We live in an era where mobile games are usually either gacha JRPGs, ad-riddled low-quality messes, or pre-existing console/PC games simply ported to phones. But what about the classic era of mobile gaming, when smart phones were new and fresh, and it seemed like everyone had the same few gaming apps on their phones? Look, I like gachas as much as the next anime lover, but they was something magical about the Flappy Bird era (which, no, won’t be on this list). Well, here’s an article of my Top 10 favorite classic mobile games!
Let’s get right into things!
10) Stair Dismount
What you see is what you get with this game, right from the title and the app icon. Your goal is to knock a mannequin man off of precarious legs and see how many non-existent bones he breaks. Dark? Yes, but also extremely fun. And it’s all so cartoony and silly that it circles around to being hilarious and not traumatizing. There’s no blood or gore, the sound effects are over-the-top and silly, and the sheer audacity of the premise is quite addicting. It’s ultimately a simplistic game that’s little more than a time-waster, but it’s a pretty fun one!
9) Doodle Jump
This is one of those mobile games (like many on this list) that I’m sure you’ll recognize immediately. It’s from that early era where all you really needed was a single core gameplay mechanic, and you’d get millions of downloads and dedicated players. All you do is jump as high as you can, while monsters float back and forth and the types of platforms eventually change (like crumbling platforms or moving platforms). It’s about the simplest conceit you can imagine, which is perhaps why so many developers shamelessly copied this formula for their own jump-centric games. The OG did it best, though.
8) Trivia Crack
If you weren’t big into social games you might not have played this, but for those with friends or family, you almost certainly gave this game a shot. I definitely remember about a month or two where everyone in my family played this game, and we’d all obsessively challenge each other to new trivia rounds, or frantically check our scores to see who was at the top of the family leaderboard. Arguably not a traditional game, but it definitely game-ified the trivia experience, and packaged it up into an addicting and digestible app. An app where I was really only guaranteed a win as long as that dang orange football didn’t show up with some sports questions!
7) Cut The Rope
Another recognizable classic mobile game, with so simple a premise it fit right into the app’s title. In this game, you cut ropes. The end. But seriously, all you have to do is slice at ropes in order to get a dangling piece of candy into the ravenous jaws of the adorable green alien Om Nom. Isn’t he cute? Puzzle games were huge back when mobile gaming was an untapped landscape, and Cut The Rope was one of the heaviest hitters of the time period. I actually wasn’t super great at it, but that maybe (hopefully) had more to do with my younger age than my inability to solve puzzles! This game has actually endured to the modern era, unlike other entries on this list.
6) Candy Crush Soda Saga
Okay, obviously the original Candy Crush Saga is a bigger name than this Soda-focused spinoff, but this is the one I played more and they are largely the same game at the end of the day. This gazillion-dollar franchise isn’t exactly original, being little more than your classic mix-and-match puzzle game. Line up like-colored objects, reap big rewards, flashy explosions and combos, and tons of points. It’s simple, it’s fast-paced, and it’s addicting. I’m sure a lot of you out there have played a level of Candy Crush before, and probably immediately saw the appeal even if you didn’t rush out and download the app yourself. Dedicated tryhards could tackle thousands upon thousands of levels if you got addicted enough. This one’s also persisted to today, and quite handedly at that.
5) Gun Bros
A relatively niche game, but one I treasured a lot during my earlier years of goofing around on the app store (on our family iPad, long before I ever had an actual phone). You pick one of two functionally identical beefcake gun-toting dudes, equip yourself with massive weapons, and then wreak havoc upon robots, aliens, and any other baddies who stand in your way. Shoot first, ask questions never. There wasn’t a story, there wasn’t a complex and richly-detailed suite of gameplay mechanics. You just walk around and shoot, and that was enough to win me and thousands of other mobile gamers over. It’s dead and buried now, sadly, but I still come back to listen to the surprisingly good music, like the MENU THEME.
4) Battle Bears -1
It pains me to say, but this is another pretty niche game. It was a prequel installment in the Battle Bears franchise, which for a time was a legitimate juggernaut in the mobile gaming world. There were multiple Battle Bears games across a variety of genres (tower defense, shooters, puzzle games, multiplayer arena battlers), there were animated shorts, some merch…it was a whole thing. Now, it only exists as a MOBA, but hey at least it’s something. It’s a fascinating series, really.
-1 was always my favorite installment, owed to its simplicity, it’s addictive fun, and it’s shockingly high quality. At the time, there really weren’t a lot of phone games like this. It felt like a legitimate gaming experience to wander around this decrepit space station and do battle with the nefarious Huggables (cuddly teddy bear aliens who hug you to death). You had several levels, boss fights, multiple weapons to wield, and two characters to play as. What’s more, each main character had their own unique campaign (one being action-oriented and the other being horror-themed). And what’s more than that, the game included animated and fully voice acted cutscenes to tell the story, and those cutscenes are extremely funny! I still quote some of them to this day!
Also, an absolute banger of a soundtrack. Just check out this BATTLE MUSIC!
3) Angry Birds
Everyone knows Angry Birds, and everyone should have reasonably expected to see me place it here on this list. It’s another one of those classics that you can recognize as soon as you see it. And while the formula might be predictable today, it was revolutionary when it came out, which led to the absolute dominance this series exerted over the App Store. Fling birds, knock over structures, defeat pigs. Repeat a few hundred times with new bird types and harder level layouts. Hours upon hours of fun entertainment!
And it’s hard to understate how much Angry Birds has turned into a franchise in the years since it first released. Spinoffs galore (Rio, Space, Star Wars), console ports of the mobile games, arcade cabinet versions at your local Dave and Busters, two movies…the list goes on. These birds were born angry, are still angry, and will probably continue to be angry far into the future. At least as long as those tricky little piggies are still around!
2) Plants vs Zombies
While marginally less known to the general populace, there’s not a gamer out there who doesn’t at least have passing knowledge of Plants vs Zombies, one of the most iconic mobile games of all time (though, yes, it started on PC). Tower defense games were everywhere on the App Store back when mobile gaming was in its nascent years (and, heck, even to this day), but PvZ stood above the crowd by being the most visually attractive, mechanically polished, content-rich game on the block. It blew the rest of the competition out of the water with its charm and addicting gameplay loop.
I think the premise really carried the series a long way here. A tower defense game where you fight zombies is nothing new, but using PLANTS to do it? Genius! And they really leaned into the theme, giving us a sprawling collection of unique plants to strategize and paly with, and an eclectic crew of goofy zombies to battle (like Disco Zombie, Screen-door Zombie, and the Zamboni-driving Zomboni). Like Angry Birds, PvZ has also seen amazing success as a franchise and it still exists to this day, with a full-on sequel, multiple spinoffs, and three entire multiplayer shooter-focused games on consoles.
1) Jetpack Joyride
I could never have put anything else that the top of this list. I’ve played this simple, silly little game longer than I have some legitimate console video games, and then some! And that’s pretty impressive if you ask me, considering the entire game can be played with just one finger! I still have it downloaded onto my phone even now!
In Jetpack Joyride (if you somehow haven’t heard of it or played it before, as it 100% still exists today), you fly down an infinite hallway on your trusty jetpack, collecting coins and items, and occasionally getting to pilot a special vehicle for a short time. The coins are used to buy new clothes, new jetpacks, or vehicle upgrades. And…that’s it! Chase high scores, complete little quests for bonus coins, and have fun! No sweeping story, no level select. Turns out, if your gameplay is fun and addicting enough, that’s all you need!
It doesn’t have the franchise potential of Angry Birds or PvZ, and it doesn’t have the deep depths of content that something like Candy Crush has. It does have a sequel, and (of all things) a board game adaption, but ultimately Jetpack Joyride does one thing and one thing only: it lets you fly down an endless hallway on a jetpack while collecting coins. And it does that one thing unbelievably well!
And I wouldn’t be doing my civic duty if I didn’t link to the game’s unforgettably amazing MAIN THEME!
But hey, that’s just my opinion!
The Contrarian Corner 