Be Excellent To Each Other

I wanted to talk about Motorsport Manager 2, but there didn't seem to be anywhere sensible to do it (discussion of the previous game was in the F1 thread), so here is a thread for phone games. "Phones" being devices that run iOS or Android, of course. Windows Phone users might enjoy getting a hoop-shaped case for their phone and running along after it with a stick.

Anyway, Motorsport Manager 2. There's more to do than the first one, and it's a lot prettier (not that that really matters in a game like this). You have upgrade paths for your HQ, your drivers get actual tangible effects from races, cars have more upgradable parts (I think) and some parts come with bonuses that stack up to give the driver special skills. There seem to be more crashes / retirements than before, and the young driver program is far more detailed.

Otherwise, it is largley the same. Spend all the money you have until you're horifically in debt, then hope it works out.

It's very good, and costs £4 (on Android, at least).

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... 2017&hl=en

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/motorsp ... 84699?mt=8

The first one was most excellent. I shall look into this.

I did the opposite. Lived within my means very strictly until I got to the top tier, then spent my stockpiles of cash.

Have you played the PC version? It's more in-depth and has actual cars on the track rather than blobs. I'm wondering if the mobile sequel is more in line with that.

I have a Windows phone... and yeah, it's on it's last legs. So much potential for Xbox games, wasted.

Carry on.

This is what I said about mine in 2012 when I got rid of it.

I like to be thorough, just in case I've missed something.

Still blobs, but I'm okay with that.

What I'm not so okay with is the lack of incidents. There's never been a crash on the first corner of any race, for example, and overtaking seems trivial - having a car in front doesn't affect the following car at all, it just drives by, so you don't have to worry about pitting to get a slot in traffic, or anything like that.

Also, because the races are short, pit stops are brutal, and the tyre wear is still too uniform. But it's fun.

I fall into the Spend and Hope category

Team Rover are the ones to beat this season

Er... what about Snake II?

For the life of me, I can't stop "playing" Almost A Hero (I use quotes because you spend most of your time watching it). Basically, your team of folk beat up monsters, number get really big, then you prestige and do it again. And again.

Can't stop. Can't stop playing it. Send help.


Exciting action shot!

I just started playing Polytopia and very first impressions make it feel like a jolly nice Populous, CivRev and Megalomania hybrid.

And I just finished my first game. It's great.

That does look good, will give that a try, cheers. There is a mega-lo-mania clone (gigalomania) that I've tried. It's.....alright

Ooh, I didn't know about that. Had a quick go on the train, lovely hearing the sound FX again, but I forgot what an obtuse clusterfuck the megalomania interface was. Nothing feels remotely intuitive. Also reminds me of the X-Copy interface.

I downloaded this, played for an hour then deleted it. I could feel myself feeling compelled to continue playing, the constant gathering of coins and powering up. But it felt so empty. And my wrist was starting to get cramp. It felt best to cut ties while I could.

You're a wise man - especially as when you get to level 64 you don't even need to have it open on your phone for it to continue playing

I tried Polytopia this morning - it's good fun, if (it seems right now) a little simplistic.

Played quite a bit of 'Classic Words' lately. It's £3.79 (on Android, but it's on iOS too) for the 'plus' version which is ad-free and has a pass-and-play mode for two players. It's basically the same as Scrabble, including board and scoring from what I can tell, but against the AI rather than other players. It makes a nice change from Words With Friends and its cluttered interface and unnecessary features.

Only downside is finding the right difficulty. I hadn't realised that the game starts with two aids switched on - one to stop you getting all crap letters and another to stop the computer player playing obscure words. With those aids on, you can beat 'extremely hard' level without much difficulty. With them off, it's a much better game, but still, beating 'Very Hard' wasn't too difficult. However, if you then try 'Extremely Hard', it's basically gloves-off time and you'll get your arse kicked repeatedly.

And on the subject of WWF's unnecessary features, it now has a 'social dictionary'



Not sure if cibrushsille makes the cut.

This will take your mind off it.


https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.coldfiregames.spaceclicker

Oh you cunt.

WHY MAN? WHY?

Been enjoying Data Wing.

A cross between Thomas Was Alone and Gravity Power feels like a fair way of describing it.

Absolutely worth the zero it costs (and I've not encountered ads or IAPs yet).

Oh wow, thank you. I loved GF2/GP.

Although I just realised there's nothing in the way of fighting in it, so I have been a touch misleading.

I like it. Must try not to waste an afternoon playing it

SOLOMON'S KEEP IS FINALLY OUT FOR ANDROID!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... ptisoft.SK

It only took them seven and a half years.

Now you can start the wait for the sequel to turn up: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/solomon ... 97198?mt=8

I didn't like Boneyard as much.

They were working on Solomon's Dark or something, but nothing ever appeared.

It should be noted that Bamba found out that SK was out on Android and told me about it like the gent he is.

Golf Clash is surprisingly good fun for a mobile freebie.

As long as you don't play like a dick you don't have to spend real money or watch videos or anything.

PPSSPP is really really good on Android. It's a PSP emulator, and it runs really well and is very well put together. I'm playing Persona 3 on it. Touchscreen wouldn't be good enough for most games, but there's a lot of turn based RPGs for the system.

Is anyone playing AlphaBear? You should be playing Alphabear.

It's a tremendously charming word game from the people who made the excellent Triple Town.

You create words on a board to create bears. Bigger bears = bigger points. There are apparently 100+ bears to discover. My current favourite is Golf Bear.

There is a cooldown system on the number of goes you have in the form of honey. I managed to play for a week or so without this being a hindrance, then decided to pay to permanently remove that cooldown as I'm enjoying it and the developer deserves it.

There is still cooldown on bears, but really that's no different to playing a football game, with your players getting fatigued.

There are daily challenges and you can challenge friends.

12 bears out of ten.

Google Play link

Lulzor

No way to import progress from iOS

Eternal, the best CCG around, plays wonderfully on Android, even on a 5'' screen. Nowadays the only other game i have on my phone besides that is Zaccaria Pinball, which just plays better than Pinball Arcade or Zen Pinball on the small screen.

Eternal: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... al.Phoenix

Reigns: Her Majesty is a sequel or companion game to the original Reigns, which I have not played.

R:HM is, however, a fun little game that I have enjoyed playing in spare minutes here and there. It is a simple adventure of choices; you are the Queen and you are met by a person (in the form of a card and some text). You then either swipe left or right to make a decision based on what you have been told/asked.

So, it might be:

“Do you want to have an affair with the hot barbarian princess?” You can swipe left for no or right for yes.

“The king is wounded!” Swipe left to call for help, or right to let him die.

Each decision you make alters between one and four of your score meters. These are Church, Population, Army and Money. If any of these hit 0, you are killed via an interesting means. However, if any of them max out, you also die! So you need to find a balance. This can be tricky if a decision might alter all four, or you have two running low and need to make a call.

There are also special quests, such as ‘birth an heir’, ‘cause an eclipse’, ‘fix your clock’ and so on. And when you die (and you will die. A lot) the new queen comes in and the story continues. There’s some repetition after a while, but the persistence of the world makes it quite interesting, and you can go on different paths and stuff. If you get any achievement done then that Queen will get a title too, like ‘Desdemona The Pure’.

I think it cost 2 quid, and is kinda fun.

Nice! I had TIT in one of my games the other day and it steadfastly refused to use it one of the closing sentences, no matter how many times I refreshed.

Alphabear is indeed fun.

But limiting without paying though. But it’s fun enough I am considering it.

£1.29 on android and it is indeed fun.

I haven't regretted spending the money on Infinite Honey. I'm having lots of fun on it and the Daily Challenges fit in well with my needs.

However, I am a bit peeved at their coin system for unlocking the treasure challenges for Legendary Bears - there's no obvious way of earning coins other than waiting (or, of course, paying). That is a shit trick. That said, it hasn't particularly tarnished my enjoyment.

Mimi and I both paid when it was big on iOS, but haven't played it for a while now.

There's definitely £1.29 of fun in it though, you should pay.

Does it still not work offline? That was a major part of why I stopped playing it.

It has a separate offline mode that it dumps you into if you don't have a connection (in which you get to play but don't make progress in terms of bear collection). When you're connected again it offers to take you back into online mode.

If it is indeed £1.29 as Russ says then I'd offer this: just pay the goddmann money. Are we really still swithering over paying less than two quid for a game that's already proved itself to be fun? That's pretty depressing folks.

"Pay £0.60 to unlock 'U'"

Unlimited Honey is £3-odd.

Think the £1.29 figure came from Reigns which was posted above.

That can get to fuck, then. I'm offline a lot (the Tube.)