Recommend me a dip in-n-out iPhone game

Prob a daft question, but maybe someone has some ideas. I need iPhone games for quick 5 minute brain distraction in otherwise non-stop thinking-too-hard work days. Not stressful ones that are like work, but ones that bring a bit of joy. Also for playing when travelling too.

Played to death and love deeply: Rush Rally origins, Grand Mountain skiing, Easy Golf

Don’t like: RPG, strategy, or resource management (e.g. that oil drilling game, sim city type games)

I like games with a bit of art in them – the satisfaction of a beautifully executed set of corners on a. very well designed course on Rush Rally is wonderful. The skiing in Grand Mountain is just beautiful, I love the physics and design of the different hills. Scottish one is hilarious.

My favourite game ever on any platform, apart from Deus Ex way back when, was probably ‘Journey’. Think I quite fancy a flight sim one but there’s a lot of shit out there. I am too old for twitch response FPS shooters!

So, any ideas?

Following, I see there are more options than Microsoft Solitaire and Scrabble for me then. I did have a bit of a dabble in World of Tanks Blitz though.

Alto’s Adventure
Alto’s Odyssey
Hill Climb Racing 2
Microsoft Wordament
Monument Valley
Monument Valley 2

I mean you’ll probably hate it since it is in part all these

RPG, strategy, or resource management

but also action-based – and on the harder difficulty levels is extremely stressful 🙂

my all-time favourite mobile game (though also available on PC) which I still come back to occasionally after many years, is FTL. Basically like being in the original series of Star Trek, but light years better than any official game. Each game can last an hour or two, but broken up into a series of short encounters that only take a few minutes.

Following too as all I seem to do now is scroll instagram reels! 🙂

I should have mentioned I got way too deep into World of Tanks a in the late 2010s. Jeez that shit was addictive!

If you like World of Tanks, World of Warships is a thing.

Automatoys – ball bearing type action machine puzzle. Fairly simple to complete, can be frustrating to 3star the later levels

Grand Theft Auto. Nothing better than stealing a car and razzing round a huge city map when you’re supposed to be doing actual proper work.

Vampire survivors

Outlanders is a bit sim city ish, but distinct levels so not monolithic…

monument valley series is pretty.

Have you got an Arcade subscription?

Grand Theft Auto.

hadn’t even considered that on mobile! Apple are always banging on about how good the latest iPhones are for gaming, just googled & apparently the “definitive edition” is very good indeed! Especially with the Backbone Playstation controller. Spent many, many hours playing Vice City first time around.

Cricket League by Miniclip.

Mini Motorways

yes, have Apple Arcade.

Outlanders I played for a bit, very cool, but it does just become increasingly complex resource management which is affy like wurk, so chucked it.

GTA I have also tried, but it is not really a 5 min dip in and out kinda thing – seems you need to spend a lot longer on a session getting involved in the world, story line etc. (never played it on other platforms)

World of warships might be fun, FTL maybe too. Monument Valley 2 would be worth a whirl – played and loved the original.

keep em coming!

Letterpress

4 in a row

I’m addicted to Pirates Outlaws (on Android, but available for the wrong type of phones as well). A card/deck building battle game. A few pence to buy, a HUGE amount of content – I’ve played for many many many hours, and I’m still only maybe halfway through the characters, and each plays differently, along with different games modes, quests etc. I like the art style, and there’s definitely a sense of humour in it too.

Most importantly for me, however, is it behaves very well with being put down at any moment. The most you’ll lose is progress in the current round (and force-stopping it and reloading can save a bad situation 😉 ) so you can pick it up any time without worrying about how long you “need” to put into a session.

Isle of Arrows is my favourite iOS game, OK it does fall under strategy and it takes more than 5 minutes for a level (but you don’t have to complete a level in one sitting). No other tower defense genre game I’ve tried comes close + the daily challenges keep you coming back to it. It does cost a fiver but there’s no in-game ads or other stuff to buy

Other than that I just play a few word related games inc. Scrabble.

Lemmings

The Quell series of puzzle games are very good,  lots of stages

Gorogoa

Alto’s Adventure
Alto’s Odyssey
Hill Climb Racing 2
Microsoft Wordament
Monument Valley
Monument Valley 2

All of the above

DARTS OF FURY

RetroArch. PS1 games and PSP games work very nicely

I quite enjoyed going through the old Gran Turismo licences.

Marvel Snap ?