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[Frumple]

*raises finger* Uh, which one? The langrisser series has been running since like SNES days, and many of them are playable on mobile if you really feel like it...

[AzyWng]

Oh, I mean the one that’s available in the App Store, rather than through emulation. Just look up “Langrisser” and it should show up near the top of the page.

[Aoi]

I came across a rather interesting article about Dragalia Lost the other day over here: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/03/nintendo-to-smartphone-game-makers-you-can-only-gouge-our-players-so-much/

The URL says it all, but for some more detail... One company basically announced that they're cutting expected revenue by 20% (~90mUSD) for no clear reason. A reporter poked them, and the answer was basically "Players complained to Nintendo about how much they were being bled, so we had to ease up. (We could've squeezed them even more, if they let us...)" The article goes on to further note that Nintendo probably cares more about maintaining a positive image and pushing brand awareness over immediate profits, given they have some other projects they're working on, so it isn't a sense of fairness or altruism though.

Has anybody else seen a situation like this pop up before?

[Jopax]

Not sure if it's been talked about before, but I've been having some fun messing around with Rebel Inc.

Made by the same folks behind Plague Inc., the gist of it is, you're a leader of a multinational operation to stabilize and bring peace to a troubled region. You do this by spending cash on various initiatives to improve the region like education, sanitation, health, transportation, etc. These slowly spread around the region and work to increase the support of the locals, once you got enough on your side the region is considered stable. The tricky part is that there's insurgents who want to get rid of you, so you gotta involve the military too (foreign soldiers at first, but later on local armed forces become available), otherwise you'll lose reputation which might mean the international community loses faith in your ability to fix the shitshow. The insurgents themselves are annoying in that they tend to run when defeated, so you gotta corner the bastards to truly stop them, then there's camps they set up that continually send raids to nearby regions. You could airstrike them, but that carries issues of its own. Then there's the juggling act of inflation/corruption which could cause issues if you're too careless in your spending.

Overall, it's a pretty fun little strategy game which can be played in sessions and while not super deep, it has enough going on to keep you interested the whole way trough.

[Retropunch]

I came across a rather interesting article about Dragalia Lost the other day over here: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/03/nintendo-to-smartphone-game-makers-you-can-only-gouge-our-players-so-much/

The URL says it all, but for some more detail... One company basically announced that they're cutting expected revenue by 20% (~90mUSD) for no clear reason. A reporter poked them, and the answer was basically "Players complained to Nintendo about how much they were being bled, so we had to ease up. (We could've squeezed them even more, if they let us...)" The article goes on to further note that Nintendo probably cares more about maintaining a positive image and pushing brand awareness over immediate profits, given they have some other projects they're working on, so it isn't a sense of fairness or altruism though.

Has anybody else seen a situation like this pop up before?

Overall, I've become more and more disillusioned with mobile gaming. I thought we'd reach a sort of happy equilibrium with a nice mix of completely free games, games that are free to play (with a few micro-transactions for cosmetics etc) and then ones which are the equivalent to normal paid games.

It seems like that just can't happen - even games I've bought up front have been absolutely loaded with microtransactions and 'watch an ad to increase x'. No one seems interested in making high quality free games (like they do on the PC) and all the F2P games have gone just insane with trying to squeeze players.

I honestly can't see it changing because they're obviously still making huge amounts of money, but it's definitely getting worse for the player.

[Parsely]

I don't play mobile games that often but the recommendations I've got from this thread have been enough for me TBH. Still wouldn't mind more though, my backlog is empty. The only thing that's going to change this is if laws change in the favor of consumers or companies find a different way to make money.

[Aoi]

It seems like that just can't happen - even games I've bought up front have been absolutely loaded with microtransactions and 'watch an ad to increase x'.

What games do all three? Microtrans and soft-ads tend to go hand in hand, and often one of the microtrans are to give unlimited-whatever-the-ads-gave, but I can't imagine that sitting all that well if you had to pay for it to begin with.

Though, I guess my sole purchase (Night of the Full Moon) is kind of like that-- the first class is free, the next few are DLC, there's a one-time purchase for an (optional) extra buff each run, and the first three times you die, you can view an ad for another buff, or refuse and reload your file with nothing lost... though I guess in this case, the ad may get a bit of a pass, since it's a response to a failure condition, not an "extra" reward that you have to take to barely-not-keep-above-water. If you're not losing, then you'll never be given the option.

[Retropunch]

What games do all three? Microtrans and soft-ads tend to go hand in hand, and often one of the microtrans are to give unlimited-whatever-the-ads-gave, but I can't imagine that sitting all that well if you had to pay for it to begin with.

Though, I guess my sole purchase (Night of the Full Moon) is kind of like that-- the first class is free, the next few are DLC, there's a one-time purchase for an (optional) extra buff each run, and the first three times you die, you can view an ad for another buff, or refuse and reload your file with nothing lost... though I guess in this case, the ad may get a bit of a pass, since it's a response to a failure condition, not an "extra" reward that you have to take to barely-not-keep-above-water. If you're not losing, then you'll never be given the option.

I've played a few that do similar to what you're saying - just recently I tried EverybodyRPG (I got a weird urge for an idle game) which has an upfront cost (although very cheap) but there's tons of stuff it's trying to sell you all the way through.

The ones where you have to pay are definitely lighter on the microtransactions, but they still seem to be such a big part of the game. I feel that if I'm paying for something I shouldn't have to pay/soft-ads/etc. for anything further other than potentially cosmetics.

More than that, anything without an up front cost just seems to have abandoned all pretence of 'its fun without but you can pay if you want some little boosts' and just wants to squeeze the player horribly.

[Frumple]

That particular one (and others) actually go for zero upfront cost occasionally, iirc. It's functionally standard microbullshit design, just with a side order of ripping off people that are unaware/too impatient to wait for a "sale"/etc.

[ggamer]

been playing Girls' Frontline on and off for the past year or so. It's a lite turn based strategy game mostly revolving around spinning a gatcha for gun women and putting them in the most efficient formation for whatever task you give them, like anti-armor, high evasion, burst damage, night vision, etc. Roles typically shake out to Shotguns and SMG's being tanks - high defense and high evasion respectively - Snipers and Assault being DPS, and LMGs as a sort of mage (high damage long cooldown). Girls are rated from 2-5 stars, with increasing rarity girls being more effective yet more expensive to maintain. It's pretty easy to play w/o spending money (I've dropped ten dollars to give myself more squads to work with for more specialized roles), and once you get resource management and formation tactics down turns into a pretty decent time waster.

The biggest problem I've had so far is that the english version of the game is lagging considerably behind the PAL version, for whatever reason. Also, that shotgun gals are ridiculously hard to find, especially if you need duplicates to start dummy linking (an extremely necessary mechanic that gives a flat increase to dps and health for every dummy linked). Also also that it has that super annoying tendency of inserting the loli fetish bait into every possible space in the game.

If anyone else has any good TBS/management games to recommend on mobile, I'm all ears.

[Parsely]

I don't really like Girls Frontline, there doesn't seem to be any challenge when it comes to tactics, I had the same problem with Fire Emblem Heroes. If you like gacha though you'll like GF...

Starlost is a pretty fun action game, highly lethal with a focus on mobility, controls took some getting used to and the mining part of the game is kind of a slog at times, but I like watching my point defense guns automatically blasting enemies while I juke around (double tap to boost; upgrade your boost charges and ramming damage, because headbutting your ship's face through crowds of enemies is easily the most fun part of the game) it's free and the only ads are banners that pop up when you dock to regenerate health or drop off resources and THEY DON'T INTERRUPT YOUR GAME, they're unobtrusive and don't block the screen or pause the game and to make them go away you just fly away there's NO TIMER, halle-freaking-lujah, this shoddily written (the dialogue is horrible) free game implemented ads in a way that doesn't make me want to kill someone

Someone mentioned it somewhere I think but Rebel Inc is a really fun game, if you like Plague Inc it iterates on the design in really fun ways, like by making you more active with how you interact with the world, it's still a cool asymmetrical warfare game and it's kind of a role reversal since the insurgency represents the virus now. Plus it's free

[scourge728]

ptw

[Mephisto]

I haven't played any Langrisser/Warsong games before last night. Finally gave the mobile game a try. It's been mentioned before, but only in a "how is it" manner.

It's okay so far. I'm probably still in the prologue, having not yet reached the next town. I hope it opens up at a certain point but up to now it's basically one battle after another (with occasional side battles) along the path to the next story bit.

There are gacha mechanics for heroes, as you probably expect from every single mobile RPG/strategy game. I'm not sure who you play as; I was able to provide a name at the beginning but I haven't seen it since.

What I just decided I'd love is a mobile Suikoden but I fear the gacha.

[Folly]

Brown Dust launched internationally for Android/iOS about a week ago.

It's a tactical grid-based game, with a gatcha that features mostly buxom females wearing bikini-calibur armor.
The early game is way too long, with many of the game modes being locked behind storyline progression; and storyline progression involving several hours of matches that can be brute-forced with minimal thought. But the story does eventually become challenging, and various bosses and events unlock requiring players to level up a variety of units and place them in optimal patterns.

I'm enjoying Brown Dust for now, though it's obviously not for everyone.

[sambojin]

Yeah, Starlost isn't bad. I keep forgetting that it's on my phone, so haven't really sunk my teeth into it. It's a good laugh for a quick blat around the place, though as mentioned, the controls feel a bit weird at the start. It's one of those odd games that are fast and frantic, but are actually kind of relaxing, because there's a lot of just dodging and juking while your turrets do the work.

Tonnes of upgrade and research potential (I'm kind of looking forward to a mine/turret/drone passive build, even if it's not great). Surprisingly high production values as well, with a silky smooth framerate and crisp graphics, even at the speed they're moving.

I'll have to put a bit more time into it soon.