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[Frumple]

Yeah, was aware. Didn't mean to suggest I wasn't, if I did, heh.

And yeah, quick double check suggests the translated version's only (legitimately) available through the google store. If you're stuck with apple there's not much I can do besides give a halfhearted prayer for your damned soul.

[sambojin]

Going to give a bit of a half-hearted thumbs up to the already mentioned HAWK: Freedom Squadron. It's good. Even if it gets a bit grindy, it's a fairly quick, fun to play shoot'em up. I don't know how far the grind goes, because I'm not there yet. Only a little taster done for a few hours so far. It's nice, the "call an ally" MP stuff is swift and I've had very few low/high ping problems, and you can unlock enough stuff in 1-2 days to make it worthwhile considering as a "longer term" shooter on a mobile platform.

I was really surprised, but I like it. Just something I can come back to, with theoretically no progression caps (or rather, lots of incremental progression available, but can probably be free-to-play with that as well. I still am so far). It's like if Tyrian wasn't just "Get Laser, you already have Sonic Wave, you're finished now."

There might be some BS eventually, but the stamina system is a non-issue, replaying levels can still get you better stuff, and the IAPs are nice yet kinda pricey, but probably not entirely necessary. I'll see how it is in a week or two. I've got too much work to play much for now. Need sleep.

But quite a good shoot'em up, something which is surprisingly lacking on mobile platforms. There's openTyrian, ShooMachi, a few pure grinders, and a few pure Jap style shooters. I don't like that coins and bullets look vaguely similar to each other. I do like a heap of other things in the game. Once you've got two robo-buddies, you don't feel like you're doing nothing alongside far more progressed players, and they're free after a couple of hours of play. After that, there's plenty more stuff, and nearly uncapped grind/replay/whatever available there. It's quite charming really. No swift kick to the balls, but with ALL the trappings of a mobile game. It's nice. Not ShooMachi or Tyrian nice, but somewhere in between while being around that level of accessibility.

[sambojin]

Robots.io is a top-down old-skool MechWarrior'esque 5v5 objective-based twin-stick shooter. And it's really fun. They use the word MOBA to describe it, but it's not. It's just five objective points, no creeps or anything, that award ticking points. 1000pts, your team wins. Games take about 3-5mins. No level-ups, no itemization other than weapon/accessory picks between deaths, no cash/farming. So no MOBA. But it's still good, stompy fun.

Just play it exactly like you would a twin-stick shooter, except it has a heap of auto-aim, so your second stick is more-so target selection, rather than precise aiming. Use the accessory buttons, but usually not the fire buttons, because the second stick fires both weapons nicely. Maybe there's some setups that you could "pre-prime" weapon reloads to get a constant stream of fire going, but I haven't fiddled with it too much yet.

Anyway, try it out. It has the standard mecha weapons, it has objective based play, and it has minefields. Seriously, you can lay mines that only your team can see. Between two green lasers and two miners as a basic loadout, it becomes a different game.

If you like mecha, if you like twin-stick shooters, if you like smashing people that haven't worked out the controls properly yet, or if you like being an arsehole like me that baits people into running their mech through a minefield, give it a go. It's very basic so far on where the game could go (it's very early in its release), I'm pretty sure there's AI bots in many matches (hopeless ones to fill spots on teams, not hacked ones), and it's a bit screwy on team-work (no guilds etc yet), but I've had more fun out of this as my mecha fix than I have from anything else in ages.

I'm "GFB-sambojin" on there if you happen to get blown up by a retreating laser mech. Or if they make an actual guild system one day (someone said, "want to be in my guild? Throw those letters at the start of your name". I figured, why not? I can always change it back)

[sambojin]

Oh, and Weapon Throwing RPG 2 just came out. I quite like part 1, just as a cutesy grinder, so I'll try this one out once I'm done smashing noobs in the above. I'm sick as, so while I'm stuck in bed sniffling, sneezing and coughing, this'll help me take my mind off the flu.

[Aoi]

Oh, and Weapon Throwing RPG 2 just came out. I quite like part 1, just as a cutesy grinder, so I'll try this one out once I'm done smashing noobs in the above. I'm sick as, so while I'm stuck in bed sniffling, sneezing and coughing, this'll help me take my mind off the flu.

Did that first one ever actually end? The last line of dialogue I got implied that there would be a final encounter, but a new zone or island never opened. (This is after you unlock the 'hidden' zone by winning in the area.)

[Frumple]

Never finished it to find out, ehehe.

That said, the sequel is feeling a bit unstable. Getting intermittent crashes on this device. Doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to it, unfortunately. Hopefully it'll clear up in the future, and even if not it's still pretty playable, just occasionally annoying.

[Aoi]

There's current a Humble Mobile Bundle: Roguelikes on right now, with some good stuff in it.

Desktop Dungeons, previously bundled, but, though I liked it on PC, adored it on tablet, it makes me want to pitch my phone out the window.
Pixel Heroes: Byte & Magic, previously bundled for PC, is a moderately interesting linear RPG with a sort of Knights of Pen and Paper vibe, for better or for worse.
Sproggiwood I enjoyed on PC, and it's a rather intriguingly grim story put in a rather colorful wrapper. Same developer as Caves of Qud, as I recall. Pretty easy if you're a seasoned gamer of this persuasion, but fun nonetheless.

Also features bit Dungeon I/II, Road Less Taken, Dungelot, Heroes of Loot 2, and Star Chindy, none of which I can comment on.

[Aoi]

Black Survival is pretty interesting on a number of fronts, as of a few hours in.

It's effectively a real-time menu-driven survival PvP game. You have your character with various traits, and you're on an island with about 15 different zones. Each zone has different items that can be found (just tap) and you need to craft yourself up a set of equipment to kill the other 9 players on the island before they get to you. The crafting recipes are mostly (if not all) already shown, and there's a tracker that indicates what zones have said item. Every 3 minutes, some zones will kill anybody in them, and, later on, get locked out entirely.

The complexities come in from a few areas-- fighting people takes time, and that means less time gearing up to fight the other 8. Armor or weapons first? If you're in the newbie league, almost everybody is running the default starter character-- which means there's likely to be competition for mats of his primary weapon type. If you're on the losing end of a fight, where do you flee to? The hospital zone can drop some powerful restoratives, but your pursuer knows that as well; you might be better off running to a random area, resting, and hoping they don't have any way to track you.

The gameplay itself is actually pretty tepid, but it's pretty interesting how it comes together. It took me about 8 matches before I finally clocked my first win-- somewhat disappointingly, the second to last survivor declined to join me in the only non-death zone for a final brawl, instead just letting himself time out. =(

[sambojin]

Robots.io just got an update. You now have a special slot. +10% movement speed, -25% reload rate, jump jets, or auto-heal. Makes a lot of builds far more playable, so you're not hard countered nearly as often. Which actually makes the game far harder, but more balanced.

There's a new weapon too. Kind of a pulse laser thing. Seems to be quite good.

Now the amount of mines you can drop with faster reloads just gets silly. And people are starting to learn how to use them to their advantage, even if they didn't drop them. Yay!

[sambojin]

Nice. At one point I was #8 in the ENTIRE WORLD at robots.io. Admittedly it's just the amount of matches played, and time-in-game thereof, so matches won, but #8..... In the entire world! Of again, admittedly, only about 10-20k downloads, that don't play it much.

But it's been the only team game I've ever played on mobile that is entirely balanced and fair. Everyone has every option at their disposal. First time scrub, or seasoned player, it's a level playing field in the game. No level'ing, no stamina, just a vaguely fair 5v5 match-up. And even when it isn't, you can bottle or try to run-Armok with no downsides.

The best mecha game on Android right now.

I actually went VIP for 6 months ($38 aussie) just so the russian developers can keep developing and keep the servers up. And when have you ever known me to pay for anything? It's fun enough, and you don't get anything than server/dev costs paid for your money, and a custom paintjob for your mech. I'm running Khorne Berserker, aka: the Big Maccas Truck. Red and gold, all the way.

Anyway, matchmaking/guilds should be in soon (the dev, System, jumps into chat a bit, and speaks a good bit of english), so jump in. Best, fairest, mecha game on mobile by far. Every build has counters, skill takes a part in it, but so does insight and teamwork.

Give it burl. Robots.io

Deceptively simple fun. With mecha. With no grind (unless you've got a weekend to spare. I made top 10. But I won't be there next week. Too much other stuff to do).

[Folly]

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius is having their anniversary event starting tomorrow. Along with special raids and exploration areas, they are giving away a free 10+1 spawn tomorrow, and 1 free spawn each day for a month after. Great opportunity for new and returning players.

[MoonyTheHuman]

The Powder Toy has an Android port, that features all parts of the desktop version and is backwards compatible. Note that the version for iOS is unofficial and is not compatible with the desktop version.
I highly recommend you try it on a tablet device (Stylus recommended) because it's great fun no matter what you play it on.

[DeKaFu]

Anyone have any thoughts on these? https://www.humblebundle.com/mobile/roguelikes-mobile-bundle

I've been wanting some roguelikes for my phone, but I never know how many of these are designed for tablets instead and would be too hard to use on a smaller screen. The Desktop Dungeons description notes that that's true for it, at least.

I think I've heard good things about Sproggiwood, but depending on the quality of the port / controls, maybe it'd be better to just grab it on PC...

[Scripten]

Anyone have any thoughts on these? https://www.humblebundle.com/mobile/roguelikes-mobile-bundle

I've been wanting some roguelikes for my phone, but I never know how many of these are designed for tablets instead and would be too hard to use on a smaller screen. The Desktop Dungeons description notes that that's true for it, at least.

I think I've heard good things about Sproggiwood, but depending on the quality of the port / controls, maybe it'd be better to just grab it on PC...

I'm currently enjoying Dungelot and Pixel Heroes, so those work on phone screens. Granted, I have a Pixel XL so my screen size is at the higher end.

[Aoi]

Anyone have any thoughts on these? https://www.humblebundle.com/mobile/roguelikes-mobile-bundle

I have a write up on some of them a few posts up, but since then:

Dungelot plays a bit like Gumballs and Dungeons (which is GREAT, at least for the first few dozen hours... then it turns into a completionists slog, which I'm still on). I'd stick with G&D, myself. Note that G&D requires always-on.

Road Less Taken is... Interesting. More discovery than puzzle than I'd like, but fascinating nonetheless.

Star Chindy I want to like, but I can't get the hang of space combat. The tactical bits are fun though.

Sproggiwood's plays fine on my phone. Uses a digital DPad by default, which is fine for the action it requires. Still as easy and hauntingly disturbing as I recall.

These have no problems with phone play, at least at the 5" tier. Also, I wouldn't call most of these roguelikes, if you're looking for something more on the Nethack or DCSS side of the spectrum. (As a point of reference I also don't consider Spleunky or Isaac roguelikes, but that's for elsewhere.)

Edit: Okay, Sproggiwood's suffers from screen size issues in the later stages; there are some enemies with ranged attacks that can hit you from off-center with minimal warning (though I guess you could technically avoid it by not being in a straight line from any hostile on the minimap).