It’s 2022, what are you playing?
It seems like it’s been quite a while since the entire Android and iOS user bases were all happily sitting under a tree, singing along in harmony, and playing Angry Birds. There have been a few breakout games like Candy Crush, Pokemon Go, Among Us, etc. come along, but there hasn’t been that one unifying mobile “everyone’s playing it including Uncle Grandpa.”
What’s your favorite mobile game? What are you playing?
As for me…
Text Express: Word Adventure
I’m currently cycling between three games on my main phone, one is Text Express, because I’m a sucker for word plate games. I’ve been playing since I got it, and the game still manages to be fun, but the story itself is starting to annoy rather than inspire me to go on… let’s collect all the things and be forced on two hundred side quests to advance the story and at this point at level 33 I *think* there might be a love story popping up and *maybe* there’s a goal for your friend but I feel like the thing has become bogged down in delays to collect, repair, hatch, etc.
Fun game, most word plate games are, and if you feel the need to engage in endless sidequests to collect things this is it. The derailing of a main plot to focus on minutia has slogged it for me at level 33 though.
Last Shelter: Survival
Several years ago I decided to install a game that said “no pay to play.” This was Last Shelter: Survival’s ad at the time that you did not have to pay to win or compete. I decided I’d see if that were the case and got into a world-building game and followed a resource-gathering course (Farmer,) as that seemed to be the best path to 1) earn, 2) upgrade, 3) pivot to something else.
I reached level 25 last year. This is the highest level one can get. My character cards were all maxed out with all skills unlocked. I found very quickly with maxed out everything I could be beaten by pretty much anyone who had paid. Yeah, I’m up there, but either I’m missing something several years into the game or it’s going to take purchasing Arms Supply ($20 a month,) paying to unlock the VIP shop, and then the purchase of a few packages to be able to be more than a level 25 weakling.
During this time they added a few minigames and advertised them as though they were the game. One of them looks like a tower defense game with zombies. Nope, you play that once and maybe every 6 months there’s an event that pops up with it in it. The game is spend and upgrade. I treat it like a Tamagotchi – feed my people, gather resources, take my armies with their maxed out commanders and skills and lightly slap the competition before having to heal for 8 days.
Oh yeah, while there are zombies in this game you’ll forget that… they’re next to no part of the game after the initial intro.
They seem to throw in gameplay curveballs and more and more upgrade paths rather than making it more fun. There are now robots that you upgrade, build parts, fight in a completely separate area…. it’s a grinding upgrade game that makes you want to whale out just to reach some sort of end, and yet you never do. Oh look, I’ve collected everything and done… 2 weeks later there are 6 new buildings released and an event that can only be unlocked by collecting 5000 clams which you get 2 a day as a free player.
Mob Control (by Voodoo)
Mob Control is a game that looks fun and was fun at the beginning. It’s one of the few games I have put money into because the advertising was literally the most annoying on the planet and it was quite a relaxing game and I was enjoying it, except for the ads. I paid to get rid of the ads.
The premise is pretty simple – point a cannon, shoot, bunch of guys come out and attack. Gameplay can be figured out in seconds. It’s just a relaxing little chill game until you play it like I do.
The only problem with the game is I discovered a way to win without really trying. Every week I go in and destroy 50+ people in my group on the piggy bank challenge, and every day I advance another 20-30 spaces on the leaderboard. So it’s got some exploitable issues that I’ve discovered (and I believe roughly 640 others have,) but still a pretty fun game.
They’ve added a few things since I’ve been playing, but the game is pretty much what you can play within 30 minutes… I can tell you at months in there’s really no change, and I use the game more as a meditation device than anything else.
