The front page already is dominated by AAAs and gay indies; here's a screenshot of the front page of the App Store I took when I started typing up this post a couple of days ago:
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Mobile games were, and have always been shit, but it really does feel like something more could be done with the platform. Modern phones are little pocket-sized touchscreen machines with gaming potential on par with maybe like, the Xbox 360, yet nothing substantial in gaming ever happens on mobile. I guess I always just overestimated the power of their touchscreens. Even after over a decade of use, they never came close to being even manageable replacements for a proper controller, let alone a keyboard, and the smattering of mobile games I actually play are ones that I play with my stylus, because our big goofy fingers still obfuscate way too much of the screen, even on big phones.
I never thought it'd be the future of games either, and I always found those "lmao portable games are DEAD" articles to be shortsighted as hell, but I saw potential in all of these new features that just never got realized. Last year, I wrote a
post outlining an idea I had for a dungeon crawler that used Pokemon Go-esque real life landmarks that you'd travel to and collect dungeons to explore:
There could be a hell of a lot more done with this style of game, if they gave any actual reason for players to go and visit new places. Like, one game I've imagined is a dungeon crawler where you level up by scanning stops around your town. The levels would be permanently kept, with stops turning into shops, mini-dungeons, and little villages where you can get quests on repeat visits, but you'd be heavily encouraged to go find new stops to boost your level. These would be background to a main campaign which you could play at home, where the actual dungeon crawling would earn you in-game GP you could use to buy better equipment. And of course, you could drop off some items as treasures for others to find, alongside Dark Souls-style shitposts for others to laugh at. It's a game that would encourage exploration and exercise, forcing its players to touch grass to make progress, and appreciate the world around them.
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