging the line from your units to their destination to change the route they take to their destination.

The cones represent the cone of vision/fire for a unit, and vary from unit to unit. Some units have small cones of fire, others have very large ones. Depending on the weapons your soldiers (especially the leader) equip, your cone of fire will be different.

If you manage to get behind an enemy and then hit them with the cone, you'll perform a "surprise attack" that uses no ammo, will always wipe out the enemy, and will not attract the attention of nearby enemies.

APCs (fewer but somewhat harder to take on using guns)

One thing to keep track of is ammo. On the mission selection screen, you'll have a limited amount of ammo available per turn, and the amount you recieve (added to any ammo you saved from previous turns) is dictated by your supply level. This affects what missions you can or cannot take. Most non-fort/HQ missions require anywhere between 50 and 400 units of ammo to take on, and that number is the amount of ammo you'll have for the mission (so the 50 ammo mission would only give your troops a measly 50 ammo with which to fight). If you run out of ammo during a mission, your soldiers will be forced to use handguns, which have a very small cone of fire and are generally a last-resort weapon.

Seeing as the gameplay seems to at least rely somewhat on skill, there's not too much of a pay-to-win element save purchasing items with gold, and there's no energy system, I'd say it's not a half-bad way to make yourself feel a little clever, considering it's free.

The thing with ammo, and what makes this game so interesting, is it's not a cost but a minimum requirement of ammo that you need to go on a mission, you only lose ammo if you do a non-silent engagement with a patrol or attack a camp/outpost/HQ in the tactical gameplay. On HQ missions with multiple enemy outposts if you destroy some of them and run the time out on the mission the ammo cost for the mission actually goes down, so the ammo actually represents the estimated supply the team needs to complete their mission which makes sense and is very cool. It's interesting because as far as I know you never need to pass a turn if you don't run so low on ammo that you can't start a mission.

I found this type of control to be super awkward because your destination is also your pause button, so it's never in the same place. It makes reacting quickly to an evolving situation somewhat frustrating and I've lost men because I failed to pause when something unexpected started to happen.

Is this true? I thought the size of the cone was determined by summing up the range values for all your team's weapons?

This is also somewhat frustrating because you don't know if you have a surprise attack until you press the button to attack, and when attacking big patrols this can be the difference between losing a soldier. Related is that the game doesn't tell you that mortar teams, which don't have vision cones, seem to always have initiative, so they can pick your guys off if you decide to attack them. The positioning for a surprise attack is vague and awkward but generally I find you must be nearly directly behind the enemy (range doesn't matter).

I don't really find them to be any harder to kill than regular infantry, the main challenge they present is they're really fast compared to infantry so they're tough to get a surprise attack on.

I would say the game is pay-to-win because many missions can be ended with a single air strike item, but not a big deal in PVE because the game is more fun if you just use items when you're in a really tight spot anyways. There's also PVP which I haven't gotten to try and if the items trivialize PVP too that could suck.

The game is fun but I find the controls really suck and the game is not intuitive at times (the pause button is your destination waypoint except when you're attacking a camp then it's the red X, attacking an outpost or patrol only attracts nearby enemies unless it's the HQ camp then it attracts everyone on the map, surprise attacks only happen when you're very directly "behind" an enemy and you don't know if you got it until you commit, if you retreat from an engagement where you don't have initiative the enemy will shoot you even if you're outside their vision cone).

[Aoi]

Euclidea is... interesting. As could be surmised from the name, it's a geometry based game, where you're basically deriving the fundamentals of geometry.

You start off with lines and circles, and start 'discovering' geometric concepts from there. For example, the first non-pure tutorial stage involves a short line segment, and you need to make an equilateral triangle: CircleA with radius AB, circleB with radius AB, point C is the intersection of circleA+circleB, line AC, line BC. A few puzzles later, you to figure out how to draw a line perpendicular to an existing line... and thereafter, you have a 'perpendicular line' tool to start with. Repeat until you've finished Geometry 101.

You only have access to the first two sets of stages for free, unless you can finish all the stages in the most efficient way, then, presumably, the next, more complex set, is opened up. (...I'm evidently too dumb.)

[Sergius]

One Finger Death Punch is quite fun for a coffee break or to deal with long periods of boredom.

[AzyWng]

I think it might be possible to press the dotted line your soldiers follow (which gives you the option to change destination, route, and also pauses the action).

Yeah, there's a lot of things this game doesn't tell you, unfortunately.

[Parsely]

I think it might be possible to press the dotted line your soldiers follow (which gives you the option to change destination, route, and also pauses the action).

Yeah, there's a lot of things this game doesn't tell you, unfortunately.

I gotta try that. Also, through experimenting I realized it's the 180 degrees directly behind an enemy that gives you a silent attack, which is way more flexible than I thought.

[Aoi]

Endless Road is a pretty cool little RPG-esque thing. Monetization is pretty friendly; you get a base warrior class for free, and have to pay for the other classes. As far as I can tell, that's it. No timegate system. The translation is iffy, but clear enough for anything that matters. (I doubt people are going to be confused about ATK and HP swapping in 3 'truns'?)

Gameplay consists of two phases, basically. You're rolling dice to move along on a linear boardgame path that periodically forks, and depending on where you land, there are various effects. Mostly, you'll be in a little dialog that's asking you to make a decision (-5hp for +20gold, -2energy for +1damage, etc.) or a combat.

The combat is fairly distinctive-- both you and your opponent have a number of cards (that aren't exactly cards, but whatever) that will roll a range of values when you play them. Your objective, nominally, is to have a higher total value in play, whereupon whoever has a higher total will win the turn and attack for whatever their damage is. Where this gets messy is when the actives/passives come into play. Each of the three classes of cards can be slotted with equipment that come into play whenever something happens to that card. For example, my first attempt had me running an active card that had a chance of destroying a card in the opponent's hand; one of my passives hit the opponent for a ton of damage whenever a card was destroyed. (My first win was a joke; my three passives reshuffled my hand every turn, dealt 7% of my opponent's max life when that card returned to my deck, and gave me 19 points of armor when that card was returned to my deck.)

Any don't underestimate stamina. It's rarer than hp and is utilized by practically everything in the boardgame phase. Without it, you're dead in the water fast.

Edit: Oh hey, just showed up in my Steam discovery queue. For 10$.

[Aoi]

Dead In Bermuda is an interesting little resource-driven survival (menu-driven) survival sim. There is actually a final objective. It's kiiiind of super RNG though, as map locations are semi-random, as are character personality mods. It's possible to end up with superman traits, like slowed fatigue gain, increased fatigue decrease, fatigue decrease every night, sickness decrease every night and decreased food requirements, end result being the guy was never tired and could live off of raw meat.) Or five malus traits. It's probably worth 10+ hours before you crack how it works and you can make a final run at it.

Hardboiled is a short little thing free on Google Play right now* that kind of reminded me of a singular mission in Fallout, in terms of play, style, and length. I recommend going into it on Hard... It'll probably only last you a few hours, if that. You're basically in a crumbling city with two factions trying to get the parts to repair your car, played in tRPG fashion.

Endgame note:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Max stats before doing the final repair on your car... You'll get jumped by a group of guys and can perm-death here, unlike every other time. I forgot to check my health and died when the fourth guy attacked me, getting a game over. Uninstalled in a fit of fury.

Onirim is a nifty little solitaire game published by Asmodee; free base game, expansions cost extra, as I recall. You have four colors, three suits, and penalty cards. You win by opening enough door cards, which is done by playing three of the same color in a row, no sequential repeating suits, or drawing an appropriately colored door while holding a key-suit card. One of those games where the basic concept is more readily seen than explained, and surprisingly complex to play effectively.

Why yes, I've been travelling again lately. And broke my laptop cable. -_-

*At time of writing, which isn't time of posting.

[red_squirrel]

Pocket games always were my biggest problem. One day I even understood that I'm phone-dependent. I could play without breaks and my eyesight became worse and worse. Three years ago I've made the hardest decision ever and refused from gaming and the Internet for 3 months.
But the problem is still with me. If I play a game more then 3 hours a day, I immediately delete it to avoid dependence. That happened with HayDay (I had 35th level) and HomeScapes (625 levels passed). Sometimes I think I shouldn't do that, but games totally ate my life. And that was scary.

[Aoi]

(response about spammer removed)

In other news, Night of the Full Moon just got new DLC and the new class is nifty. And the additional difficulties are pretty brutal.

[Aoi]

Enyo is a tricky little gem; base version is free, hard mode/endless is purchase.

It's a turn-based tactical, and you have four moves (that change somewhat-- throw your shield, and you obviously can't shield dash). Your job is to kill all the hostiles on the map before you die, but all damage you deal is insta-kill terrain: Pulling them into lava, pushing them into spikes, stunning them while next to their own bomb, etc. It reminds me of Into the Breach, if you were playing solo and hits instagib, in how movements are very predictable, and losses are usually player error.

[sambojin]

Been playing a bit of Brawl Stars, Supercell's newish'ist game (ok, it got released in 2017, so not that new).

It's pretty fun. I did break down and buy the Chinese New Year thingo, and honestly probably will buy the $9 starter set. But what can I say, I love twin stick shooters, and they work really well on mobile. You get enough free stuff to get going, have a laugh, play several types of hero within a day or two (this is my first 12hrs), and it's just what I expected from a game from that company. Slightly better in fact.

It's not Clash of Clans or Battle Royale level of bullshit, where you'll definitely lose to a p2w player, but it has the same level of gacha randomness that you'd expect from them.

But they do give you fairly competant heroes for free, so you can definitely contribute properly to a team win on many maps.

There's several playstyles required, with some heroes being better on some maps or for team compositions, but it's doesn't feel like the Clash Royale grindfest. It's an action game, with just enough variables to keep it interesting.

Anyway, I'll see how it goes. I've already got some fairly nice heroes (Skeleton Healer who is hopeless until lvl9, Molotov Robot Bartender where everything is a skill-shot but can swing battles amazingly if you connect well, and Barrel Twin-Shotgunner who is probably going to get tanky AF).

Fortunately, the free heroes still work ok. Ok'ish, anyway. Honestly, Bear Girl dominates the basic map, and El Primo the luchiador wrestler smashes heist maps.

So, yeah. It's fun. No doubt I'll be getting anhilated on various maps by mythic/legendary/epic/whatever heroes sometime soon. But it's a Supercell game, I kinda expect to pay about $20Aussie to quick-power play and enjoy a freemium game like the sort companies like this make, and I have been enjoying it.

Not the best description of what it is, but, ummm..... Think of Blizzard's first person shooter, as a top-down twin-stick shooter, but with cartoon graphics and a tiny bit of LoL's mechanics. It's alright. Will probably play it a fair bit. No stamina meter for a start, and I like that

[sambojin]

I've actually gotten Bear Girl (Nika?) to lvl10, so as soon as she gets that star power, she'll be an absolute trooper in team matches. Yay!
She's a good all-rounder regardless. Short-medium range piercing damage, that isn't a bad amount of it when it hits, that can make people back-up when you're just holding areas and spamming due to the damage it causes, and brings along an ok'ish summon to take the pressure off other players on the team. She's not bad for a freebie hero. So good on the basic map 1&2, she's welcome in any team. Not bad in heist either. Not great at deathmatch though (until she theoretically gets her star power).
So for most maps other than 10 player deathmatch, I'll probably be main'ing her for now

Really looking foward to getting Turret Engineer Bouncey Shot Girl, because from a mechanical perspective, she sounds amazing. And she's free! Double yay!

Managed to pip a 10 player deathmatch with Molotov Bartender, but I kind of cheesed it. Throwing stuff over walls is so good when everyone has low HP. He'll hopefully be good (like, proper good and powerful), once he gets some autoheal-on-attack with gacha lvl9 star power. So hard to use, but so powerful already. Just, I'm not very good at the game and he's squishy as hell. Slightly less squishy might make for a very versatile character. Already have a "winter" skin for him. Won't use it, because teammate's have a harder time identifying what you're doing with DoT blobs. Might even out vs enemies not knowing wtf is going on though. Must get better at skill-shots. Yay?

El Primo (I only remember that character's name because his catch-phrases happen to include his name every time) is SO good at heist, that it's hard to say if you should ever choose a different character on it. I mean, no ammo requirement ever, heaps of health, can leap walls while elbowing, and then smack the crap out of the safe? It's not like anyone will complain if you have two of them on a team. So very good in heist. Surprisingly good at deathmatches as well. Open crates, box people, dodge behind walls if they back-up. Elbow drop them if you can, over the wall, and start punching. Early on, you are the HP king.


Starting to learn to pre-aim my weapons when going near patches of grass. Will get better at skill-shots eventually....

((this is just a holder post I'll edit to say how various heroes turned out, so others can know what to focus on with highly allegorical information. I'll edit it later. Maybe.))

[AzyWng]

Space Marshals is a game about space marshals with a fairly simple storyline - you get forced off of your ship and onto a planet and have to rescue people, do computer things, and shoot a lot of criminals with a wide variety of weapons in order to retain control of your ship.

The shooting in this game is fairly effective - one stick moves, the other aims and shoots. I'm not a big fan of twin-stick shooting on mobile games, as, oftentimes, I wind up wasting ammo as I walk bullets onto their intended target(s). Space Marshals attempts to handle this issue by having a fairly generous cone in which you can fire your weapon and hit an enemy - you don't have to be straight on target, but doing so will cause your shots to inflict more damage. The "cone" of fire is pretty much a straight line in the case of the long-range rifles and crossbows, while shorter-range weapons like shotguns, pistols, and SMGs will have a much wider cone.

Additionally, semi-automatic weapons (Or, at least, weapons that fire one bullet at a time, and don't let loose a spray when you drag the firing stick) have a special firing system - rather than dragging the firing stick in the direction you wish to shoot and thus immediately firing, you instead drag in the direction you wish to shoot, then release the firing stick to loose a bullet. This allows you to snipe effectively (the camera will pan in the direction you aim), as well as carefully line up a shot when trying to get the jump on someone. If you wish to fire quickly, you simply flick the stick in the direction of the enemy as fast as you can, which gives me a feeling of fanning the hammer of a weapon and can be rather effective.

The game has a large degree of stealth-based elements - waist-high cover is everywhere, enemies often have shields (an extra health bar that only stops damage to the front and sides), and your own character isn't particularly resistant to damage himself. Furthermore, you can inflict extra damage that bypasses shields by shooting enemies in the back, getting an "Ambush!" bonus. Several silenced weapons are unlockable to aid in stealth-based endeavors, and you start the game with rocks, which can be used to distract enemies.

Do note that if you want to unlock all the weapons and items, you will have to play through each stage about four or five times depending on stage. You'll also want to search through levels carefully to find useful clues, which unlock new levels and allow the story to progress.

Unlockable items and weapons include things like new hats, new guns, new throwable items, new armors, and underwear.

There's also a sequel that has better stealth mechanics (including stealth takedowns), a larger variety of weapons (accompanied by weapons from the previous game), the replacement of clues with COR-V Tokens (Which, rather than being mandatory to progress, merely unlock new gear in addition to the ones you can get from missions), and greater leeway with mission rewards (in the previous game, you had to complete a level with no deaths to unlock the final reward. In this game, you can die once and you'll still be able to unlock the final mission reward). There's also a mission pack DLC that allows you to play as Ava and not Burton - she is much more heavily focused on stealth gameplay.

All in all, fairly solid games, well worth the price in my opinion.

By the way, any word on how Langrisser is? I've heard of it and seen ads, but didn't get very far through the game myself (Though admittedly that was just because I didn't like the art style).