Mobile games have become a menace to the Internet over the past few years. The advertisements are weird, they all seem to use “free to play” mechanics that drain all your savings, and worst of all, they are just plain boring. 

‘Episode’ (and its many copycats)

 If you enjoy story-based casual games, boy do I have the worst possible option for you. Episode tries to brand itself as a fun interactive story, with suspense, romance, and thrills, when the sad fact is that it looks like a flash animation game you would find on Girls Go Game in 2009. Instead of being a game about choosing your own path, the game strips away your free will, because guess what? Certain choices your character can make can only be unlocked with the game’s in-game currency, which you pay for. Along with the awkward character movement and Riverdale-esk storylines, the experience is not enjoyable for anyone other than hormonal 12-year-olds.

‘Lily’s Garden’ (and most modern matching games)

This one could almost make the list just based on its insane advertisements, but the game itself is just as awful. I honestly am not sure who the target audience is for this game. The puzzles are incredibly simple, so simple a 3-year-old could figure it out. But in one of the ads, our main heroine Lily is sitting on a washing machine and is, well, “enjoying herself.” What is this nonsense? I miss the days when matching games were just matching games. Nobody cares about the storyline or the drama or whatever, the people just want puzzles.

‘Puzzles and Survival’

Now you have probably seen ads for this game, mainly consisting of a guy in his underwear and an attractive woman trying to escape zombies in a prison. Why? Do not ask why, because it does not matter. The game already looks unappealing, but the real gameplay is just as atrocious. The game is falsely advertised to be a matching puzzle game when it really is just another lazy, lowbrow city-building game. 

‘Break them Up’

Tik Tok’s algorithm has a strange habit of pushing the weirdest mobile games they can find, and this one is probably one of the worst I have encountered. This should really be called “Homewrecker Simulator 200” because all you do is follow an animated couple, making them walk through rings or something that can make them break up? The concept is just as bad as the execution. There are also some “spicier” ways you can get them to break up, like sending nude photos or dancing, but you mainly move side to side throwing garbage at the couple. It is like Subway Surfers, but with weird body proportions, jankier graphics, and not at all enjoyable.

‘Pregnancy Simulators’

I really should not have to say this, but here I am. Stop making games designed around knockoff Disney princesses giving birth. Yeah, whatever, you can think labor is beautiful and a miracle and all that, but you can deny that using childbirth as a premise for a game is weird. Why does this even exist? I cannot imagine any child or a human with functioning eyeballs would want a game where you can cut an infant out of Queen Elsa’s body with a pastel pink scalpel or take care of a pregnant Ana. It is incredibly creepy.