Android Gaming Thread

I'm kind of disappointed that it's hard to find a good picross game for my Nexus 7. There are plenty of them available, but the problem is that you need the squares to be nice and big to select them easily, but then that means a lot of zooming in and panning around, which makes it harder to do all the counting from edges you need to do.

Oh well, in other news, Knights of Pen and Paper is out and getting rave reviews; too bad it won't let me buy it with my Google Wallet credit (it seems to be a currency issue, as the wallet is in CAD and they're only specifically accepting USD for this store entry). I've also been enjoying Plague Inc., a ripoff of Pandemic, but a fairly well-done one.

I bought X-Plane 9 on Android a while back for an Inspire; it was fun to just fly around, but I never bought any additional content for it. I find that Strike Fighters Android takes care of my flight-sim itch on a mobile since you now get to shoot stuff.

And, oddly enough, the mobile graphics aren't that much of a step down from the PC version. I'm not sure what to think about this.

Has anyone tried Knights of Pen and Paper? I see reports of bugs. Are they game breaking, because otherwise the game looks fantastic.

Zeboyd's hotly anticipated (by me) Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 is finally coming out on Android (along with iOS, Mac, and XBLIG) tomorrow. I'll probably wait a few days to pick it up since it's now competing for my affections with the Dark Souls DLC, but I'm still pretty psyched for this one.

Good interview with the dev here:

http://pockettactics.com/2012/06/18/tactical-chat-plague-inc-developer-james-vaughn-end-world/

Chrono Trigger

On one hand, its (IMO) the best RPG that Square ever made.

On the other hand, I have beaten it before and its $9.99...

And now reading the Jayisgames.com review, I am hesitating even more. They are making the port sound like it was kind of badly done, especially in the graphical areas...

Square Enix does not have an awesome track record when it comes to mobile ports.

Owen 'magnetic' Faraday has an interesting feature on Wired UK's site on the state of Android gaming. It's not exactly chock full of good news but it does go into some of the reasons for Android's less-than-spectacular gaming scene.

Now that I've played this game, I would like to say that it's really good and you should all buy it.

Heads up! Shamelessly C&Ped from Creole Ned's post in the bargain thread:

Google is launching Ingress, a new ARG on Android. You have to request invites and I haven't received one yet so I don't know what it's actually like, but the video on the site looks pretty cool. Thematically it reminds me of the NIN Year Zero ARG, or EA's Majestic, both of which I thought were pretty cool.

The heck? I like it! Thanks!

So Plague Inc just updated with a new disease type. I still love the hell out of this game.

There's a new victory condition. It surprised me. I was quite pleased.

Hello scrappy little Android game thread. I have a new Galaxy S3 as reported elsewhere on this forum and am interested in non-action games for it that don't require jelly beans or whatever because my phone is still eating ice cream sandwiches for now.

I was shamelessly addicted to Bejeweled on the iPhone and was disappointed to see that EA apparently only offers the older Bejeweled 2 for Android (don't ask me who came up with the naming scheme that makes 2 the older version) and this has made me sad. Are there other worthy clones or is the Android version not that bad? The user reviews make it sound scary and crashy.

Try Dungeon Raid! It's really awesome, though not really a Bejeweled clone. It's its own thing. You make chains of icons rather than lines, but the customization you unlock is AWESOME. Try it out.
Here's a review from Touch Arcade.

Dungeon Raid is indeed an excellent game but I think I played it out already on my iPhone. Thanks for the recommendation, though!

I've been sort of enjoying Knights of Pen & Paper although it's not the best game ever like Dungeon Raid was.

Osmos, unless you've already played it on PC. I've been playing on a Nexus 7, but I think it works for mobiles too.

I bought it on the strength of the trailer, and I can't say I'm enjoying it much. The production values are fantastic, but as far as I can tell the developers' mission was to distill the soul-sucking grind of an early-2000s Korean MMO into a fantastically boring mobile game. Blech.

Dungeon Raid, though....fuck. So amazing.

Creole Ned
If you are looking for Bejeweled type puzzle games, I would recommend Zookeeper DX or MegaCity. I think both are former iPhone games, but Zookeeper DX is almost an exact copy of Bejeweled, while MetroCity is a really cool tile placement game where you try to maximize the value of your houses using other city parts which raise and lower the value of the land around them.

MegaCity looks neat. I'm going to try that now.

I shall peruse your suggestions, Wader. Thanks!

The Bard's Tale trilogy is on sale for half off. Three bucks for some of the best classic RPGs that I vaguely remember from my childhood, hell yeah.

Also they throw in the average-ish PS2-era hack n' slash, hooray.

MegaCity is insanely addicting. You did this to me! I kept thinking about it at work, just waiting to go home and play.

Interesting tidbit: Brian Fargo said on Twitter that the situation with the original Bard's Tale trilogy rights only allows inXile to distribute them as part of the package of the PS2-era game. I'm annoyed because even the "SD" version of that game is a 1.8+GB install, which is a serious chunk of my Nexus 7's storage.

@abiessener Unfortunately my rights are such that they must be bundled but at leas I was able to do it.

— Brian Fargo (@BrianFargo) December 5, 2012

IP law is dumb.

Also: Radiant Defense is easily the best TD game I've played on Android. Nice HD graphics, too.

It's not a challenging game so far and it's a little crude but I've been enjoying Galaxy Hero, a free (there is a 99 cent version if you want to give the guy a little coin) shmup with some rpg elements (you earn levels to build up your stats and can pick up gear from enemies.) The levels are super short so it's a good game if you want to just play something for a minute or two.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.galaxyhero.main

Super Monsters Ate My Condo is free in the Play store right now, and apparently there might be a free Adult Swim game per day for a week or so.

Knights of Pen and Paper got a big update and is on sale for $0.99 right now, and it finally let me use my current Google Wallet balance to buy it instead of insisting I add another credit card (I think it was some kind of CAD/USD mismatch before).

I'm really enjoying the original Bard's Tale game, the concept is so close to what I want in a mobile game, but the UI is really painful, with needing the keyboard, but the keyboard overlay being so huge, and the need for external mapping/notes doesn't mesh well with mobile. Is there anything following this path in the modern mobile market?

Battle Cats!

I'm not sure how long it's been out, but Zookeeper Battles has been eating a lot of my free time.

Oh boy another castle defense zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Why these things continue to come out after Paladog I'll never understand

I hate this thread for sucking me into Dungeon Raid.

They only added that shit in the last patch, I haven't really played in a few months. The crafting and stuff always seemed kind of useless since it was such a tiny upgrade to your stats.

Hmm, not having played it (don't have the time), how so?

Ok... yeah, that is a terrible way to do in-app purchases and the kind of thing that gives all apps with in-app purchases a bad name.

I've ignored it completely and had no issues with the game. Money is easy to earn later on as well; it's a non-issue.