Mobile Game of the Year 2017, as chosen by App Trigger editorial staff
The sheer size of the mobile game library, as well as its distinctive audience, warrants the platform its own honors each year. Here’s App Trigger’s Mobile GOTY for 2017.
I’ve always dabbled in mobile games, but 2017 was the year that the platform truly won me over. That’s surprising in a year of so many incredible console and handheld titles (which my editor-in-chief will discuss more tomorrow during our site-wide GOTY list), but there’s something markedly different about the mobile scene even in such a year. Certainly, the mobile stores are full of Candy Crush clones and weird bottle flipping games, and there’s nothing wrong with those. But some of the most innovative, creative, and hard-hitting video games being made right now are lurking just off of the most popular lists.
2017 saw a glorious mix of unique, forward-moving games on the App Store and Google Play. Some of them were pure fun – puzzlers, casual titles, or strategy games. Others used the medium to pass along a message and pulled it off with great aplomb. Never has gaming been more accessible, both to players and developers.
Our Mobile GOTY list took into account any game released on the App Store or Google Play between January 1 and December 19, 2017. Though I’ve mostly curated the list myself, we solicited submissions from the entire App Trigger staff to help compile the list beyond what I played on my own. From this, I’ve compiled this celebration of the incredible mobile games played at App Trigger this year and our favorites as a group. Here they are, App Trigger’s mobile GOTY for 2017:
Mobile GOTY #10 – Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
Nintendo’s mobile formula thus far has been an interesting one. Make a polished, quirky game based off one of their properties, let it soar in popularity for a few months, then watch as players gradually abandon it and discuss how it wasn’t as great as they originally thought it was. It happened with Miitomo and Fire Emblem Heroes, and it definitely happened with Super Mario Run the minute players realized its brevity.
I may be too early to predict this, but Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp stands a chance to avoid this trap. Pocket Camp already benefits from something in the way of updates meaningful to the gameplay which are promised to continue into the new year, but it has something else on its side too: fans of the long game. Animal Crossing fans are notoriously patient people – you have to be, to pay off Nook’s loans! And even if Pocket Camp isn’t the Switch Animal Crossing we all clamored for, it’s close enough to a main franchise game to benefit from our love of adorable dancing animals and frustrations with the clunky menuing of New Leaf. There’s a glorious simplicity to checking in on all your animal camper buddies daily, and it’s enough to entice an audience for some time. Combine that with the usual Nintendo polish and charm, and Nintendo may finally have a hit on their hands. It’s certainly a hit with us.



