phone games of 2024

okay well... i had a ton of deadlines in september, so i stopped reading manhwa to focus on them and instead got hooked on phone games that i could supposedly stop playing at any moment to get to my important tasks (definitely not what actually happened). once again, i want to remember wtf i played and how i felt while playing them, so i will log them here!

• pikmin bloom ah, pikmin bloom. the game that kickstarted this whole obsession. some of my irl friends play it a lot and convinced a bunch of us to download it at our friend's bday party in mid-august. i get super obsessive about games, so i told my friends i wasn't sure about it... and they told me it's hard to get obsessive about pikmin bloom bc you only get 3 mushroom tries a day, and there's only so much you can do in the app. after a couple of months playing, i can confirm that that is true! i do not get obsessive about pikmin bloom bc there is truly not much you can do, especially on days when i don't leave my apartment, and it does encourage me to walk more bc i need a certain number of steps to level up. as a result, i would say this is overall a positive addition to my life! it is created by the same company that created pokemon go, so the format is somewhat similar, but less involved and less stressful, which again, are all good things to me :D


• hexa up! i realized i really like sorting games, likely because of some mental issue like adhd or ocd or something (not an exaggeration or a joke, i need to get these things checked out). from the ads i had to watch to keep going with uh.... i don't even remember what i was watching ads for lol..... maybe another game... sorry to that game but it is already lost to the ether..... but i would really like the water sorting and fruit sorting and hexagon sorting ads that would play. i looked up the popular ones, but all the reviews said they had too many ads, so i googled which ones didn't have as many ads and i got here. i will say that i get way too obsessive about this game. once i start, i truly cannot stop. because the level is over when you clear a certain number of hexagons, the board isn't exactly totally clear when you finish the level, and i realize now that that irks me LOL so i feel like i have to keep playing to get to a more clear board... but i will never get to a more clear board... IT'S FINE. as a result, i have kind of stopped with this one, but i did enjoy it A LOT. TOO MUCH.


• i love hue / i love hue too this one was another one that came up when i searched for games that didn't have many ads. it's just sorting colors in a gradient. it's fun! i played it a lot while waiting at the dentist bc i wasn't sure when the dentist would come, and the levels are relatively short and easy, tho presumably a nightmare for people who have color blindness. i didn't realize until later bc i would just skip through the screens at the end of a level, but they show you how many moves you took to finish the level, what the world average is for moves to finish the level, and what the fewest number of moves possible is. unfortunately, seeing those numbers inspires competitiveness in me and makes me feel like i must figure out how to achieve the fewest number of moves possible, so i stopped playing this one as much, too.


• sp!ng sp!ng was my first apple arcade game! i don't remember how i ended up with apple arcade — i think i just opened the app store in search for another game to play and saw that i had a free trial to apple arcade for a few months and decided, why not? sp!ng is great and very low risk and low effort. you just swing a little ball thing from different anchors to get it to an exit portal, and there are sometimes obstacles like moving walls or sharp thorns or things like that, but it's still pretty nice and mindless. i would play this a lot during meetings when i just needed something to do with my hands lol. they even have a zen mode where you can't die and there are no obstacles; it's literally just swinging from different anchors to collect little coin things. it's great!


• love you to bits i downloaded this after exploring more of what's available on apple arcade. a lot of the games on apple arcade are made by people who want to create games that are actually good, which is unfortunately not what i'm looking for. i downloaded this one on a whim just bc i felt like i had to use my apple arcade, and i actually loved it. it's set in space, and it follows this guy who lives with this robot girlfriend who is kind of a criminal and kind of a badass lol and she gets blown up by ppl chasing her, so he sets on a journey to find her parts so he can put her back together again. each level is a new world, so it's really fun and not monotonous in that way, and there are special bonus items you can collect on each level that each hold a memory of the pair's relationship. i will say that some of those bonus items are hard as fuck to find, especially because sometimes they only appear during a certain time period of a level or only appear if you do something that is only available within a certain time frame. i like the actual game too because there's no losing or dying, so the stakes are very low. if there's a threat like a body guard or something, the character just backs away slowly if you run him into them, and once you distract them once, they're permanently distracted for the rest of the level, so you don't have to worry about hurrying through actions. you just wander around, and there are action bubbles that pop up over things you can do actions with, and then you do everything in a particular order to progress the story / level. there are a few times where i was stumped — you have to be pretty obervant! — so i'm not going to lie, i did cheat a few times and look up playthroughs. BUT, overall i was really obsessed with this game bc each level was kind of like its own story, so i finished the game within a matter of 2-3 days. i felt like the ending was unsatisfactory and that the memories showed some problems in their relationship too that i don't think were properly addressed, so in that sense, i think the overall story is still a bit weak.


• cornsweeper when i told my friend that i was playing a ton of phone games, she mentioned that she actually had to delete all of the games on her phone, but sometimes she would open minesweeper on her computer and play that. and i was like LOL WTF. WHY WOULD YOU PLAY MINESWEEPER. and then i found cornsweeper on apple arcade and started playing just to see wtf she was doing and became obsessed LOLLLL I LOVE CORNSWEEPER SO MUCH. i already ran through all of the levels, tho i would cheat a lot and screenshot how far i'd get on certain levels before running into a burnt popcorn so that i could redo the levels quickly and win the next time. the more kernels you get, the more items you can buy at the corn stall, and a lot of these are fun boosters to help you win the game. so good! i also ran through this so quickly, though obviously it would take me more and more time to get through the levels as i got deeper and deeper into the game, so this was not a quicky dentist game.


• creaks and limbo after i had such a good time with love you to bits, i decided to try some of the more acclaimed games on apple arcade bc i was like, well if they're all like this then maybe i'll love them! reader, i did not love these lol. in limbo you just die soooo violently that i get upset. in creaks, you can also die, so i get really stressed and nervous going through levels. good to find out what i like vs what i don't like!


• the gardens between i downloaded this after i realized creaks and limbo were too stressful lol. i figured the premise of this seemed less stressful and pretty chill! the graphics are really cool in this game, and i like that it is also piecing together a story much like love you to bits. very nice worldbuilding over all, and the art has a lot of depth to it! this also makes my phone vibrate, which i like lol but my phone does lag a little bit / get a little hot while playing because it does take a lot of cpu to run i think. that being said, the game is kind of... boring? haha. maybe i didn't get far enough into it (i think i gave up because i couldn't really figure out how to make it to the next level), but it's all about playing with time so that the characters can gather lights at the right time? so it's just having these characters go forward (to go forward in time) or back (to go back in time) to collect lights at just the right time along their path. once again, i didn't get too far, but i really appreciate the quality of the game!


• castle crumble i have been extremely stressed throughout the month of september, and there was one day where i just felt like i wanted to destroy things. went to apple arcade and found castle crumble! exactly what it says on the tin — you throw bombs and potions at castles to destroy them. your phone makes such a satisfying vibration as the castles tumble to the ground. there is no blood and destruction bc it's all very cartoon-ish and kid-ish. it's really not hard at all and perfectly scratches the itch re: need to destroy something!


• the last campfire an adventure game from apple arcade that i downloaded after realizing creaks and limbo were not for me. i haven't gotten too far into this one, but it seems quite cute! i do like it, but i'm just not in the mindset currently to commit to another really extensive adventure game :( the graphics are really great. i want to get further!


• return to monkey island this is another apple arcade adventure game that i downloaded to chase the high of love you to bits but avoid the lows of creaks and limbo. it seems like there is a game before this, since it is a RETURN to monkey island? i played the prologue and found out that none of that was really part of the story LOL this one is VERY story based and so i feel like you really need to sit and listen to the story to keep going / playing, and i haven't had the chance to do so yet! it feels a little simplistic, but again i haven't made it that far, and i'm sure it gets more complex later on. only one way to find out!