What Makes A Mobile Game Great?

Popsci: Two big games dropped for iOS Wednesday night: Temple Run 2 and Final Fantasy: All The Bravest. On my bus ride to work yesterday morning [Ed note: Colin lives in New Jersey for reasons unclear to any of the rest of us.], I played both. I quickly realized that of the two, I'll play the hell out of one and may never pop open the other again. You can tell almost immediately if a game will work on iOS: in many ways, it's about how the game deals with death.

The best iOS games are seamless, with rounds that come in bite-sized bits. When you die, or when it's time to enter the next round of play, it just happens; you barely notice between one play-through of the game and the next. I play games like this in transit, for the most part, and being able to put down or pick up one whenever I want is key to the experience.

You can say that's just asking for low-investment games, sure, but I'm not making my way through Angry Birds Star Wars for the tale of intergalactic politics. If...

[Y_5150]

Cheap, easy accessible, and fun.

[derkasan]

I think Crazy Taxi is the perfect example of a mobile game. It's quick, accessible, colorful, and fun

[creeping judas]

Playing Final Fantasy 1 on my W8 phone, and playing Final Fantasy 3 on my Tab2. Those are two great mobile games!!

[ZombieNinjaPanda]

They're not mobile games. They're games that have been ported over to mobile platforms.

[creeping judas]

So by me playing them on a mobile device don't make them mobile games?

[ZombieNinjaPanda]

If I can play Final Fantasy on a calculator, does that make it a calculator game?

If I can play Metal Gear on a Refrigerator, does that make it a refrigerator game?

[CommonSenseGamer]

They may be ports but they play exceedingly well and show that mobile gaming is not just about Angry Birds as many would have you believe.

The port of Bards Tale is simply incredible as is Dead Space! But what's really incredible is that they typically cost only a couple of dollars each.

[TongkatAli]

I got all the bravest on my Iphone, meh.

[Blank]

Its cheap and my phone is always with me so when I dont have my vita my phone is filled with shmups from cave co ltd aside from my shmup filled xbox 360 ports which I prefer playing my cave shmups : )

[caseh]

I take it you have a phone with a tangible keypad then?

I find it hard to believe anyone could enjoy shmups on a touchscreen, especially Cave shmups considering how insanely difficult they can get.

[Blank]

No tangible keypad to me the touchscreen is fine I adapted to it I like how sensitive it is but like I said I prefer my xbox for my shmups the phone is really mostly a tool to memorize enemies and bullet patterns but for my more serious portable gaming I stick to my vita now if only cave can port there shmups there I can truly be a happy man imagine playing using the back touch pad?! : O

[CommonSenseGamer]

Actually, shmups play well just using the touchscreen. Reminds me of playing Hybris on my Amiga 500 using a mouse.