Looking for iPad games

September 18, 2017 7:41 AM

I have some travel coming up, and would appreciate game recommendations for the iPad, particularly point & click puzzlers.

My favorite iPad games would probably be The Room series, and comparable games would be favored. (The Portal games are my favorite of all time, fwiw.)

Criteria:
-Nothing twitchy; I'm terrible and don't enjoy the fast pace
-Nothing that could possibly be described as an "innovative ludic experience" (groan)
-No Telltale games
-No rpgs
-No resource crafting
-I have no fondness for 8-bit retro or games lacking polish (though I have a notalgic interest in downloading Myst)
-need not be a new release

I'm bummed That The Witness and The Room IV aren't out yet; those would be great, I think.

Thanks!

posted by Admiral Haddock to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

Have you played all the Broken Sword games? If not then definitely get the first one. Old but good.
posted by biffa at 7:57 AM on September 18, 2017

Monument Valley. There's a sequel but I haven't played that.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:58 AM on September 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

Year Walk is maybe a little on the innovative ludic side of the spectrum, but it is very polished and does have a good puzzly vide, I think.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:23 AM on September 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

I've played a lot of Polytopia on long flights. It's essentially a knockoff of Civilization, but it's well polished and easy to hop in and out of and has good difficulty settings.

(It's a turn based strategy game if you've never played Civ.)
posted by TomFoolery at 8:32 AM on September 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Love Monument Valley, so seconding that.
posted by lovableiago at 9:00 AM on September 18, 2017

Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake and Love You To Bits are both favorites of mine that have surprisingly sweet stories. The Rusty Lake and Cube Escape games (some are free) are creepy point and click puzzle games all set in the same universe. Rusty Lake Hotel is a good one to start with.
posted by Miss Matheson at 9:59 AM on September 18, 2017

Response by poster: You guys are on the right track--I love Monument Valley (and the sequel) and Love You to Bits. The others are new to me and look promising. Thanks so far!
posted by Admiral Haddock at 10:16 AM on September 18, 2017

Burgle Bros is a puzzly boardgame with a random setup and different characters (so it plays differently each time). It's meant to be a cooperative game but works great as a solo iPad game. You manage a team of burglars trying to pull off a corporate heist.
posted by tracer at 11:49 AM on September 18, 2017

Machinarium! Beautiful point & click puzzler—really unique art. It tells a little story entirely without words. Also by the same designers, with a similar aesthetic: Botanicula, Samorost.

I haven't played these yet, but have heard good things about Broken Age, A Good Snowman is Hard to Build, and Old Man's Journey.
posted by stellarc at 1:24 PM on September 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm on Android so I won't put in itunes links, but these are all available on itunes. Some are paid, some are free; you didn't specify but given you like the Room and Monument Valley, I'm assuming you don't mind paying for good games (neither do I).

Point-and-clickers with puzzle-solving as part of them: Fire Maple Games bundle; Tiny Bang Story; Forever Lost and its sequels/prequel; The Silent Age; the Broken Sword series, as mentioned - though be warned, these can be super cheesy; The Secret of Grisly Manor and Return to Grisly Manor (not grisly at all); Davey's Mystery and sequel; the series by Syntaxity which get better as you go along.

Other games that are more purely puzzle-like but may well work for you: Blendoku and Blendoku 2; I Love Hue; Puzzle Retreat; Quell and its sequels (Reflect, Memento, Zen). As mentioned above, The Battle of Polytopia is very Civ-like and I can't seem to get enough of it despite playing it for months now.

Hidden-object adventure games are not for everyone, but if you like point-and-click games, you may also enjoy these. Most have demos that you can try for free so if they turn out not to be your cup of tea, you're not out any money. The best developers seem to be Five-BN UK (The Lost Lands series, NY Mysteries series and Darkness & Flame series) and Artifex Mundi (some are better than others - standouts are Grim Legends 2 &3 and the Engimatis series - though the first part of Engimatis is from Big Fish).
posted by Athanassiel at 6:55 PM on September 18, 2017

I like Battle of Polytopia as well (especially since Civilization Revolution is so awful), but lately I've been attracted by Osmos, a physics-based puzzle game that is endlessly fascinating (and has a great ambient soundtrack as well). Possibly the first game on iOS I've actually found satisfying (I'm not much of a gamer).
posted by lhauser at 7:58 PM on September 18, 2017

Both Myst and Riven are available for iOS. The conversion was very nicely done and definitely worth buying.

Simogo games are often very strong in your desired qualities. I particularly liked Device 6 and Year Walk.

Story-based games:
Monument Valley 1 and 2, as repeatedly noted above.
Tengami - point-and-click with a lovely paper-craft aesthetic
Agent A - a delightful spy-themed room escape game with a 50s cartoon aesthetic
FRAMED 1 and 2 - rearrange comic panels to form a story sequence that lets you progress to the next page

Purely puzzle games:
Shadowmatic - rotate shapes to get the right shadow
Zen Bound 2 - wrap objects with string until they're covered
Klocki - connect lines and shapes on different planes
Kami 2 - fill in areas of color by clicking on tiles within a certain number of moves
Linelight - move a tiny bead of light around paths past obstacles
_PRISM - manipulate complex shapes until you get to the middle. Short, but lovely.
posted by fifthpocket at 1:23 PM on September 19, 2017