10 Mobile Games To Ease Your Commute
As summer draws to a close, we offer 10 recent and upcoming mobile games that will help you ease back into your hectic worklife and face the fourth quarter with a smile.
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Mobile games help us tolerate life's harrowing inconveniences, such as passing the time in long queues at Starbucks, or finding a way to have a little fun in the airport while our flight is delayed yet again. The greatest public service offered by games on our smartphones and tablets is that they help ease our commuting time.
With summer holidays coming to an end, we decided it was a good time to highlight our favorite mobile games released in the past six months. As you return to your daily commute and full workdays, we hope these will make your transition into the fourth quarter a little less painful.
To land on this list, a game had to either be released in the last six months, or have had a major update in that time. Our list is eclectic in styles, types of games, and even business models.
[ What do you want in your next smartphone? Read iPhone 6s: 9 Features On Our Wishlist. ]
You'll see "old fashioned" freemium model games, plus a growing number of paid single-player games that resemble the console and PC gaming experience of a few years ago. There are even a couple of games taking advantage of unique smartphone and tablet features in new and genre-busting ways -- including multiplayer options.
Once you've checked out these offerings, let us know which are your favorites in the comments section below. A word of caution: Please don't try these games while driving. And, if you decide to test any of these out while using the restroom, don't blame us if you drop your phone in the toilet.
Fallout Shelter is based in the popular Fallout game world. You build your own "vault" after a nuclear holocaust and attract people to live in the vault to establish a perfect society. This is not the first (nor the last) builder game we'll see for mobile devices. But the combination of a well-known world and gaming style makes this an enjoyable choice.
Gathering Sky is difficult to explain. It has no "point" to it. No score. No winner. One might call it a meditation game. You guide your flock of birds on the winds as you explore the world set to beautiful music by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. You have to experience it to understand it. Here is a video to give you a taste. If your commute is stressful, this might be the answer you've been looking for.
Broken Age is a point-and-click role playing game (RPG) in the tradition of some of the earliest RPG computer games, such as King's Quest. In fact, the designer, Tim Schafer, was on the LucasArts team that gave us the classic Maniac Mansion series. The Broken Age plot is hard to describe. It features two teenagers, one who lives alone on a space ship another in a deserted area. Both are tested by various bad things and need to get to safety. The Second Act, released this spring, reveals many of the secrets left from the original. It is a beautifully rendered story with great voice acting. It's a pleasant way to immerse yourself in another world while counteracting your daily commuting blahs. It is "family friendly" meaning some of you may find it childish, while others will find it charming.
Space Marshals is a tactical shooter in the tradition of XCom. The plot is a mix of Wild West and Sci-Fi in which you play, you guessed it, space marshals. The top-down nature of the game takes advantage of the best aspects of smartphones and tablets. The game has been around for a while, but the third chapter was recently released, and this is supposed to finish the first story arc.
Originally a browser game, Agar.io is now available for mobile, where it really belonged from the beginning. It is an incredibly simple multiplayer game brilliantly conceived.
You play a cell in a petri dish. Your job is to grow mass. You can eat anything smaller than you, and anything bigger than you can eat you. You float around trying to become king of the petri dish, while lots of people all around the world also play in the same dish. There is a steep learning curve when you first play, but it becomes fiendishly addictive, especially when you build grudges over which cells have eaten you in the game. For some reason, I seem to keep being eaten by a player who calls himself Mexico. One day, I will eat Mexico, and I will be avenged.
Remember when the mobile game was Angry Birds? It is back. The new multiplayer arena is a nice addition, but mostly this is the same game with better graphics and some tweaks. Nothing wrong with that. Chubby Checker followed up "The Twist" with "Let's Twist Again," so let's slingshot again like we did a few summers ago.
Tycoon games were the best part of single-player gaming in the 1990s and early 2000s. Mobile is bringing Tycoon games back, and they are hit or miss. Game Studio Tycoon 2 is one of the survivors of the Tycoon wars in mobile. and so it stands in for the whole genre. Go through 50 years of gaming history while trying to design the best games for multiple platforms.
Card Crawl is a mini-deck building game similar to the popular Hearthstone. Card Crawl doesn't have the big budget backing or huge decks of cards that Hearthstone has, but it has a flair, simplicity of design, and character. If you find the gigantic world of Hearthstone intimidating, this is a quick mobile alternative.
Her Story is likely the first in a long line of titles that will form a new mobile genre. Her Story is part movie, part game, part live-action role-playing. You are a detective with access to an old computer full of video interview clips and other clues to the disappearance of a woman's husband. By watching the footage of her interviews, you play along and solve the case. Note: this is the only mobile game on the list that is not available for both iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. So far, the game is only for iOS.
This week at the D23 Expo, Gameloft and Disney Interactive announced a new game "coming soon" called Disney Magic Kingdoms, in which you can build your own theme parks like Disneyland. I assume it will be much like the classic Roller Coaster Tycoon, only with Disney flare and magic. You can bet this one will be on my smartphone the day it comes out.
So what are you playing on your mobile devices right now? What's the next Candy Crush Saga or Clash of Clans? Tell us in the comments section below.
So what are you playing on your mobile devices right now? What's the next Candy Crush Saga or Clash of Clans? Tell us in the comments section below.
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