What is Mobile Games?
Best Mobile Games are games that operate on a smartphone (or tablet). The very first known mobile game was Tetris in 1994. With today’s technology, you’re able to enjoy interactive 3D games with beautiful environments and stunning detail. There are hundreds of developers, creating titles in different genres such as strategy, RPG, FPS, action, racing, and simulation.
Why are Mobile Games So Popular?
Mobiles games are popular because of how easy a handheld is to control and operate. A small child can play on a smartphone with little to no effort. In fact, most mobile games are dominated by a young audience, who addictively play their favorite game everyday.
Smartphones are only getting more powerful, boasting similar performance to older gaming computers. So, you can expect mobile games to become even more popular as graphical details and gameplay become more complex.
How Much Do Mobile Games Make?
Mobile games revenue increased by 60% in 2019 and generated $49 billion. It’s growing by 2.9% yearly and looks to continue to dominate the gaming market further. However, the popularity of individual games depends on a wide variety of factors, including the category of the game, such as RPG, strategy, and FPS. The other factor is its initial popularity; is the game gaining traction? Does the audience enjoy it (i.e is it getting good reviews)?
Fortnite
While offered in three modes (Battle Royale, Save the World, and Creative), it was the Battle Royale mode that made Fortnite a household name overnight.
The premise for Epic Games’ biggest success, the free-to-play Fortnite Battle Royale mode, is simple enough: 100 players parachute into a vast but constantly shrinking map where they battle to become the last man standing. Think Hunger Games, but with a lot more cartoonish colors and a lot more dancing than you’d expect.
Once the players land on the island, they scavenge for resources and materials to defend themselves and take their opponents out. In contrast, the ability to quickly and easily build anything a player can think up to give themselves an edge lends Battle Royale the uniqueness that makes it stand out from the rest in the genre.
Monument Valley
This game has made a name for itself in the puzzle video game market, boasting over 25 million in sales since it came out in 2014.
Though it is simple enough and doesn’t take long to complete, Monument Valley, with it’s pleasant Japanese aesthetic, is truly time well spent on your device. Players guide Ida, a silent princess, up flights of stairs which pass through various optical illusions and impossible feats of architecture. Players can also manipulate their surroundings as they’re serenaded with calming and peaceful strands of music along the way.
There are obstacles to dodge and enigmatic crow people on the path that keep the stakes of the game reasonably high, but your journey with Ida through hidden passages, geometrical marvels, and surprisingly beautiful landscapes will be some of the most serene time you’ve spent playing a game on your iPad in a long time.
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
More commonly known as PUBG by its fervent fanbase, PlayerUnkown’s Battlegrounds boasts some of the best gunplay offered in gaming today.
This came out around the same time as Fortnite and follows a pretty similar format too: 100 players parachute onto an island and forage for supplies to help become the last man standing.
The shimmering blue edges of the safe zone (outside of which you cannot survive) and the constant airstrikes marked red on the map give players more urgency to get in the mix and keep gameplay interesting. While there is more than enough action to be found thanks to these measures, PUBG still does an excellent job of allowing enough space for those quiet and cautious moments of exploration.
Though every game starts the same way, the streamlined and hassle-free gameplay you get with PUBG helps make every game a unique but consistently action-packed adventure.
Clash Royale
This game’s unique combination of card games, tower defense features, and multiplayer battle arena modes is indeed a formula for fun.
In Clash Royale, you collect cards featuring the Royales as well as your favorite troops and spells from sister game Clash of Clans, which you use to knock your enemy out of their tower in a familiar tower defense setting.
The game’s ‘freemium’ format has issues, however, as it can take a ridiculous amount of time to get to the highest levels. Though it features impressive but simple gameplay with a good-looking interface, it’s tough to enjoy all of those positives when the game is constantly pairing you against an opponent who is far more advanced.
Though it seems the algorithms and creators are a tad too intent on getting your money, Clash Royale can still be a fun and engaging game even without the paid additions.
Call of Duty: Mobile
This isn’t on the same level as its console cousins, but that is understandable considering it’s a shooter played with a touch-screen; Call of Duty: Mobile, unfortunately, does not support Bluetooth controllers.
If you’re familiar with the Call of Duty franchise, you’ll recognize a mode on the mobile version as something of a condensed version of Black Ops 4’s Blackout Mode. This ‘1 vs. 100’ mode is, without a doubt, the best part of this mobile CoD game.
The other modes, such as Team Deathmatch and Domination, are also a good bit of fun, but also familiar. You can pay to get upgrades and boosts, but you really don’t have to spend any money to enjoy this game.
If you’re a fan of the franchise, Call of Duty: Mobile will undoubtedly bring you joy, as you can hop into a quick CoD match anytime you want, whether on your commute or during break or wherever you may be.
Pokémon GO
The gaming phenomenon of 2016, Pokemon Go has seen its success sputter out over the years. However, that doesn’t take away from how fun it was–and can still be.
Since the different Pokemon players can catch are seemingly there in the physical world around you, it gives a player the feeling that they’re actually catching Pokemon and taking over gyms from other players.
This physical component made it abundantly clear when there was a rare or powerful Pokemon lurking nearby: a gaggle of anxious Pokemon Goers standing with their faces buried in their phones, hoping they’d be the one to snipe the elusive Pokemon.
Pokemon Go was not able to maintain the fervor that surrounded its original release because of a lack of depth and features in the game. The fact that so many other people were seeing and interacting with the same augmented reality as you is what made this Pokemon experience so unique and enjoyable.
Candy Crush Saga
A classic match-three puzzle game, players can get through levels by flipping colored candies on the game board to match 3+ of the same color candies, which removes those from the board and replaces them with new ones that might create more matches. Matches of 4+ create unique power-up candies with extremely satisfying board-clearing capabilities.
If the instant gratification those matched candies disappearing gives you isn’t enough, different boards also feature different goals to be completed in a fixed number of moves or time. Goals can be things like specific scores or finding particular kinds of candies, which helps add some depth to a pretty surface-level game. The gameplay is undoubtedly addicting, the interface is colorful and fun, and you don’t have to pay anything to get up to the highest levels in a reasonable amount of time.
Lara Croft Go
This turn-based puzzle game is part of the Tomb Raider series and certainly lives up to the lofty expectations that its predecessors have set for it.
Right when you jump into the opening menu, you get the classic wheel of items, which hits you with some real Tomb Raider nostalgia. The spooky caves and tropical ruins also do an excellent job of emulating the interface that Tomb Raider fans know and love. It continues to run on a turn-based style of gameplay, but it knows it needs to keep the adrenaline up since its a Tomb Raider title, and does so capably.
Throughout your five-chapter run with Lara Croft, you will be surprised at how at home you feel. The creators of the game did a masterful job of distilling the sense of adventure and mystery that made the Tomb Raider series so popular into a scaled-down, mobile format.
