Android, the droid, what's the difference?

Baby steps into gaming on the phone.

By Peter Butter · August 21, 2015

It wasn't until February of this year that I got my first smartphone, I ran behind the facts in this as badly as anything. Especially for a software developer, I'm notoriously not into gadgets. But when an acquaintance and I were looking for an address after getting off the bus, weren't sure which direction to go, and he pulled out his phone and calling up navigation, I knew this is something I had to be able to do also. After that I grabbed my phone, a not-too-new and thus affordable model, namely a Samsung Galaxy Core. It runs Android, probably an older version, not sure, never looked into it.

After learning how to swipe (horizontal only apparently, clearly something everybody in the world but me already knew), I learned the screen does not appear to pick up a stylus, so it's down to my clumsy fingers instead. I never really considered gaming on it, given how much trouble I felt I'd have controlling it. Made the plunge recently after all due to recommendations on Final Fantasy Record Keeper and Fallout Shelter. Both downloaded, have only had time to try the former so far.

And it's not really cooperative. On my home wifi, it frequently cuts out completely in the bedroom (where my wifi signal does appear to be spotty). In the living room this doesn't occur, but it is noticeably slow, often I press a menu option and then have to sit and wait until it decides to do something based on my click. Frequently my phone goes on auto-standby while I'm waiting, so I've learned to just finger the screen a bit to prevent that, but clearly there's room for improvement here. Will have to figure out how to keep the standby from activating so quickly (hopefully can make this depend on the app being run?), and figure out if the reason why it's slow is my connection, my Android version, or just something this game does.

And I need to try Fallout Shelter already, too.

About the blogger

Peter Butter

Starting out as a small time reviewer and FAQ author on GameFAQs, my writing has been even more tilted toward the old school than my gaming. I enjoy games of many eras, but I always found it more compelling to write for something that hasn't been done extensively already, which often ruled out the more modern games I played as I tend to run at least a couple of years behind the facts. My Honestgamers catalogue was initially just copying over much of my old GameFAQs work, and then for a time dual submitting to both sites. But over 2015 I posted my first HG exclusives, with hopefully more to follow.

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Comments 8

jerec Aug 21, 2015

The game only uses the wifi or mobile data to download stages, as far as I know. The game has pretty shocking performance, particularly on older model phones. It's not so bad on my phone (one I bought late last year), but I've heard a lot of people have found it very laggy.

JoeTheDestroyer Staff Aug 21, 2015

Lately I've been playing a freemium horror-based dungeon crawler called Dark Meadow. It's not bad. I think my main problem is that it's a bit grindy.

overdrive Staff Aug 22, 2015

Yeah, for me, Record Keeper works well with my phone. Occasionally, it'll lag or even shut off/restart, but that's fairly rare and it always worked well afterwards. And sometimes, the connection isn't great and it'll take a while for things to load up.

Speaking of which, you'll learn to love days like Saturdays when you get a gil-based daily dungeon. Honing abilities can be expensive as hell. I accepted the "quests" to hone the four "break" spells (Power Break, Mental Break, etc.). Had enough parts to do three of them. $25,000 each. I went from pretty wealthy to flat broke in one minute. Today, I can regain all that and more.

sashanan Blogger Aug 23, 2015

I've only seen Record Keeper on my own phone so I don't know what speed is "normal", but I get the impression that if I press a button and it doesn't make the squeak sound, or if it does but then it takes up to 10-20 seconds for something to happen based on that, it's not performing the way it's supposed to. In battle it's a bit better, but outside of battle menu navigation is atrocious. I suspect it can do better, but I'll have to see what I can do to help it in fiddling with settings or updating Android or whatever.

Dark Meadow is more problematic, I cannot get it beyond switching infinitely between startup screens about the Unreal engine and the developer. No game starts.

JoeTheDestroyer Staff Aug 23, 2015

You're not missing too much with Dark Meadow, honestly. It's humorous occasionally and somewhat impressive for a free game, but most of the game's length consists of seemingly endless sessions of grinding and farming to become powerful enough to handle the next boss.

Roto13 Aug 24, 2015

I played Record Keeper for months but eventually the new content started requiring a guide (and a very, very specific team with very, very specific abilities for each boss) and way too much stamina. Plus, it runs like crap on everything. It communicates with a server every time you make a menu selection outside of battle and it takes forever.

sashanan Blogger Aug 25, 2015

Thanks for the input. That would certainly explain the delay. Perhaps it would run better if I used mobile data over my wifi, but then again, perhaps not. Its range is limited but its speed should be okay, and I get very little data to spend in my plan anyway.

sashanan Blogger Aug 27, 2015

And then Record Keeper disturbed my sleep around 4 am this morning by making the phone buzz to announce FFIX's Eiko is temporarily winnable in one event or another. Every other app I can easily change the setting on so it only makes announcements silently, while still allowing the phone to remain on so I can be called awake in an emergency. On this, at least at that time of night, I could find no settings menu in which I could accomplish this, so the obvious solution - just ditch the app - won out.

Hopefully once I put a little time into Fallout Shelter, I'll end up liking that one more.