Looking for non-actiony, non-competitive Android games with regular new content
I've been enjoying Legends of Runeterra for the last couple of years. It's a collectible card game with really nice art and voice work. I'm not a very competitive person, but I put up with the deckbuilding and competitive bits because I enjoyed the gameplay.
About a year ago Riot added a new PvE mode where instead of playing against humans, you play against increasingly difficult AI decks. Every few wins you get your choice of 3 random passive abilities, some of which can dramatically increase the power of your deck for the rest of the run--kind of a roguelike twist on the CCG formula. This has completely spoiled me--I enjoy it far more than LoR's base gameplay. Unfortunately, despite the popularity of the new mode, Riot made the inexplicable decision to give it only token support, focusing instead on PvP.
I've mostly run out of content for the new game mode, and I'm wondering if another game has something that will scratch the same itch. I'm looking for PvE games with deep gameplay and good production values that aren't too fast-paced or actiony. Bonus points if the game gets new content occasionally. Extra bonus points if it has a good story. Any of y'all have a favorite?
I can't recommend slay the spire enough. It's a deck builder against the computer, runs locally, no annoying pay to win or other nonsense - just pure high quality fun.
Shattered pixel that has already been recommended is also awesome.
If you want to scratch the 4x itch (and lose a couple of days of ypur life I. The process), unciv is a really good implementation of the civilization formula.
Have fun! đ
I have heard lots of good things about Slay the Spire! It's a bit more expensive than some of the other options here, but I probably owe it to myself to try it out. Thanks for the recommendation!
As it happens, Slay the Spire has a small discount on Android right now. It doesn't receive frequent updates, and I understand it's still a little awkward on touch controls, but it does work and people love the game.
Dicey Dungeons is also on sale. I just picked it up, as I expect it to translate very well to mobile.
I would love a sale! I don't see it, though. Did I miss it? :( Do I need to do something special for it to show up?
I'm afraid you missed it. It was roughly 25% off, so just a few dollars. It's been this price before though, so if you'd rather wait it will likely come down again.
Dicey is still on sale. It's a better discount at 50% off, so that's well into "impulse buy" territory for me.
I grabbed Dicey Dungeons! I wouldn't have noticed the sale if you hadn't pointed it out. Google Play really doesn't point them out as much as Steam does. Is there a way to be notified when they happen?
There's no official way. Unofficially there is AppSales which has watchlist notifications. Though it doesn't sync with Google's own wishlist. Casually I browse /r/GooglePlayDeals which surfaces the larger deals.
Seconding Slay the Spire! An absolutely fantastic game. You can check out Day9's playthrough to see if it's your thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed6kd7lSF5Q
Both great suggestions!
Two of my favorite genres so I'll add a few more...
In the same vein as Slay The Spire (rogue-like card game), check out Night of the Full Moon. Totally different feel and balance but it's a lot of fun. Huge amount of content after a couple recent releases. Somehow the (sometimes) hilariously bad translations combine with the whimsical art and storyline to make it charming rather than annoying. Mobile only.
Closer to StS, relatively new and in active development: Dawncaster. Really solid roguelike, good art, great UI on mobile.
For 4x like: Battle of Polytopia. Simpler than Civ, but enough depth to be entertaining for a while, and less of the "one more turn" problem. There might be a PC version of this one.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a rogue-like that has been getting worked on for years with new characters, and steady changes. Being closer to a traditional roguelike it's turn-based, every run is different, and you can drop it whenever. There's no story, but the goal is to play until you get good enough to descend to the bottom and back up.
They've actually added backstory in a somewhat-recent update. You pick up pages of a book as you descend through the dungeon. It adds very little to the game, imo.
Thank you! I'll give this a try.
I highly recommend:
Furthermore:
Downloading some of these. Thanks for recommending them!
I'm a big fan of antimatter dimensions. It has a great discord too and the next update is always 5 hours away
After some further thought, Hearthstone has quite a bit of single player content to work it's way through, including the Wild free adventures here. It will require you to get outside of the tutorial levels to get into the ones listed there, and you might or might not have a taste for Blizzard if you started with Runeterra.
Additionally, The Room series by Fireproof Games is one of the best mobile game series I played, sort of a hidden object puzzle thing with a horror bend. They're mostly self contained, and I don't know when they are coming out with another one, but really good puzzles and atmosphere.
If you have Netflix, they have a bunch of games available ad Free as long as you're subscribed. Their crown jewel is Into the Breach by Subset Games. If you're into Advance Wars or Fire Emblem style gameplay with strategic placement of pieces, and attack menu options, it's a fun ride. The one bad thing about this game is that it isn't FTL, but I'm pretty sure putting that on mobile devices would irresponsibly tank global productivity.
I played Into the Breach on PC and really enjoyed it! I would love to have that on my phone, but I'm not willing to subscribe to Netflix for it, alas.
The Room sounds perhaps a bit like the Myst series, which I love. I don't like horror, though. I wonder if there's something similar in a different genre. I'll see what I can find.
I played Hearthstone years ago, but I haven't kept up with it. If they have single-player dungeons, though, I think that's worth reinstalling for. Thank you, moocow!
The horror in the The Room series is pretty much an undertone, if itâs there at all. The game doesnât have jumpscares or terrifying moments â itâs more that there are some Lovecraftian elements embedded into the narrative. Theyâre not scary games in the slightest though.
Think of âhorrorâ as being a single flavor in the dish, but not the focus of the whole meal, if that makes sense.
I had played through 1 and 2 a long while ago, but I recently played through 3 (which I liked) and 4 (which I loved).
Slay the Spire was already recommended, but I had a really good time with Rogue Adventure when I was waiting for it to be ported. It's a similar style game, ascending deck builder rogue like with cheese, but it's simpler to play off the bat, and it's free with IAP for no ads, as compared to StS having a paywall.
Some fun cards here. Thanks for the recommendation!
I don't know if gacha games would fit into this criteria? These are also about collecting heroes but they do have competitive elements, however you can just choose to play it any way you like because there is plenty of PvE content regularly added too:
AFK Arena
Mythic Heroes
Mobile Legends Adventure
Installing all of these. I'm especially enjoying the Shadow Invasions of AFK Arenaâfacing off against massive numbers of weak enemies is fun gameplay that I'd like to see more of. Thanks!
You're very welcome. AFK Arena is by far my favourite of the three, been playing it for over three years at this point which I think is pretty rare for a mobile game!
I've been playing AFK Arena for a few days now. It's a lot less of an idle game than I thought it would be, since even with the main auto-chess mode you do have to keep clicking stuff to progress. However, it also has a surprising amount of gameplay variety so I totally see why you've been playing it for so long. And all the game modes I have unlocked so far (the auto-chess, reverse bullet hell, and match 3) are actually pretty good too!
I also really appreciate that, despite being F2P, I haven't felt the need to spend any money on the game so far. There doesn't feel like there are any major intentional roadblocks meant to "encourage" you to spend money, like in so many other F2P games. So major kudos to the devs for that.
Thanks again for the recommendation!
That's kind of the beauty of it. You can do your daily quests in less than 10 minutes, not play until the next day and not miss out on anything. However since you're completely new there's gonna be a lot of content to do, and you will also unlock tons more stuff as you progress in campaign. I probably average 10-20 minutes of playtime per day now, except when there are events and extra stuff to do.
They give away free stuff sometimes by the way, make sure to claim it: https://www.afk.global/afk-arena-codes
Oh, sweet. That's a lot of in game currency from those codes. Thanks!
p.s. I just got insanely lucky opening packs using all that currency. So extra thanks! :)
Roll 1/5 - https://i.imgur.com/uFTaNRe.png
Roll 3/5 - https://i.imgur.com/FsvMIAt.png
I really enjoy idler games, and was curious if AFK Arena was available on PC, since I don't have an android device. It's unfortunately android only, but it turns out that you can now play android games on PC using Google Play Games beta! The only caveat is that you need to have a motherboard/chipset that supports hardware virtualization, and you also have to enable Hyper-V in Windows.
So now I have AFK Arena installed on my PC and running on my portrait monitor! So thanks for the game recommendation, and inadvertently helping me discover how to play Android games on my PC. :)