I don’t care much about mobile gaming, and when I play something to kill time on it, it’s often Minesweeper, Sudoku, Dominoes… back when I first got an smartphone (2019) I tried out several games, mindnumbing idlers, big-IP gacha-crap, they all look pretty much the same and looking at the store today I can’t find anything that looks remotely interesting… I mean, I just saw this one Tomb of the Mask but then at the reviews you see people saying this game used to be good but now it has aggressive monetization on everything.
I remember having some good time with Autochess, an Elder Scrolls card game and some Warhammer 40k games, another fun game I played for a bit was Magic Rampage, and I also really liked Stranger Things: The Game (I just saw it was renamed to Stranger Things 1984), but it has been some years since I last played so I don’t know if they became an Ad hell as well.
Back then, I bought two games: Solitairica - which I recently reinstalled and it’s still great. And Rebel Inc. - which I also recently reinstalled but they released several packs of premium content so everywhere you tap they are trying to sell you something… and since I last played they also added a new difficulty setting that is looking very p2w and it’s quite sad. Night of the Full Moon is another game I liked a lot, I tried to buy the full game back then but I was getting an error in the store and gave up, I might buy it now.
I’m not much of a mobile gamer, but my favorite is Lifeline. One if the few instances where it really makes use of the medium it is in.
And it’s a pretty fun scifi/action/mystery story!
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a great one, Balatro is exceptional in every way, and Slay The Spire is crazy good.
This list is a bit old so many games aren’t supported on the latest android versions, but there are no micro transactions for any game on it. https://nobsgames.stavros.io/android/
Slice and Dice. A rouge-like dungeon crawler where each party member has a unique dice that you roll to decide which ability is used each turn. You can get it on itch.io. a cross platform license is $18 but an android only license is $9.
The game has an incredible amount of depth so I highly recommend looking it up.
Going to second this - there’s just so many game modes, it’s all so well balanced and 10 bucks is EXTREMELY reasonable with the amount of well made content
Zachtronics Solitaire Collection
Kingdom two crowns
Bad north
Alto’s odyssey
Geoguessr :)
And i won’t mention Shattered PD because everyone else did…
I’ve been playing Walkscape. https://walkscape.app/
Dicey Dungeons is great.
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I’ve been playing unciv which is a civ clone. Nice and clean. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.unciv.app
In threads like this I will always recommend Swordigo. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.touchfoo.swordigo
It’s an old side scrolling platform game. The gameplay is very nicely balanced so you won’t have to grind anything. There’s a few difficult jumps and tactics for bosses, but the difficulty increases gradually so you have a good chance of knowing what to do when you get to it, instead of being frustrated.
It takes a few days to 100% it. I think I’ve done it 3-4 times by now.
Vampire Survivors
Balatro
Umamusume Pretty Derby
Roller-coaster Tycoon 2 classic
MyBoy Gameboy emulators
The ones I have played recently are Pirate Solitaire and Vector Pinball, both available on F-Droid.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon for some great (truly) roguelike dungeon crawling.
+1 for Unciv, although I haven’t played much yet. I really should…
Also, Balatro
Sorry if these are all super basic
Haven’t played Unciv, but the other two are ones I went long runs of addiction to. I would add Slay the Spire, Knights of Pen and Paper and Merge Maestro to that list.
Great suggestions but pen and paper directed ä switched to a disgusting microtransactional monetisation scheme and os unplayable now.
Last time I played KOPNP2, I saw that you could pay for some stuff, but I never paid for anything. There was a lot of grinding, so maybe they purposefully slowed progress to make paying more tempting. I guess I didn’t finish the game, but I did get pretty far. That is very disappointing of them, though.
Generally, the best options are ports of PC games. Things like Slay the Spire, Balatro, Mini Metro, Terraria, BaBa is You, or Stardew Valley. Not as cheap, but worth the price tag.
A couple of my favorite free options:
Unciv - Its an attempt at recreating Civ. It’s got a lot of issues, such as lacking a lot of the more in-depth mechanics and having terrible world-gen, but its also free.
Vampire Survivors - a fairly simple but content-rich arcade game, reminiscent of old flash games.
Super Auto Pets - an autobattler like autochess but stripped down to its fundamentals making it easy to get in to, and easy to play in short bursts
