Tablet Games

[Barry Admin]

Jesus Christ they're fucking shit. They exist entirely now to serve video adverts at every opportunity. Hateful little things designed by teams of psychologists.

I'm enjoying Pixel Starships, but feel I should maybe fuck it off? Is there anything worth playing?

[holyzombiejesus]

[tag]Prozac Evolution Soccer[/tag]

[Pseudopath]

Jesus Christ they're fucking shit. They exist entirely now to serve video adverts at every opportunity. Hateful little things designed by teams of psychologists.

I'm enjoying Pixel Starships, but feel I should maybe fuck it off? Is there anything worth playing?

The Room series is very good if you like Myst-style games, although they're not free (although at least you don't get bombarded with adverts).

[Malcy]

There are several great games for tablets. Most games are just full of adverts because the Wi-Fi or data is on.

Have a look at The Silent Age, Worms, GTA, Burnout, loads and not an advert in sight.

[Z]

Drop7

[ieXush2i]

Yup, really worth forking out the two or three quid for a proper tablet game like Alto's Adventure, A Dark Room, Reigns, Don't Starve and a load more my ex used to play but I can't be arsed to google now. Anything free has a load of ads, aye

[Phil_A]

Spacechem? Again, not free, but totally worth paying for.

[kittens]

80 days, lads. best phone game.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I've got Grim Fandango on me tablet, after that I'll probably play Thimbleweed Park.

[Replies From View]

My favourite situation is buying a game, only for the developer to change it to a free app with adverts, and the very kind option to pay again to remove them.  They ruined the iOS versions of the Megadrive Sonic games by doing this.

[Jobey]

Love XCom. That's about it.

Any suggestions for decent RPGs welcome.

[Blue Jam]

Monument Valley
Bemeath The Lighthouse
Icebreaker: Viking Voyage

Nitrome and Ketchapp do some nice games.

Tablets are best suited to puzzles really.

As for the ads, I  do get a bit fed up of reading reviews where people complain about the ads because they think the developer should be producing games for them out of sheer goodwill and they're too cheap to pay 59 measly pence to show a bit of appreciation (or too stupid to put their tablet into Flight Mode).

[Looney Bergonzi]

(or too stupid to put their tablet into Flight Mode).

I never thought of that. Thanks.

[Replies From View]

A lot of games with adverts require you to maintain an internet connection while you play.

[Sebastian Cobb]

If you're using an android tablet you can use adblock. It runs a local proxy to block the ads. I assume this would work as the internet connection check will likely ping the developers server rather than the advertiser.

Ad away is better (it does similar but does the blocking in your hosts file) but you need a rooted device.

[olliebean]

If you're using an android tablet you can use adblock. It runs a local proxy to block the ads. I assume this would work as the internet connection check will likely ping the developers server rather than the advertiser.

Doesn't seem to be available any more; it's been replaced by Adblock Browser, which is a browser with Adblock built in, but won't block ads in any other apps.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

ScummVM. A tablet is just about the right size for it, and no ads.

[Barry Admin]

Yes that sounds great, I had it on the Nintendo DS Lite but it was almost too wee.

I'm really enjoying that Pixel Starships, you choose to watch ads to grind the in game currency. Going up the levels and figuring it out while fighting in PVP is lots of fun. I can set up AI commands now for when I'm offline, and my crew will follow it.

[Hemulen]

I agree that you're better off forking out a quid or two for something free of ads, deliberately frustrating waiting times, IAP etc. The already-mentioned Room games are a must if you like Myst-esque puzzles. Clever, satisfying and wonderfully atmospheric. I've also been enjoying Downwell recently, which is a deeply unforgiving arcadey platformy thing with that ineffable "just one more go" factor.

There are also some excellent board game ports out there which work very well on tablets - Elder Sign, Tsuro and Carcassone being the ones I go back to most often.

Battle of Polytopia is a horrendously addictive free Civ-lite game for phones/tablets. No ads, but it does feature slightly overpriced IAP in the form of additional tribes with their own starting technologies you can play as. Very enjoyable game without going down that route though.

Lastly, it would be remiss of me not to mention the game I have poured more phone-time into than any other over the last year or so. Kittens Game is a so-called incremental/idle game that has no story, no graphics to speak of and no ultimate purpose other than "get to the next thing". It's by no means the most polished game of it's genre, but I personally find it the purest and most endearingly daft and pointless one. You can play it in your browser for free, but I much prefer playing it on my phone, to the point that it's become part of my daily routine. One of the ways it keeps you coming back is by having points you slowly accrue during playthroughs that are retained through resets, so in order to make progress through the later stages of the game you have to go through multiple civilisations, pushing your poor kittens as far as they can go only to wipe them out and start over in the hopes that you might be able to go slightly further this time round. All in all, 69p well spent.

[Franny Joyce]

The best game I've played on the tablet is called Osmos. I'm pretty sure I read about it somewhere here first so thanks, unknown poster. I think the name is supposed to suggest both cosmos and osmosis because the events in the game can be interpreted as occurring at both the planetary and cellular level.

The gameplay is described on the official website as, "Your objective is to grow by absorbing other motes. Propel yourself by ejecting matter behind you. But be wise: ejecting matter also shrinks you. Relax... good things come to those who wait." This is what you do but I found it had so much depth because of the kind of thoughts it prompts during the course of a game. I can only speak for myself but I became entranced by the notion of scale within the universe, worlds within worlds, "Are we all living in the falling teardrop of a galactic colossus?" Probably not but this game is great if you occasionally enjoy wallowing in the stoned reveries of the adolescent stargazer.

There is a further dimension to the game, time, which can be slowed and sped up by the player, this also slows and speeds the excellently apt ambient soundtrack which has music by people like Gas. Controlling time just adds to the effects I've mentioned, you can imagine that you are controlling a cosmic event which in our normal perception of time might take aeons but in the game you can watch it play out in minutes.

Ideally, this is a game for playing at night, in a horizontal position and in a relaxed state of mind. Most of the levels are not about rushing around absorbing other motes. They are about absorbing other motes but with careful calculation and judicious use of your godlike power to control time.

https://www.osmos-game.com/

[Ferris]

I've got Grim Fandango on me tablet, after that I'll probably play Thimbleweed Park.

Thimbleweed Park is great on my iPad. Also "Contradiction!" is playable on tablet and is well worth the few quid it costs because it's so much mad fun.

[Malcy]

The best game I've played on the tablet is called Osmos. I'm pretty sure I read about it somewhere here first so thanks, unknown poster. I think the name is supposed to suggest both cosmos and osmosis because the events in the game can be interpreted as occurring at both the planetary and cellular level.

The gameplay is described on the official website as, "Your objective is to grow by absorbing other motes. Propel yourself by ejecting matter behind you. But be wise: ejecting matter also shrinks you. Relax... good things come to those who wait." This is what you do but I found it had so much depth because of the kind of thoughts it prompts during the course of a game. I can only speak for myself but I became entranced by the notion of scale within the universe, worlds within worlds, "Are we all living in the falling teardrop of a galactic colossus?" Probably not but this game is great if you occasionally enjoy wallowing in the stoned reveries of the adolescent stargazer.

There is a further dimension to the game, time, which can be slowed and sped up by the player, this also slows and speeds the excellently apt ambient soundtrack which has music by people like Gas. Controlling time just adds to the effects I've mentioned, you can imagine that you are controlling a cosmic event which in our normal perception of time might take aeons but in the game you can watch it play out in minutes.

Ideally, this is a game for playing at night, in a horizontal position and in a relaxed state of mind. Most of the levels are not about rushing around absorbing other motes. They are about absorbing other motes but with careful calculation and judicious use of your godlike power to control time.

https://www.osmos-game.com/

Just downloaded the demo for this. Not bad. Its pretty much one of the levels from the War Of The Worlds game I've had on my iPad for years but expanded upon. Don't think i'd pay for it but enjoyable.