I don’t play many Android games, and enjoy even fewer, but Hoplite is great. It’s pretty simple to play but still requires some thinking, which is what I want out of a mobile game.
Shin Megami Tensei games have you rename their protagonist (and often the 3 other central characters too), but most of them don’t have a canonical name. Also most of the time those people are supposed to be Japanese. Every time I am starting a game like that I struggle to choose a name that doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb for them.
If there is a default name, I usually use it. Exceptions are the kind of RPG where the character is a blank slate, whose identity doesn’t matter at all and whose appearance is custom (like Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Xenoblade X for example). And stuff like Pokémon, obviously. When your avatar is going to meet other players, doesn’t look good if everyone has the same name.
I started Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii U) without even knowing the main character had a canon name (it’s… Cross. Like the X is supposed to be pronounced in the games’s title). But even if know it now I still rename them. They are custom, there is multiplayer, and story-wise they’re the blandest of characters anyway, so…
I struggle to choose a name that doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb
A buddy of mine played many Western fantasy RPGs, and christened the characters with various elegant and dreamy names, until he started ‘World of Warcraft’ and met two guys called ‘Foot in my Mouth’ and ‘Get Yer Hands Off’. After that, his characters were named something like ‘Bitten by a Shark’.
Some racing games, and in particular the third-party app Crew Chief, allow the player to either set a name or choose an addressing like ‘dude’. I don’t like using a personal name, so my racing engineer says stuff like “an incident in turn five, mate”.
I think that there is a time factor and a complication factor. Like the longer the game lasts and the fewer characters available to name, the more people who will name and customize characters.
I wonder how many people completed Skyrim with the name “Prisoner”, though.
It doesn’t actually appear anywhere in game but Oblivion’s main character has an internal name in the editor. “Bendu Olo”. Very Geoge Lucas kind of name.
I like games where I name the main character, often the main character has a title or nickname that npcs use as well (the Dragonborn, the Avatar) but if I know they have a name in the story then it’s feels a bit weird to change it. So, Link is Link. But when I player Chrono Trigger for the first time recently I had (somehow) not heard much about it, so I renamed Crono (also it’s a horrible misspelling and kinda dull name, so happy to change it).
I would highly recommend Monument Valley (1,2 and 3 is coming soon) as far as puzzle goes, for a quick arcade fix, I like Breakout 71 (with rogue-lite elements) and all games by Arnold Rauers (Card Crawl being my favorite, but by a small margin).
Here’s a quick selection from the top of my head, if you want I can go throw my app history for a few more :)
I love puzzle games, either ones with an overaching story or standalone puzzles. I love the professor layton series Googke Play Store. I believe you should also check out Monument Valley Google Play link. If you’re looking for a FOSS option, there’s Simon Tatham’s puzzle collection F-Droid Link
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