Mobile Experiences on PC: Quick Gaming Experiences

Mobile gaming dominates the video game industry now because of how available cheap, quality smart phones are now a days. As more and more companies look to the mobile marketplace – including heavy hitters like Nintendo with Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and Super Mario Run – the number of mobile game is jumping at an exponential rate. So often, however, I examine these games on mobile and wish there was a PC counterpart. Now there is, thanks to Friv , and online portal that allows you to play a number of the best mobile games right on your desktop, without additional downloads.

Using Friv is incredibly simple, and only requires flash downloaded onto your computer. There is no external application to download, and after watching a quick ad, the games you want to play are ready to go. There are a number of fantastic titles available on Friv, a few of which we’ve outlined below.

Plants Versus Zombies – In Plants versus Zombies, players will collect sunlight and build plants on various rows. Different plants do different things: sunflowers provide extra sunlight, which in turn allows you to get more plants; pea shooters are your basic, cheap weapon, and will fire peas at set rates; and potatoes can be used as a defensive wall, as it will take Zombies a good amount of time to chew through them to move forward down the row.

While this game definitely works better on mobile because of the simple tap mechanics, using the mouse on a computer is almost as effective, and through a few rounds, I can safely say that this experience is pretty great via the Internet. No mobile device required!

Fruit Ninja – Fruit Ninja is also a fairly simple game that made huge waves almost a decade ago when launching on the first iPhone and Android devices. The game itself is a lot of fun. Players will wield a samurai sword, and chop up fruit as it falls down the screen. The more fruit you chop, the better your score; watch out though! Should you accidentally hit a bomb, it will be game over for you.

I didn’t feel Fruit Ninja worked as well on PC as it does on mobile devices. After all, the devices work great because you simply have to swipe with your finger. Replicating this with a mouse is much more difficult. Still, there is a lot of fun to be had here, regardless of your setup!

Angry Birds – Most games available on Juegos Friv are not necessarily direct remakes of their mobile counterparts. The Angry Birds game, for example, doesn’t utilise sling shots and structures, but rather birds being shot out of canons, attempting to collect all the tokens in the game while hitting the pig at the end. It has all the theming of an Angry Birds title, but without that traditional Angry Birds game play.

Despite this, the experience is still fun, and one totally worth your time. If you’ve been itching for an Angry Birds lite game on your PC, Friv has access!

A wider discussion to have around a website such as Friv is how much people are clamoring from bite size gaming experiences. Today, people don’t want to be tied to their cellular devices or TVs for hours on end. A select few of hard core gamers, for sure, but the vast majority of people who play games – notice I never said gamers here… – are looking for that quick, 2-3 minute experience. This is why the Free-to-Play formula has worked so well over the last number of years.

People generally don’t care that they have countdown timers in their games, because in general, people don’t have enough time to sit there and continue to tap away. These companies are making money of the hard core mobile gamer, not the casual player. Why? The casual player doesn’t care. 45 hours to build a sweet structure in my town? I’m ok to wait.

The long, time consuming games available on Android and iOS devices are slowly diminishing. The money to create these experiences is too much, and companies are not seeing returns on their investments. Transportation Tycoon Deluxe was amazing on PC, but nobody wants to play it on mobile. Rollercoaster Tycoon on PC is equally as good, but once again, despite being a solid title, very few people want to sit on their phones for hours on end playing Rollercoaster Tycoon classic.

It’s hard to understand exactly whey we do the things we do, but there seems to be a divide that all gamers are becoming aware of: for quick, bite sized gaming moments, grab a title on your mobile device. For longer, more drawn out experiences, being gaming on the PS4, Xbox One, or Nintendo Switch.