Mobile Games

The latest expansion pack is really a slap in the face of dedicated collectors.

Some may tilt at windmills. I tilt at lazy marketers for mobile games. But I pick which giants I joust; mine is Raid: Shadow Legends. I played Raid: Shadow Legends for a couple weeks back in the summer of 2020, intrigued by the quality and humor of their internet advertising at the time. It was a bit of a grind, as you had to merge units to make better units to make better units and so on. Graphics were decent, the auto battling was nice, but in the end I stopped playing and moved on. I did like their advertising. ...

A few days, Friendly Necro was going over all the mobile games on which he’s worked. I was wondering why mobile games just didn’t stick with me, and I remembered this strategy tactical one I played a long time ago and I just couldn’t remember when, or why I stopped. I hardly ever remember why I stop playing mobile games. I just stop. And then I remembered that the Apple Store keeps a history of everything I’ve downloaded… and then I found it… Brave Nine…? ...

“Adventure of 8-Ball” is a 2D platformer mobile game with 50 levels, attractive graphics, and catchy music. The player controls 8-ball, a little black cat, on a quest to save their owner from the evil dog catcher who has kidnapped them.

Some games will last forever, if you let them. You expect that in an MMO, but with mobile gacha games – when do you just decide it’s time to move on? I made the difficult decision last night to stop playing Flight Rising. It’s a browser game where you raise and breed dragons. After looking into a similar game that used crypto, I looked around for non-exploitative alternatives, found this game and fell in love with it. The community is awesome, there’s little need to pay money for their currency when they give so much of it away for free; I’ve never come close to running out. But the game made, for me, a fatal mistake; they added a game mode where you have to check in throughout the day. ...

Okay, picture this: A collectible card game – except digital! And you play as one of a bunch of different classes, with cards themed to your class. You can play through a deep RPG with unique storylines for all classes, or test your deck against other players! There’s never been anything quite like Hearthstone Shadowverse! Not the protagonist of the game, though he was of the anime. Bit of a demotion. ...

Header image shows the moment I knew I was done with Fallout Shelter. I had just gotten things back on track from an attack of radioactive scorpions, when some death claws came by and took out my defenses, then killed my main power, water and food facilities. Even “Cut-Rate Richard Branson” couldn’t fight them off. I had 101 residents when I finished – enough to unlock every building, but enough to also make the shelter chronically short of water, energy and food. The shelter always made more than it needed, but the frequent attacks would decimate them and then it would be a long session to get things stable once more. ...

A “Fallout”-branded worker placement mobile game in the vein of Ellison’s “A Boy and His Dog”

If you’ve ever played a mobile app, sooner or later you’re going to see a very particular ad. There’s a fish that needs to be saved – from sharks, poison, lava for some reason, dehydration – and all you need to do is pull a pin to let good stuff happen. But the finger on the screen is doing it ALL WRONG! And NOW THE FISH IS DEAD! Obviously you want to help. But there are so MANY fish saving games in the App Store! You just want to save one silly fish, but which should you choose? ...

I finally succumbed to the advertising, and downloaded Raid: Shadow Legends. It couldn’t be as bad as everyone made it sound, could it? My Free Company on FFXIV is always making fun of it, and I can kinda see why? The advertising is pervasive (it kept being played during my German lessons in Duolingo). They paid Youtubers to promote the game, then denied they were paying them. But those advertisements… finally worked on me. ...