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Looking for mobile puzzle-ish games with a heavy emphasis on stats
I really love being able to see all sorts of stats -- number of games played, wins/losses, leaderboard rankings, even obscure stats.
I also love word, card, and puzzle games. Games like solitaire, for example, would be PERFECT candidates to lean heavily into the stats, but I just haven't been able to find a good one yet.
What are your favorite games in these categories? Bonus points if they have an emphasis on keeping records and stats.
Slay The Spire and Balatro are the big guns in Mobile gaming, imo. Both roguelike card games, but with substantial differences such that they aren't really at all alike.
ZACHTRONICS!! https://www.zachtronics.com/
On mobile they have their solitare games, which are phenomenal. On computer they have a variety of games that range from absurdly niche (TIS1000 i think), to more mass appealish (Last Call BBS).
Cannot recommend them enough and they do exactly what you're talking about with graphs to show you how well you're doing. Not all their solitare games do it (because it's sorta binary) but they have a cribbage variant that shows you how well you did compared to others with the same deal.
+1 for Ballatro!
Something also fun that requires you to keep track of numbers: Minesweeper! I play my mobile one from the publisher "Dustland Design". They specialise in making no-bullshit versions of games (iirc correctly, they have solitair and sudoku too).
I was also going to recommend Minesweeper. I haven't played the one from that publisher, the one I play is Minesweeper Classic: Retro from Still57 Games and it does have a leaderboard and stats like games played, won, and win ratio for different difficulty levels.
I've been recommending this a lot recently: Mamono Sweeper is a version of Minesweeper but with significantly more arithmetic: https://hojamaka.com/games/mamono_sweeper and monster fighting. It's rare to get into a late-game scenario where you're 50-50 guessing so almost always it's possible to win if you get past the initial guess-a-few-squares phase.
i think there's a mobile app as well now, which one of my friends plays on
This one has been my personal favourite for years.
It used to have an android app, but I can't find it anymoreYou can't get it on the app store, but APKs of it still work!If you found an apk could you share? I found the 1.07 version but when I try to install it says it's not compatible with my phone :(
Edit: I have a Samsung A52, so like a 3 year old phone, I'm still on the latest android updates (though maybe that's the issue as the last update to the game was in 2016 afaik..)
I do also get an incompatibility warning, but it works despite that.
I did download the 1.07 version and I'm on a relatively modern Android (12).
Hmm weird! Did you get an option to install anyway? Cause all i get is a "OK" button after it says it's not installed because it's incompatible. I am on android 14 though, so maybe something changed in 13 or 14 😔
i never thought i'd meet someone else who played mamonosweeper independently of me!!! that's awesome! how did you hear about it? for me iirc it was sent around my college dorm mailing list.
but sad if the android app doesn't exist anymore
I somehow stumbled into it on the play store while searching for minesweeper variants.
Omg I just saw this comment and tried this out and holy crap this is fun!!!
Let me toss another variant at you as well, I've got >500 hours in this one: Demoncrawl! It's incredibly fun, though there's more strategy and luck in this than simple math. Still really good fun though!
yay!!! I had a very formative experience with this game where in college I was supposed to be doing summer research and instead I played this game for 4-5hr/day and it made me realize I probably didn't want to stay in math after graduation haha
best decision I ever made
Someone just posted this new rougelike word game on the Touch Arcade discord today, and it has some stats. Also seems to be free with no IAP, so yay (unless I totally missed something). I’ve played one round so far - it’s like a solitaire Scrabble with ascending difficulty. Easy recommendation. Rouge Words for iOS
Holy shit thank you! Just downloaded it and played a bit now. Incredible game! Very fun and well-polished. The lone review on iOS put it better than I ever could: "Balatro but with Scrabble instead of Poker".
Downloaded this shortly after your comment went up and I've been addicted to it since.
Do you happen to know if there's a way to get in touch with the dev? I love the game but the haptic feedback won't turn off, even with the built-in setting, and it drives me slightly nuts.
I’ve noticed that, too. A review might be the fastest way, but I’ll check the website to see if I can email him.
Looks like an update was released today that fixed it!
If you have a Playdate (or Playdate Stimulator) then Sparrow Solitaire (Mahjong Solitaire) which was developed by two people: one of whom is a data scientist and the other is me. Lots of stats.
https://play.date/games/sparrow-solitaire/ and https://playdate-wiki.com/wiki/Sparrow_Solitaire#Stats
I have seen it in catalog before and it sounded interesting, but your recommendation (and the sale) made me pull the trigger. Excited to try it out!
Never heard of a Playdate until just now but I'm interested!
Do you think one of these would be appropriate for a 4-5 year old (in small bursts of course)?
If they throw things or play rough, or don't have a refined palette for independent game development, they might have a hard time, but someone on Reddit made an itch.io playlist for games that could entertain a younger person.
I can't recommend Card Crawl highly enough. Not as heavy in the stats category, but it's so much fun and brilliantly-designed. I think you'd really enjoy it. Give it a spin and see if it's a good fit.
My favorite sudoku app does a great job with the statistics, breaking down pretty much everything you could ask for, including: games completed, percentage of games started vs completed, fastest time, average time, and recent average. And then each of these can be further refined based on difficulty level and whether or not you used any hints, and which types of hints. Super in depth.
And regardless of your skill level at sudoku, it's got the best hint system in any app I've played. You can get as much or as little help as needed. Even at the hardest difficulties, it does a great job of breaking down really advanced logic concepts into simple steps. And I like that it starts with "hey check out this box, notice anything interesting about it?" because sometimes you're stuck but you don't need the full-blown answer, just a quick hint to get you going again in the right direction.
Anyways, it's called Enjoy Sudoku, but the name that shows up on the app store is ":) Sudoku" with the smiley and all. [Ninja edit: just found out the developer actually has another sudoku app that looks pretty much identical to this one but seems like it has unlimited plays? Not entirely sure what the other differences are but this one is called Sudoku Joy and looks equally good.]
You mentioned solitaire, so maybe you’re already aware of this one, but Solebon Solitaire is a good collection of 50 games and has (to my undiscerning eye) plenty of stats. I’m looking at them right now and here’s what I see:
There are also leaderboards. Is that the sort of thing you’re looking for? I like this particular app because it has a nice UI, good instructions for the different games, and an option to deal only winning hands.
Now we're talking!