Pay for Apple Arcade. Games in there are guaranteed not to have ads, spam, or microtransactions.
I loved the collection on apple arcade, but since I play maybe 1 game for 3-4 months casually, I couldn't justify the recurring cost.
Ask HN: How do you find high quality mobile games?
11–20 of 117 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you find high quality mobile games?
#12DS and Game Boy Advance emulators so I can play pokemon games.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find high quality mobile games?
#13It’s a bit old but still running: Touch Arcade^ has a good mix of deep dives and “out this week” with a pretty active forum for new mobile (iOS and android) and switch games.
I still find myself at least considering the weekly features or looking at what they curate for “out this week”.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find high quality mobile games?
#14Frankly, I've just given up. It's just heaps upon heaps of utter trash. Every time something just slightly nice is made, it is quickly drowned out by the 1000s of clones are almost always much worse and full of ads and microtransactions.
Curious: what monetization strategies do you find most inoffensive?
Re: Ask HN: How do you find high quality mobile games?
#15You’d have to pay money. Monetization heavily favors mictrotransactions and are built around the most abusive Skinner box concepts. The Asian market is well known to spend high rates on IAP letting terrible games earn 100s of millions.
Subreddits like r/iosgaming should be a good starting point.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find high quality mobile games?
#16The impossibility of finding good mobile games is why I develop desktop and console games. I have no idea how to get discovered in the soup of the mobile app stores and I don't want to build the kind of skinner's box it would take to compete alongside most of those games.
There are great mobile games out there, but I have no idea to find them except by accident.
It's so bad that something like 0.01% of mobile apps make back their investment costs[1]. This is, amazingly, far worse than the rate for indie games on desktop and consoles.
See: 80 days, Sorcery! (really, anything by Inkle), Universal Paperclips, VVVVVV (better on desktop though), and certain visual novels
[1] https://www.startupgrind.com/blog/9999-in-10000-mobile-apps-...
Re: Ask HN: How do you find high quality mobile games?
#17Metacritic does iOS games reviews: https://www.metacritic.com/game/ios
Not sure why they don't do anything for Android (you mentioned "the Play store"). But perhaps the answer to that question also answers your question.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find high quality mobile games?
#18Pay for Apple Arcade. Games in there are guaranteed not to have ads, spam, or microtransactions.
I get Apple Arcade through my Apple One subscription. I am an happy customer, but also to be honest not much of a gamer. You won't get AAA titles on it (or even a large selection of titles).
If you're like me then Apple Arcade is a great service, but YMMV.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find high quality mobile games?
#19Look for app versions of board games. boardgamegeek.com
Re: Ask HN: How do you find high quality mobile games?
#20Frankly, I've just given up. It's just heaps upon heaps of utter trash. Every time something just slightly nice is made, it is quickly drowned out by the 1000s of clones are almost always much worse and full of ads and microtransactions.
Curious: what monetization strategies do you find most inoffensive?
Paying for the game