I’ve never gamed all that seriously on smartphones, but decided to give it whirl after getting a free trial with Apple Arcade.

Didn’t really subscribe to the gatekeeping around whether mobile games were “real” games or not, there’s plenty of badly timewalled/paywalled content on other devices, and I don’t think mechanic complexity has to factor that much into things considering some of the earliest games out there.

Anything interactive and entertaining can be a game, I reckon.

Highlights

The Oregon Trail

Classic title, always wanted to play this.

• I did eventually get my party to Oregon city!
  • By “party” I mean 1 guy with dysentery and 2 dying oxen.
• People would not stop getting themselves crushed by the wagon.
  • I don’t understand why people’s feet had such high encounter rates with the wagon wheels, are they not walking parallel to the cart??
• Coffee is some kind of magic energy juice.
  • Accurate.
• If you drink enough medicine/stuff your face with enough medicinal herbs, you can cure your broken bones in a single day.
• Did not notice if there was an indicator for ox energy levels somewhere, one just dropped dead of exhaustion one day.
  • Understandable.
• Putting on fresh clothes magically increases your hygiene - even if the reason you got unhygienic was because of drinking dirty water or something.

Reigns Beyond

• What is going on here? I’m the captain of a spaceship… who is also in a music band?
• Both the ship and the ship computer are incredibly shady?
• Elon Musk is in the passenger cabin?

Sayonara Wild Hearts

• Got bronze rank for almost everything, a few silvers, one gold. Man this game is hard.
• Controls aren’t very tight, so getting into the flow state is on the harder end..
• Gorgeous visuals and boppin‘ music
  • Great, considering this is basically a QTE music game

Necrobarista

• Clunky mechanics
• Cool concept, not so great execution
• Decent aesthetics? Sort of?
  • Animation, not so much a fan
• Long reads on mobile in small text - bleh

Tangle Tower

• Favourite experience out of all the games in my foray into mobile games
• Fantastic voice acting — maybe the best I’ve ever heard in a game
• Lovable character designs, extremely charming animations
• Could’ve been longer, kind of feels like development ran out of resources and wrapped things up in a rush later on
• Generally fun, well-designed puzzles

Sneaky Sasquatch

• Quirky, comedic progression fantasy
• Annoying nighttime/energy mechanic
• Seems like a big game, didn’t get too far
• This game is about capitalism

Conclusion

These were definitely all real games, on mobile, and if you only ever played games like these on an iPhone I’d still count you as a gamer.

(Also looking forward to Papers, Please on mobile. Incredible game.)