I need some time wasters for breaks and lunches. I have a hard time wading through the google play store because every thing seems like a clone of the same 10 games, just different spelling.
Does anyone have links to some decent android game sites? I used to check out a couple ipod game sites back in the day but can’t really find any good android ones.
I don’t like “match” type games (Candy Crush), Angry Birds, endless runners, “hitman”, or jrpgs. I like some puzzle type games, including Where’s my Water, Flow, Harbor Master. I like retro style platformers, but more of the Swordigo style (which was one of my favs), not insanely hard super meat boy stuff.
I was hoping for more old school RPG’s like The Quest since I grew up playing stuff like that. I’m also a sucker for retro remakes, but the “collections” like Namco Museum, etc, are generally pretty poorly done and not worth it.
Another category that I really liked was the old school shooter. I don’t remember which ones I liked specifically though. Bullet Hell shooters I don’t like as much, but I have been playing Sky Force and liked it a lot until I got towards the end. It just got too repetitive and too hard towards the end and I realized I’ll never beat it.
The game I keep coming back to over and over again is CrossMe and its sister CrossMe Color. Yes, they’re 5 bucks apiece but I’ve had them for years and have yet to complete all the puzzles as they add new ones.
I’ve just recently started messing around with Tsuro. It’s very attractively done and the AI is pretty good. Either that or I’m horrendously bad but I have yet to win a match against 2 or 3 Clever opponents.
Well, it might be worth checking out Angry Birds Transformers and Angry Birds Epic. Yes, they’re part of the same franchise, but neither use anything like the traditional Angry Birds game mechanic with the slingshot and so on.
Transformers is a side-scrolling shooter, where you get dropped by Astrotrain into any of a half dozen basic terrain types, try to stay alive and shoot down as many targets as you can, unlocking different hybrid bots (either bird/autobot or pig/decepticon) with different weapons and upgrading them.
Epic is a sort of fantasy RPG… you have to fight turn-based strategy battles against pigs, unlock new birds and headgear/classes, and explore the island.
I’ve enjoyed both immensely over the past couple years.
In the “old-school RPG” vein, may I suggest the Gurk trilogy. The last one suffers from some unnecessary endgame bloat, but they’re all a lot of fun, and cheap. (The first one is free, in fact, although it’s fairly short.)
If you also like roguelikes, and would like something shorter and more suitable to a phone screen than Nethack while still pretty difficult, try Pixel Dungeon. It’s free, and I’ve never used any of the in-game purchaseables (not even sure what they are, actually). If you’d prefer less of the “pretty difficult”, there are a bunch of kinder-and-gentler forks of the game available under various names (as well as some pure-sadism forks…).
Other recommendations:
Auralux, very pretty strategy game with a simple, almost relaxing abstract aesthetic. Free with purchasable expansions.
Singular, an attractive little puzzle game with a sense of humor. Not free but cheap.
Stekk and Stekk 2, ultra-minimalist RPGs simplified almost to the point of not being games, which I have gotten an inexplicable amount of entertainment out of. Free.
Cogs: the classic sliding tile puzzle game at its core, but a bit more complex.
Fragger: lob grenades at bad guys. The bad guys are stationary, but the levels are built quite ingeniously.
Knotmania: untie knots. I find it kind of creepy because the “ropes” very much resemble worms (and move like they’re alive), but it’s a good game.
Any game by Kairosoft: old-school pixel art graphic RPGs in a huge variety of themes. One of them you manage a soccer team. Another you build a ninja camp. Another you manage a sushi store. Another you build a mall. It’s more fun than it sounds. Extremely Japanese.
downloaded the first Gurk game. Seems cool so far.
also got Auralux and like it a lot
Fragger I did not like. Same thing as angry birds just too much randomness
Monument Valley is pretty cool
In the process of looking at the other recommendations. Thanks guys and I’ll keep looking
Although I have and often play CrossMe and am very glad that it introduced me to this style of puzzle, I don’t know if I’d recommend it to anyone who wasn’t using a large phone like I have, a Note 4 with a fairly pinpoint stylus. I really wish they’d bring this game to PC, where there would be less squinty work involved on a large screen and a mouse pointer.
Alto’s Adventure is a great little time waster, good for a few minutes at a time. It’s a side-scrolling “endless run” type game, which I hate, but this one is very good. You’re on a snowboard riding down an endless mountain, making jumps, doing backflips, avoiding rocks, escaping ornery elders… Simple one-touch controls.
Shadowmatic is a pretty good puzzle game. You manipulate one up to several separate objects to create a silhouette of a target object.
Illusia - might not be available anymore, but this was an excellent old-school side-scrolling action RPG that I used to play when I had an Android phone. I was obsessed with it for a couple of months.
Zenonia is definitely still available. I didn’t like it as much as Illusia, but it’s a decent Zelda clone.
Best Fiends has had both me and The Fella hooked hard. There are some mini games inside it. It does some seasonal things that can be fun. It progressively gets harder, but you can just patiently play without having to pay. But you can buy stuff or watch ads for some stuff.
Downwell is an addictive action platformer. You are a guy falling down a well, being attacked by various monsters. Some can be jumped on safely, others must be shot or avoided. Firing shots slows your descent. It’s very challenging, but easy to pick up.
Games don’t take long, so it’s great for short waits. Unfortunately, it’s sufficiently addictive that it’s very easy to say “just one more run” until you find you’ve been playing for a half hour past bed time.
I went onto Amazon and found a subsection of their Android store called Amazon Underground. It took me a while to get it to work on my phone - for some reason the download link Amazon sent me wouldn’t connect - but once I got it working it was fine.
Everything on Underground is free. I’ve only had 1 game with micos, but all the micros are free too. So I got
Monument Valley - and the expansion (that’s the one microtransaction that I used so far.
Galactiblaster Resurrectopm - an old school arcade shooter. I love these!
Riptide GP2- Jetski racer. Fun but you have to grind a lot for cash to upgrade and buy better rides. Nice graphics for a phone game.
Where’s my water 2 - Don’t usually like cutesy stuff, especially from Disney, but my nephew got me hooked on the first game and this looks like more of the same.
Shadow Blade- Fast paced, fun, ninja platformer with thumping music and well designed trap filled levels.
Inferno+ - a dual stick shooter with vector or vector-style graphics. Kind of on the fence about this one. I love the way the game looks but the cramped rooms it takes place in don’t suit me.
KOTR - I can’t get this to work and gave up on it after 4-5 days of trying, including re-downloading. I played the PC game back in the day and liked it so that kinda sucks. Maybe I can get it to work at some point.
Basically what I like most are platformers, shooters, rpg’s western style, and retro or retro type stuff. Atmospheric is a plus (monument valley). Dual stick shooters are fun too but my fingers always go off the buttons. Can I somehow hook my xbox 360 controller up to my phone?
I’ll check out the games people have posted!
There is some kind of expansion/additional levels available in the Monument Valley menu. I haven’t checked it out yet, but will when I beat the main game. I wish there were more games like this, I love the music, graphics, and relaxed atmosphere.
Highly recommending Swordigo, a smooth platformer that took me back to the SNES era. Fantastic game, with a fairly large map, lots of secrets, and great gameplay. You get new abilities as you progress that allow you to go back to previously unaccessible areas and find secrets.
Even though I have it on my PC, I am thinking of getting This War of Mine at some point for my phone. My concern is that my phone won’t be able to handle it. It’s just a cheap LG sunrise (or sunset, or something) with a mere 8gb and doesn’t seem to have that much processing power. I put in a 32gb chip, but the phone doesn’t add it to the 8gb, it treats it separately.
Can you connect wireless controllers to android phones? I like dual stick shooters a lot, but the lack of tactile feedback from buttons makes them hard to play, my fingers keep slipping off the button areas of the screen.
Both free faves of mine, and a great ways to learn both sports:
Touch Rugby Revolution
Cheesy and simple game that captures the essence of Rugby in a low graphic game. When you sidestep a hapless opponent and rush for a try, you’ll get goosebumps.
Big Cup Cricket
Same thing. Easy to pick up and play, cartoony, and addictive. You’ll love when the quacking duck sprints across the screen.