Ask Lemmy

There were, back in the day.

Tap tap revenge and Paper toss were great.

Now everything is just shit for morons.

In my experience the play store is awful to use if you're looking for anything that's not full of ads and/or extremely monetized. I recommend only using it when you know exactly which app you're looking for.

Generally I find games through itch.io and recommendations from others. Also there are foss game emulators on GitHub and similar sites.

Netflix recently started offering mobile games as well.

Ages ago humble bundle did android games but that's all in the past now.

I've been enjoying worldbox and lichess. I used to have a bunch more but the latest Android version made most of my collection stop working.

I really like Robotek by Hexage. It's free and you can play offline.

Slay the Spire: it's the same game as on PC or any other medium. Fantastic game. Obviously costs the same as other places (about $10), but well worth it!

Pokemon TCG Pocket. I started early with this, so I have had no problem with being F2P, but I'm sure that late adopters would need to pay some amount to become competitive. Still should be playable F2P, though. Anyways, it's amazingly unintrusive when it comes to real money transactions. No interrupting ads and you basically have to search for the in-game shop to find the microtransactions.

Roller Coaster Tycoon Classic. This one might have changed since I got it ~8 years ago. It's a pretty good mobile version of the original game. I've spent a lot of time with this game.

I mean... not sure if it counts as mobile but the entire history of console gaming up to few years ago works on emulators, so that's a VAST choice. Sure you might dislike 99.99% but if there is even 0.01% you enjoy, that's hundreds of games if not more!

Check https://search.f-droid.org/?q=emulator and consider a BT controller.

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp went paid about a year ago and there are no MTX or ads anymore. You can also take a look at Epic, they offer a mobile app with giveaways of paid games just like they do on PC.

I really like the polybridge series of games. Bridge puzzle game worh great mechanics.

Lots of good PC ports. The Kotor series and Baldurs gate 1 and 2 and icewind dale ports are good.

Autochess is fun. Lots of opportunities to spend money but none are important, just cosmetic.

Balatro is good (if you like that game as i do)

And also a series of games called "doors" are fun to pass the time. Like a puzzle box where solving one element opens another until the door is opened.

It is 99% crap on the stores though. I tend to get ports and emulators for most of my mobile gaming.

I've been playing old electron engine game like icewind Dale & Baldur's gate. Even Neverwinter nights runs & plays great.

Slice and dice, infinitnode

Unciv

Scrolled the entire page. Just to not see hill climb racing, and slither.io

For games currently out and available:

• Slay The Spire ( a bit more than just something to pass the time with IMO, but again, it's a direct port from PC )

• SuperTuxKart ( I personally don't like the mobile version over control issues I have, but it's still real fun IMO, if you like good kart racers )

• Feudal Tactics ( definitely a time passer on smaller maps )

• HyperRogue ( trippy non-Euclidean game )

• Shattered Pixel Dungeon ( I suck at it, but it's a fun enough dungeon crawler )

• Mindustry ( PC port is more my style, but fun base defense resource extraction game overall )

For games to come out hopefully soon:

• Maze Mice ( I'm addicted to that game and am half tempted to buy it on mobile when it drops if the dev provides a way to buy an APK for the game instead of going through g••gle play. Think Superhot meets Pac-Man meets roguelite ( rougelike? ) )

Balatro, all the other rougelites, monster train, slay the spire, etc.

baba is you is pretty good.

If you're into deck building give "Dominion" a go. The base game is free (which is absolutely playable) and a good way to get into the swing of the game. The AI is a cheating bastard through, so either play it on "easy" or play with some friends. It's SERIOUSLY addictive.

Shattered Pixel Dungeon is quite a timekiller on the phone

Yeah game-enjoyment is subjective. Mobile games dob't require a 2-hour tutorial before full game starts so people play them. I seen people play the "ad-spam" games on bus without being bothered by the ads.

Anyway go play sakura blade story mode on mobile the soundtrack is awesome.

Slay the spire, balatro, Ascension, melvor, plague inc, terraforming Mars, unciv, shapez...

Breakout 71. I could play for 30 seconds or 15 minutes. No ads, lots to unlock. Really like this one.

https://f-droid.org/packages/me.lecaro.breakout

Others have Mentioned Shattered Pixel Dungeon. Love that one too.

You could check out https://www.darkpattern.games/

It's a website that ranks games based on how awful or not awful they are.

Uhhhh BALATRO!!!!!

There's a free mobile game called sky that I'd highly recommend, it's extremely calming but also very well made.

Balatro. Be warned though, it’s digital crack. One time payment though, no mtx

Stardew Valley, which is an amazing harvest moon like game, and subnautica if your device is compatible.

Another good option is to download winlator from the internet and use it to play older Windows games. I play FTL on it. You could also play stuff like Civ probably. I think civ 5 has a touchscreen mode.

The Battle of Polytopia is a fantastic turn based strategy that I've spent way too much time playing.

Beholder is also great on mobile. Similar authoritarian setting to Paper's Please, lot's of decisions, consequences and replayability.

I Love Hue is a super relaxing colour puzzle game.

Free, ad-free, open source phone games

Unciv: Civilization V clone that runs on a potato; a grand 4x strategy game. It seems pretty mechanically complete and has a lot of content. Easily modded. (Graphics may not be to everyone's taste)

Simon Tatham's portable puzzle collection: Mathematically inspired Puzzle games with a lot of customization and reasonable interface. This includes classics like untangle (graph planarity) and solo (sudoku, but generalized). I personally really enjoy Tower, and hadn't seen it elsewhere (and like 15 more games besides).

Chip defense: computer science themed tower defense. By the power of Turing, Noether, and Knuth you can strike down malicious packets attempting to corrupt your CPU. Good content, fun towers and educational bonus material, and I think it looks rather good. (Minor gripe/warning: early levels are optimally played with a lot of tapping that is not very ergonomic; this drops off after the first few levels.)

Honorable mentions (not FOSS, but still free, MTX free, and no ads beyond fishing for a rating). Higgster's game compendium: collection of games in a consistent and pleasing artstyle. Includes things like solitaire, wordle, binaro, and mastermind (20+ games total, several more have been added in the last year). This is really very well done, give it a look!

Flocks: Sliding puzzle game with excellent graphics and animations. Lots of levels, introduces new mechanics regularly, and easy to pickup or put down. I quite enjoy everything Robert has made, recommended!

Saving this threat for later.

Puzzles by Simon whatshisface
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.boyle.chris.sgtpuzzles

Bunch of puzzle games, no monetisation

Here are some that I've played:

Shattered Pixel Dungeon - Roguelike

Endless Sky - SpaceSim

Simon Tatham's Puzzle Collection - Puzzles

Katawa Shoujo - Visual Novel

Snoot Game - Ditto

Gurgle - Worldle clone

TuxKart - Mario Kart clone

Shattered Pixel Dungeon.

Infinitely replayable procedurally generated roguelike that is hard but fun to master, and a blast to play. It’s been on my phone for five years now and I still go back to it.

Totally offline, totally ad free, and still receiving active updates from the single developer.

It’s also got a pretty robust community.

yes, if you like emulation. Just put a gamecube in there, maybe a playstation. I had fun with hoyo stuff too, but fuck the gacha mechanics.