The Most Exciting Mobile Games of the Week
In the .biz realm, we often find ourselves wrapped up in the investments, deals, and stats of the gaming world (and rightly so), but it’s also important to highlight the games themselves – the fruit of the labor that can only appear after years of research, funding, and, of course, development.
Top Troops
A new release from Dragon City creator Socialpoint, Top Troops launched this week as a medieval fantasy RPG with two key focuses: strategy and merge mechanics. Players can merge and level up troops to build a customized army of Ninja Moles, Imperial Elves, and more while playing through the campaign or in PvP mode.
Socialpoint integrated eight titles from its gaming portfolio into AppGallery in 2021, with over 700 million downloads between them at the time. Top Troops, meanwhile, has launched on Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store with publisher Zynga, a company with a long history in mobile games from Farmville to Poker.
Storyteller
Coming from independent Argentinian developer Daniel Benmergui, Storyteller is a new game on iOS, Android, and Steam that sees players solving puzzles, following love, revenge, and betrayal narratives, and ultimately deciding how its characters’ stories will end.
The game was published by Annapurna Interactive and Netflix, making it ad-free with no in-app purchases. Through Netflix, there are also unique chapters, themes, and a new character. Storyteller actually first released this March on the Nintendo Switch, but has now come to mobile where the puzzle genre proves so lucrative.
Puzzup Amitoi
Another puzzle game this week is Puzzup Amitoi, with developer NCSoft looking for a slice of the match3 popularity pie. This title aims to stand out from the crowd by giving players the power to change the direction of incoming blocks; it also features social aspects like a clan system with language translation available between players, very much on brand for NCSoft given its Purple platform is all about keeping connected with online allies.
Puzzup Amitoi is out now on iOS and Android.
Elderand
Like Storyteller, Elderand is actually a cross-platform title that released on the Nintendo Switch earlier this year. Now it has finally made its move onto mobile, available on iOS and Android. This Lovecraftian action title takes the nostalgia route with pixel graphics and Metroidvania platformer gameplay. Being an RPG already puts Elderand in good stead, landing among the most lucrative mobile genres of 2023.
In fact, a large number of PID Games titles take the upfront payment model – like Bibots, Sigma Theory, Pictoquest, and Spitkiss. Other PID Game titles – Siege Castles and the humorous Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, for example – do feature in-app purchases, utilizing a model that has risen in revenue generation by over 20% this year.
Mortal Kombat: Onslaught
A new action cRPG in the Mortal Kombat franchise, Onslaught is this week’s only entry that isn’t quite out yet. The game is launching on October 17 globally but is already available for pre-install – an approach that worked extremely well for another mobile adaptation of a popular franchise, Monster Hunter Now. Also similar to the Capcom title, registering for Onslaught is being incentivized with increasingly impressive rewards the higher these pre-installs reach by launch. Over 500,000 players have registered so far.
We’re excited to experience Mortal Kombat: Onslaught’s mobile-exclusive story with iconic series fighters later this month.