A Board Gamer’s Guide to Great Mobile Games
I play A LOT of mobile games. I offer to you my recommendations for the ones I like and the ones I don’t.
Like any good “youth” younger than 40, I spend a lot of time on my phone. Long since passed are the days of Snake or Breakout. Mobile games have come quite a long way. But never one for first-person shooters (with a few exceptions) I tend to lean into what I know. And that’s board games!
In no particular order, here are a few mobile games that I enjoy as a board gamer. Also, I have Android. Sorry, iPhoners.
UnCiv
This is just Civilization VI in mobile form. It’s great!
Deeply strategic, high replayability. Doesn’t have all the features of Civ6, but for being free, can’t complain!
One Deck Dungeon
One Deck Dungeon is a dice-rolling kinda dungeon crawler. The mobile version offers tons of options, some free, some at a cost. But it’s a great game that’s easy to pick up for a few minutes to kill.
This is the official mobile version so it has that nice stamp of approval.
Root
Root is one of my favorite board games but it’s pretty fiddly with some of the mechanics and the fact you need some newfangled thing called “other people” to play it. Root on mobile solves both of those problems with computers!
As far as board games go, it’s one of the best. As far as mobile games go, same deal.
Slice & Dice
Slice & Dice is my go-to game right now. It’s roguelike with multiple class and item options. The real appeal of the game comes more as a puzzle. You’ve got an Undo button with unlimited uses so it’s more about finding an optimal solution to each turn.
Plus, there are tons of items, classes, monsters, spells, and more to keep it fresh for each run. And tons of potential for combos.
Lone Wolf Saga
I’ve talked about the Lone Wolf series of choosing your own adventure gamebooks before. They were my childhood and I love them. This is the best mobile rendition I’ve found thus far.
If you’re into choosing your own adventure and action-adventure games in the vein of King’s Quest, do yourself a favor and check out the Lone Wolf series of books and Lone Wolf Saga. Plus it has a combat system, autosave, and more books than you can shake a stick at.
Twilight Struggle
This was the top-rated board game forever on Board Game Geek until Gloomhaven came along.
This game is a lot to take in. But another fantastic tutorial helps walk you through the game and make it the best version to play, I think. Play vs AI or friends.
Sentinels of the Multiverse
Sentinels of the Multiverse is one of my absolute favorite board games. This version might eke out my favor over the physical version in some key elements.
Even though Sentinels is one of my favorites, it’s kinda fiddly. As a mobile game, it does all the math for you, and with weekly one-shot challenges keeping the game fresh and probably thousands of combinations of games to play. The replay is top-tier here. I play this one a LOT.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon
Less of a board game, but I couldn’t mention it. This roguelike dungeon explorer is my favorite mobile game.
With loads of weapons, armor, potions, artifacts, and monsters, this game has no right to be free. Pixel Dungeon is a separate game with tons of spin-offs, but Shattered is the best by far. It has constant updates and balance tweaks. I play this game more than any other by far.
Small World
Similar to Sentinels of the Multiverse, I really enjoy Small World and I have a lot of the expansions, but setup and teardown can be just annoying enough to edge out not playing sometimes.
Play vs AI, Hot Seat, or Online. I like this one especially because it makes it easy to know for sure if you can attack a certain region since I’ll admit to messing up on that rule a couple of times!
