Android Games

[Bolegium]

Just got 80 Days, my first mobile gaming purchase (aside from humble bundle bundles)!

[SuperBiasedMan]

I accidentally beat 80 Days immediately. I was trying to be the Jeevesiest valet and always attend to my master, astutely plan routes and spend time frugally.

Naturally when I arrogantly thought I was way ahead at the 50 day mark that's when it all went to pot, but I had such a good start I could still hold it together even when the Jeeves facade crumpled and I failed a mutiny then lost a fight with a boxer. I even got an ending where Fogg says I was a great Valet, so obviously I now need to replay where I'm a shitty valet that wants to see the world and explore more than be on time.

[Reyturner]

Weird. Crossy Road is only on the Amazon App Store.

[SuperBiasedMan]

It is also (or was, when I got it) not the first result when you search the exact name of it.

[Gormongous]

  On 12/17/2014 at 12:21 PM, SuperBiasedMan said:

INaturally when I arrogantly thought I was way ahead at the 50 day mark that's when it all went to pot, but I had such a good start I could still hold it together even when the Jeeves facade crumpled and I failed a mutiny then lost a fight with a boxer. I even got an ending where Fogg says I was a great Valet, so obviously I now need to replay where I'm a shitty valet that wants to see the world and explore more than be on time.

 

Ugh, the mutiny plot is so good. I was sitting on my couch, laughing while playing like I was appearing in Nintendo lifestyle footage, for a solid thirty minutes.

[prettyunsmart]

  On 12/17/2014 at 12:21 PM, SuperBiasedMan said:

I accidentally beat 80 Days immediately. I was trying to be the Jeevesiest valet and always attend to my master, astutely plan routes and spend time frugally.

Naturally when I arrogantly thought I was way ahead at the 50 day mark that's when it all went to pot, but I had such a good start I could still hold it together even when the Jeeves facade crumpled and I failed a mutiny then lost a fight with a boxer. I even got an ending where Fogg says I was a great Valet, so obviously I now need to replay where I'm a shitty valet that wants to see the world and explore more than be on time.

 

We had essentially the same play-through, I think. I played it super safe in the first part of the game, and all things that could go wrong did go wrong once I left Japan (mutiny didn't work, steam ship broke down on the Mississippi, lost the fight to the boxer). Somehow, I still managed to make it back to London in 75 days. 

 

So are the big events like the mutiny something that always happens, or is there an element of randomization? 

[SuperBiasedMan]

I loved the mutiny plot, it was literally the turning point of my game too so it just hit so perfectly.

I do wonder a bit if they sometimes not occur, they seem like such a long route to have only the simple options of things to do.

 

Also I am terrible for entirely missing mechanics.
In 80 Days I didn't realise that the converse option was meant for gathering information from people about potential routes or extra info about towns. I thought it was always about talking to Fogg and decided to refrain from it constantly until the mutiny when I wanted to ask him what the hell he was thinking.

 

And then in Crossy Road I took a good few games before realising that I could actually backtrack, not just hope forward and slide left and right. Does anyone else find that the left and right swipes sometimes read as hops or am I just doing it wrong?

[BusbyBerkeley]

I was having trouble with the Crossy Road controls too. Swipes registering as taps and making me die. Game is cute enough that I didn't uninstall it immediately though, unlike Peggle Blast which is total bullshit in it's free to play mechanics. Do not recommend that one at all, which is a shame because as far as I can tell it's the only Peggle on Android.

 

I'm still playing Pixel Dungeon, which I've yet to beat, but they added bombs recently and they are loads of fun. That and Hoplite are easily my favorite and most played games I've found on here.

[SecretAsianMan]

  On 12/18/2014 at 5:04 AM, BusbyBerkeley said:

I'm still playing Pixel Dungeon, which I've yet to beat, but they added bombs recently and they are loads of fun. That and Hoplite are easily my favorite and most played games I've found on here.

 

Pixel Dungeon is my favorite Android game.  It's my go to game when I'm not in the mood for something else.  Here are some tips for beating it:

 

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Setting mystery meat on fire or freezing it will turn it into a cooked steak or a frozen carpaccio.  This makes it safe to eat.  The frozen carpaccio is the better of the two because it will also grant you a random buff, but is harder to obtain since the only ways of freezing are with an icecap seed or a potion of frost.  If you are burned/frozen and have mystery meat in your inventory, there is a chance the meat will also be cooked/frozen.

 

Potions can be cooked by throwing seeds into an alchemy pot.  It takes 3 seeds to cook one potion.  Each type of seed is associated with a different type of potion, but the specific potion that gets made is somewhat random, with the odds being influenced by the seeds used to make it.

 

As long as you aren't starving, you will slowly regenerate health.  Holding down the wait button (the clock icon in the lower left corner) will cause your character to fall asleep until they begin starving, have full health, or a monster walks into view.  Standing on a planted seed of sungrass will speed up the regeneration process.

 

After killing the first boss, search the room he was found in.  Usually (but not always) there will be a hidden door that leads to the lair of the Rat King.  Inside his lair are several chests which contain gold, weapons, or armor.  The weapons and armor are always of poor quality and usually cursed so they should never be equipped but can be sold at the store on the next floor.

 

Beating the second boss (the Tengu) for the first time will drop a class specific Tome of Mastery that lets you choose one of two subclasses for each character.  This only needs to be done once for each class.  After you get the tome you will start any subsequent games with it.  I think the best subclasses are Berserker (Warrior), Assassin (Rogue), Sniper (Huntress), and both of the Mage classes.  The Gladiator subclass for the Warrior sounds good, but it requires 3 consecutive hits for the effect to trigger and resets on each miss/parry.  Freerunner for the Rogue can be useful if you can stave off hunger.

 

In terms of damage, the most powerful wand is the Wand of Firebolt.  It has the highest damage output, not even counting the burning effect.  The Wand of Disintegration is also fairly powerful.

 

Certain potions are guaranteed to spawn somewhere on a level if you find a room that needs it.  A room full of floor traps or a large chasm with a chest will spawn a potion of levitation, a flooded vault with piranhas will spawn a potion of invisibility, a random bookcase or wooden barricade will spawn a potion of liquid flame.

 

Piranhas are tough to kill and do a lot of damage but will always drop a piece of mystery meat on death.  The easiest way to kill them is with a Wand of Teleportation.  If they are teleported to a non-water tile, they will instantly die.  Ranged weapons can potentially work but they have a high dodge rate.  Damage dealing wands work if you have enough charges.

 

If you see a room that has nothing but a chasm in it within the first 4 depths, then it means the next depth will have a room that is locked with the key inside the room.  To enter this room, you have to jump into the chasm from the depth above.  Doing so will hurt you (a lot) and cripple you for a short while but its the only way to enter the room.

 

If a monster opens a closed door, they are unaware of you (even if they were actively chasing you through the door).  If you hit them while they are unaware (or paralyzed or asleep) the hit has a 100% chance to strike.  This makes it especially powerful for the Assassin, who does critical damage on unaware targets.  Getting mobs to chase you through a door and then ambushing them on the other side is a very useful trick.  The door must be closed for this to work.  Mobs killed in a doorway do not close it upon death.

 

Throwing a Potion of Strength into a Well of Transmutation will turn it into a Potion of Might, which gives +5 HP and +1 strength.  Throwing a Scroll of Upgrade will turn it into a Scroll of Enchantment which will give any melee weapon or the boomerang an enchantment.  This is the only way to obtain these items.  Other items thrown into the well will be transmuted into another item of the same type (ie weapons become other weapons).  Transmuted items will maintain their upgraded or downgraded status.  There is guaranteed to be at least one Well of Transmutation in every game.

 

Throwing a Dew Vial into a Well of Health will fill it instantly.  Stepping into it yourself will heal you fully, remove your hunger, and remove any curses on equipped items.

 

Throwing an item into a Well of Awareness will identify it.  Stepping onto the well identifies equipped items, reveals curses on items in your inventory, shows all items on a depth, and acts like a Scroll of Magic Mapping by showing all doors and traps.

 

The higher the level, the greater the chance that using a Scroll of Upgrade will negate the enchantment.  A level 0 or level 1 weapon will never lose the enchantment when upgrading.  The same is also true of armor.

 

If you die somewhere in the dungeon you generate hero's remains.  It is a pile of bones that can be found on the same depth you died on.  This is true no matter what hero you use next.  For example, if you play as a Warrior and die on depth 3, then start a new Mage and reach depth 3, you will find the Warrior's remains.  The remains are generated when you reach the depth, not when you start the game, so as long as you don't reach the depth you can choose which character you want to find it.  Only one set of hero's remains can exist at a time, so if the Mage died before reaching depth 3, then his remains would be the next one found and the Warrior's remains would be gone forever.  The game will randomly pick one of the four equipment slots as a drop for the remains (you get gold if there was no item in the slot).  The item will be cursed and the level of the item will be capped depending on what depth it was found on, but it will otherwise retain all its properties.  You can use this to pass on an upgraded short sword from the Warrior or an upgraded Wand of Magic Missile from the Mage as a free upgrade to your next character.  If you're really patient, you can continually use sacrificial heroes to pass on items to your "main" hero.  Starting a new game without dying does not generate a new set of remains.

[osmosisch]

Those are great tips but I can't kill the first boss, like, ever.

 

[BusbyBerkeley]

The most reliable way I've found is to plant one of those dark green seeds (earthroot?) on the edge of a pool of water in the tunnel leading up to him, open the door and aggro him then stand on the seed to get the armor and just wack at him. You want to position it so that you are in water so that the goo from his attacks washes off and that he is on dry ground so he doesn't get his health regen. Also helps if you have a decent weapon and/or something to poison or set him on fire.

[SecretAsianMan]

  On 12/28/2014 at 7:49 PM, BusbyBerkeley said:

The most reliable way I've found is to plant one of those dark green seeds (earthroot?) on the edge of a pool of water in the tunnel leading up to him, open the door and aggro him then stand on the seed to get the armor and just wack at him. You want to position it so that you are in water so that the goo from his attacks washes off and that he is on dry ground so he doesn't get his health regen. Also helps if you have a decent weapon and/or something to poison or set him on fire.

 

Yeah, that's the most consistent method.  It also works fairly well on the second boss if you have enough projectile weapons or potions of poison gas or fire.  For the first boss, if you don't have a seed of earthroot, hit him until he starts shaking (the game will say he's pumping up) then move 2 spaces away from him.  During that time he's charging a very powerful attack that hits in a 2 block radius.  If you're out of range, he'll cancel the attack and come after you again.  With a decent weapon and some luck, you can defeat him by getting him to chase you.

 

Also I forgot to mention the various quests.  Spoilered in case you want to discover this for yourself.

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Each of the various regions has a specific quest associated with it.  Depths 2-4 will have the Sad Ghost quest.  Somewhere in those depths will be a ghost (he looks like the wraiths but white).  Talking to him once will give you a quest to either find his dried rose or slay the fetid rat.  The rose is randomly spawned from a dead mob so just keep killing till you find it.  The fetid rat will spawn somewhere on the floor after you talk to the ghost.  He's surrounded by a paralyzing mist so hit him once, move away, and repeat.  He drops a skull as proof.  Once you have either of these tokens, find the ghost again and he'll give you the choice of either armor or a weapon.  The result is somewhat random but usually it's a high level item and always identified and uncursed.

 

Depths 7-9 have the old Wandmaker quest.  He can be found as soon as you enter the level.  He'll either ask you for a rotberry seed or corpse dust.  Corpse dust is found on piles of bones and one is spawned on the level when the quest starts.  A wraith will also spawn when you disturb the bones but he can be dealt with by getting him to follow you through a door then hitting him (wraiths have a high chance to dodge but die to one hit of any weapon and ambushing enemies on the other side of a door is a guaranteed hit.  Wands are also guaranteed hits).  The rotberry seed comes from a bush that can be found on the level.  Stepping on it will fill the area with poison gas and root you in place.  Picking up the seed will emit a yell that alerts all enemies to your location.  You can trigger the bush by throwing something at it, then waiting for the gas to disperse before collecting the seed.  Returning either item to the Wandmaker will reward you with either a battle or non-battle wand.  Battle wands are Disintegration, Magic Missile, Firebolt, Lightning, Avalanche, and Poison.  Non-battle wands are Amok, Telekinesis, Blink, Flock, Slowness, Teleportation, and Regrowth.

 

Depths 12-14 have the Blacksmith.  He'll request either 15 pieces of dark ore or vampire bat blood.  In either case, he'll give you a pickaxe.  Use it to mine the ore from the walls or kill a bat.  Doing this will allow him to upgrade one of your items by combining two of the same kind.  So if you have 2 pieces of the same type of armor, he'll combine them and give you the highest upgraded version.  This works the same as a scroll so there's a chance to disenchant.  The items must be identified, not cursed, and at least level 0.  If you find 2 weapons or armor of the same type early on and plan to use them, it's worth hanging on to them until you find the Blacksmith.  He'll also usually have some weapons/armor in the same room that can be taken for free.

 

Depths 17-19 have the Ambitious Imp.  He's partially invisible so it's easy to miss him if you're not paying attention.  Look for the "Pssst, (class name)" text in the corner.  He'll ask you to either kill monks or golems.  The requested mob will drop a token as proof.  When you have enough, he'll give you a ring that's cursed but identified and either a +3 or +4 level.  It will also cause him to open the final shop on Depth 21.  If you don't complete the quest before reaching that depth, the shop will never open.

[Bjorn]

Picked up 80 Days after everyone has had such nice things to say about it (it's the first mobile game I've bought in a couple of years, I never game on my phone).  I'm just stupidly impressed with it.  Holy crap that's good. 

 

The mutiny is one of the highlights.  I just finished my first trip, at 82 days, and the absolute best moment was in New Orleans.  The steamships boiler had blown, and any hope of us making London in time were dashed.  We were going to just miss it, based on all the routes I had available.  So I went out for a walk that night...

 

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...and met a freed slave, a lovely young man trying out his costume for Mardi Gras.  We spent the evening talking, him telling me of how even though he was freed, he still worked for the same family, taking care of his white half-brothers and half-sisters.  The night ended with a kiss in front of the hotel.  It was a very bittersweet moment, Passepartout's first and only romance of the trip, and it happens only after he (I) have given up on actually making it in time. 

[SecretAsianMan]

One more thing related to Pixel Dungeon.  There's a modded version of the game on the Play Store called Shattered Pixel Dungeon.  It was posted with the permission of the original game's developer and does what you'd expect out of a mod.  It rebalances some things and makes some changes such as adding in a new type of equipable item called artifacts.  I quite like a lot of the changes and recommend it if you'd like to get some more variety in the game.

 

Also added a few more tips to my previous post.

[BusbyBerkeley]

Got Galaxy Trucker with some google reward money. Its just the base game, but it's a really nice port of one of my favorite board games. Check it out!

[SuperBiasedMan]

What actually IS Google reward money and does it apply to non Americans? Just cause I've only heard of vague references online but not seen it on a Google page ever.

Also in 80 Days I got the murder mystery plot.

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HOW I wound up there was amazing. I was playing it loose and fanciful. Enjoying the travel and having fun when I glance upon a paper that tells me of a hovercraft, a new experimental device. How can I resist?

Along the way I spot a katana in a market and hear it gets good money in the Americas... Foolishly I take it, even though I rearrange all our luggage to fit it.

As a direct result of both these, I end up on a boat where the engineer is killed by the katana I bought. I don't know if there's multiple threads that can take you here but my God that was fantastic. I utterly failed to sleuth the real killer but I am determined to replay that section again.

This game just feels so natural to me. It supports my choices and only feels gamied and interactive fictiony when I replay pieces.

[Bjorn]

How do you re-arrange your luggage?  I can't ever seem to get things to move between cases. 

 

And I've got to track down that hovercraft, I remember seeing the headline once, but wasn't in a position to go that direction.  My first playthrough, I mostly ignored the news/wait option, as I thought conversating for new routes would always be the best option.  But now I've realized you can get routes from the news as well, on top of all sorts of other interesting and potentially useful tidbits. 

[Goose Malloy]

KOTOR on Android is now a thing, which is awesome. I'd meant to play 80 Days a lot over the Christmas period but the surprise release of the former suckered me in and I spent most of my time with it. Touch controls were a minor annoyance at first but soon I got over them (the old style pause fighting obviously made this a lot more bearable than it would have otherwise been) and just completed it today. Still one of my favourite games ever, might have to do a dark side playthrough now.

[SuperBiasedMan]

It's finnicky and slow but if you click and drag an item to the edge of the next case it should slide over to viewing that case and let you drop the item you're still holding. The control is pretty poor though, I have missed a train because of those shennanigans.

If you want to know the location of the craft, it sails from

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Yokohana

[Bjorn]

I'd tried that, but I must not have been patient enough with it.  I suppose a good time to re-arrange would be if you're ready to stay at a hotel but still have a bunch of hours left before it makes you sleep on the street.  I have missed a train because I had too much luggage, couldn't buy more capacity and was trying to rapidly sell two cases worth of stuff and didn't get it done in time. 

[clyde]

I thought some of you might appreciate this list Paul Hack made.

http://playboard.me/android/channels/54698ca2eb9e19560c0043fb

[SecretAsianMan]

Crossy Road is now on the Google Play Store proper, in case you didn't want it through Amazon

[heybeardo]

 

I've been having loads of fun with Kingdom Rush and its sequels. For me it represents a great pick-up and play tablet game.

[ariskany_evan]

I love Kingdom Rush as well!  Though I wouldn't call it a pick-up and play game, as each mission can take well over five minutes.

 

I've been digging Lyne.  Minimal, fluid line connecting puzzles, with a clean aesthetic I can get behind.

 

Been trying to get into the Ascension app, as I love Dominion and Star Realms, but it's not grabbing me.  The artwork is not to my taste, and the UI is super busy.  It's weird to say, but I'd probably like the game better if I could just change the background to a plain color.  The game is passive and convoluted at the same time.  Half the time I win because I've collected a good number of high-value cards, but I am incapable of keeping track, so the win feels unearned.  Weird game.

 

Sold my iPad 2 and picked up a Nexus 9 and thought I'd finally play through X-Com, but right now I can't stop myself from only using it for Hearthstone...

[SuperBiasedMan]

Also a cool thing about Lyne is that the puzzles are procedurally generated.

Other technical note about King of Dragon Pass, can the audio be turned down or off on it? The couple times I've intended to play I got stopped because of the title screen blaring music that was not affected by my volume controls.