Throwin’ Dice at Gen Con 2016
It was Gen Con this week — 4 days of dice-rolling, card-shuffling, and cosplay. We like to pay attention to the new releases during this time, despite the conference being focused almost exclusively on tabletop games. Usually, not a lot of mobile news coming out of Indianapolis.
The tabletop games are often the most experimental in terms of game mechanics, and a fun and innovative mechanic found in a board game usually finds its way into the digital realm eventually. We wouldn’t have had Hearthstone without Magic the Gathering, we wouldn’t have Words with Friends without Scrabble. Often, we see very successful games directly port to mobile games, such as Ticket to Ride or Ascension.
As an game industry professional, we shouldn’t skip news relating to analog games; we might miss something groundbreaking.
Until next week,
Peter
Century City
Pine Entertainment
Why Play? Century City combines the incremental gameplay of a clicker, with a invest-and-express decoration of a city builder, all wrapped up in a cute, Minecraftish art style. Your fingers may get tired, but that’s because the game is as addictive as these games get.
Severed
DrinkBox Studios
Why Play? Severed is a mobile version of classic text based adventures. It’s got a great art style, a bizarre story and a one armed heroine. Beyond all that, there’s a strong touch-based combat system and RPG skill tree layered on top of a solid core game loop. Oh, and you collect severed limbs to trigger special attacks.
Mobius Final Fantasy
Square Enix
Why Play? This one is a full-fledged yet simplified Final Fantasy game built for mobile from the ground up. It’s flashy, it’s gorgeous, and it’s got most of the parts & pieces, but it does end up a bit repetitive and definitely feels like a freemium game with limited gameplay.
Eden: The Game
Channel 4
Why Play? While it is an ‘advertisement’ for a UK-based reality show, this builder is slow in pace, beautiful and serene to look at, and is calming to play. Farming, hunting, and foraging are the main mechanics to keep your city running. Think SimCitywithout natural disasters.
CompulsionLoop is AC+A’s (adriancrook.com) weekly pursuit of providing a Featured List for those in the games industry. A look at the latest must-play apps, along with short, useful takeaways from our team of game design and product experts. If you have a game that you think your industry colleagues should try, we’d love to hear about it at games@compulsionloop.com. Don’t forget to tell us why industry insiders should be compelled to try out the game (see what we did there?).
Know a game that you think others should play? Let us know and tell us why we should play it.
Thank you for reading and we look forward to helping you discover more games that you can glean learnings from. Feel free to reply to this email or contact games@compulsionloop.com — we’re always happy to hear from you.