What are some engrossing self-contained iPhone games?
In about 20 days I'll be taking a cruise and will effectively have no internet access. It's going to be a long trip with many sea days, so I'm looking for something that I can pick up on moments when I just want a bit more stimulation. The last time I took a trip like this I ended up playing Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
I do have a preference for action-based titles since they tend to be easy to pick up and stop, but I also like games that require a bit of thought.
I was considering subscribing to Apple Arcade again since it would let me access a number of games I would enjoy, but I'm not sure how often it would need to contact Apple to confirm the status of my subscription. Data will be extremely expensive on this trip, especially when out at sea.
Here's a list all the iOS games that I have actually played, enjoyed, and think might also count as "engrossing". Most are PC/Console game ports, since I'm generally not a fan of mobile exclusive games (which are typically too casual and money-grubbing for my taste). So hopefully you can find some in here that you will similarly enjoy, and can get engrossed in while on your vacation. And if you're curious about any of them, feel free to ask, and I can give a full description of them, and write a little review.
Note: Some of these may be iPad only... since I only looked through my iPad's installed games and purchase history to make this list.
RPG|Adventure|Roguelike
Baldur's Gate
Baldur's Gate II: EE
Icewind Dale
Neverwinter Nights
Planescape: Torment
Titan Quest HD
Star Wars: KOTOR
Star Wars: KOTOR II
Bastion
Transistor
iNethack2
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
Out There: Ω Edition
Tales of Monkey Island: The Complete Season
The Wolf Among Us
Life is Strange
Machinarium
Beneath a Steel Sky
Playdead's LIMBO
Playdead's INSIDE
Hyper Light Drifter
Dungeon of the Endless: Apogee
GRIS
The Silent Age
Day of the Tentacle Remastered
Grim Fandango Remastered
Broken Age
Dead Cells
Journey
Bully: Anniversary Edition
Strategy:
Sid Meier's Civilization VI
Civilization Revolution 2
XCOM: Enemy Within
XCOM 2 Collection
Banner Saga
Banner Saga 2
King of Dragon Pass
Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind
Tropico
Frozen Synapse
Invisible, Inc.
Plague Inc
FTL: Faster Than Light
Door Kickers
Fallout Shelter
Sheltered
This War of Mine
Mindustry
Board|Card:
Hearthstone
Eternal Card Game
Magic: The Gathering Arena
GWENT: The Witcher Card Game
Dota Underlords
Small World - The Board Game
Ticket to Ride - Train Game
Pandemic: The Board Game
Antihero - Digital Board Game
Slay the Spire
RISK: Global Domination
Cultist Simulator
80 Days
Puzzle:
The Witness
The Talos Principle
Baba is You
realMyst
The Room Pocket
The Room Two
The Room Three
The Room: Old Sins
Layton Trilogy Bundle
Ace Attorney Trilogy HD
Human Resource Machine
7 Billion Humans
Oh, Dead Cells might be just what I wanted. The LucasArts remasters might also end up being good choices.
I have also wanted to play the Ace Attourney games but I couldn't get into the second game because that was the point in which the slow text crawl really started getting to me.
Dead Cells is great. It's a very solid, and quite difficult, Metroidvania + Roguelike. I have it on PC and mobile, and have played the shit out of it on both platforms. IMO the mobile controls are a bit hard to use on the iPad (unless you have HUGE hands), but it thankfully has controller support. So if you have an iOS compatible controller (e.g. XboxOne), and plan to play it while on vacation, you may want to bring your controller along too.
The LucasArts games are classics, and the mobile ports are pretty good from what I remember too. P&C Adventure games are probably my favorite genre of game though, so I may be a bit biased. ;)
And I don't remember ever losing patience with the Ace Attorney games' text, but it's admittedly been quite a while since I last played them.
Minecraft is, in my opinion, the best mobile game available. It's infinitely replayable and has creative and adventurous aspects. You can play it completely offline but it also has multiplayer (local and MMO) available.
As it so happens, I do own a mobile version of Minecraft... for Android.
I tend to get bored easily with those "make your own fun" kinds of games, and it's even worse with mobile. Having to use touchscreen controls for a first person game also bothers me, though I do have to admit that the way they implemented it in Minecraft is probably the best I've seen anywhere.
You can get a mobile controller to play with. But it sounds like that wouldn’t be a significantly useful purchase.
I really enjoy Minecraft, but I struggle to get used to the touch controls. It's incompatibility with the Java version also makes it a bit of a non-starter for me, as I've grown very accustomed to the set of mods we run on my server. Some of them are rather necessary, since we bought a copy for my friend's 4-year-old to play with us and we need the ability to protect certain areas from his TNT and lava buckets.
The most engaging mobile games I ever played were casual puzzle games like 10,000,000 or You Must Build a Boat. I also liked The Room series with it's horror puzzle vibes, but they go pretty quickly, and you could get a Square RPG port now that the remasters are here. (I really like Chrono Trigger.) With something like Slay the Spire, might be better for an iPad, but it's available. FTL is amazing, but iPad only. I think Dead Cells has an iOS port if you have a decent controller, and Binding of Isaac does as well, but I have no idea what shape it's in.
Puzzle games aren't a bad recommendation at all. I haven't heard of those two before so I'll look into them.
Honestly, one of the things that bothers me most about iPhone is that the version of Simon Tatham's puzzle collection is kind of bad.
10,000,000: https://youtu.be/gI3KE5tee-U
You Must Build a Boat: https://youtu.be/jKq8SnwsN9A
Eightyeight games has other games as well if those tickle your fancy.
Fantasian and the sequel/continuation are solid jrpgs that come with Apple Arcade.
They've already made a sequel to Fantasian?! Didn't it just come out a year ago?
The only problem with Apple Arcade recommendations is that I don't know how much the games needs to communicate with Apple servers in order to authenticate the subscription. Data is going to be very expensive, so needing to authenticate every time I pick up the game would cause problems. If it's one of those things that only need to happen when the phone resets, it would be perfect because most Apple Arcade games don't need internet access.
Fantasian was released in two parts. They recently released the second half of the game.
However I wasn't a big fan of the second half. It turns into a pretty open, quest focused game whereas the first half is very linear and story driven.
I don't know how many of these are on IOS, but my favorite mobile games are:
Another option is to get a DS emulator, although I don't know how viable that is on IOS either.
If you happen to have a developer account, it's not that hard. If you don't, it takes some fussing and it does require a internet connection.
Basically you can run arbitrary software on iPhones since Apple lets you sign your own software for development purposes, so things like altstore exist which automate the process of taking an apk, signing it, and installing it. If you have the $100 developer account your signature lasts for a year but if you don't you need to renew it every week, which altstore also automates.
If you jailbreak you naturally can run whatever you want.
There's also Mini Motorways which is from the same developer and focuses on creating roads/highways rather than metro lines. It's pretty challenging, although when I played it last it didn't have as many maps as Metro did, but that's understandable since it's fairly new.
As it so happens I have a soft spot for Downwell. It's not at all what I was looking for but it's not a bad recommendation. Though it's a bit frustrating to buy again considering I already bought the Android version in the past. I'll look into your other recommendations, but are you sure they don't require internet access?
I have a handheld that I bought just for emulation that I could take with me, but I was hoping to not have to carry around a second device.
I have been playing Deep Space D6 pretty much incessantly lately. It's a digital implementation of the print-and-play demo of the solitaire dice game by Tau Leader Games.
A full game plays in about 10 minutes (if you win). It is hard, random, frustrating, and I keep going back to it. It's also free, small (69MB), and offline, so it will work very well on a ship.
The night of the full moon.
It is a roguelike indie card game with beautiful art. This is the only mobile game I ever paid for and I still think it is worth every Cent.
Nitrome* makes a lot of mobile games that aren't money-grubbing and actually have gameplay. Some do have ads, although it's been a while since I played them. I think Leap Day is a classic, and there's an expanded version on Apple Arcade if you do subscribe to that.
*you have to scroll the frame in the centre of the webpage to see all the games
Soul Knight is a pretty good rogue-lite, but I haven’t played recently so I can’t speak much to how it feels after the last few updates.
Polytopia is a pretty good strategy game, kind of like an extremely simplified Civ game. Or you could just buy Civ6, I guess
I have been enjoying Grindstone on Apple Arcade. It is a unique take on "match 3" puzzle games, with a neat progression system. I do think the difficulty curve is a bit uneven.
Simon Tatham's Puzzle Collection appears to have an iphone version. It was recently discussed in a thread here. It has a ton of puzzle types ... honestly a little too much with no guidance toward the good puzzle modes and settings. I previously posted my own recommendations about my favorite puzzle and settings in it.
Mindustry is fun: it's a tower defense game that has a couple Factorio-like mechanics.
One of my favorite oldies is Tilt to Live. Basically, you’re an arrow, and your goal is to kill red dots. Not really a plot, but no ads, and really fun. Multiple game modes too, so easy to mix things up.