Ask Lemmy

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.

There were, back in the day.

Tap tap revenge and Paper toss were great.

Now everything is just shit for morons.

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

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

Bunch of puzzle games, no monetisation

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!

Stardew Valley, Shattered Pixel Dungeon, Luanti with VoxelLibre, Mojo Launcher, Unciv, Lemuroid to play console games like Crash Bandicoot or Super Mario Bros, Geometry Dash (not the Lite version, that has ads), 2048, Vector Pinball, 1010! Klooni

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.

The mobile version of Papers Please is exquisite. I highly recommend reading the developer's documentary of it: https://dukope.com/devlogs/papers-please/mobile/

Balatro and peglin

Monument valley

Shattered Pixel Dungeon

WorldBox

Mindustry

Unciv

Chess.

Hasn't gotten an update in awhile but the community is thriving.

Stardew valley.

A while ago, I came across a curated list of no-BS games for Android and iOS.

BS consists of ads or barriers to progress that can't be removed with a one-time payment. It has user ratings, and the highly-rated games are nearly certain to be good examples of their category.

Look for old games, that were released a long time ago before the “predation” was so required.

Osmos and World of Goo come to mind. Monument Valley 1 was a more popular, recent one in that vein.

Other than that, the FOSS and emulation recommendations here are great.

Uhhhh BALATRO!!!!!

Atomas (Playstore)

Shattered Pixel Dungeon (Playstore) (GitHub)

Slice & Dice (Playstore)

Vector Pinball (Playstore) (GitHub)

Mindustry: an automation tower defense game

Shattered pixel dungeon: a classic Roguelike dungeon crawler

Slay the spire: a deck builder Roguelike. Probably one of the most popular in the whole Roguelike genre

Peglin: a lot like slay the spire, but plinko instead of cards

Shattered Pixel Dungeon is quite a timekiller on the phone

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

The Room by fireproof games. Probably one of the first actual proper mobile games. Its spawned clones no IAP, no crap. Just fun, hard af puzzles.

Hoplite. Fun little iso turn based roguelike. Vampire Survivors. Reverse bullet-hell roguelike. Has spawned so, so, so many clones.. GTA:Chinatown Wars Have not played this is a very very long time, but i'm sure it still holds up (if its available). Old school (2d birds eye view) gta style.

These are games that work well without a controller, The Room actually would play worse with one. If at all.

Then of course theres emulators and roms and stuff.

Hoplite

Pixel Dungeon

Tiny Folk

Unciv

Battle for Polytopia

micRogue

Doom & Dentiny

the mobile port of Chrono Trigger

and I strongly recommend the GBA and GameBoy emulators MyBoy! and MyOldboy! for playing those entire libraries on the go

A dream of mine is to make good mobile games, no ads, just a single low purchase. Realistically it just wouldn't be economically viable at all unless there is a free version with ads. But also realistically most mobile gamers aren't using a controller and touchscreens suck.

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.

Some great suggestions in here, but I'd also like to mention This War of Mine. You can read all you like about how good and gut-wrenching it is, but I still always need to schedule some light downtime after playing it for a bit.

Endless Sky is wonderful, though the mobile version is a bit clunky (not even an "official" version afaik, but stitched on the ongoing-development FOSS game).

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

Forkyz is a crossword app that is open source. I love it.

Steamworld Heist is so good on phones and tablets. Zero ads, dark patterns, or scummy behavior.

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

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

Mobile gaming is so good. There is a lot of chaff to sort through though.

• Balatro is amazing. Great to pass the time with, very playable even for people who aren't that into games.

• Slay the Spire is one of the greatest games ever made.

• Root is very good if you're into board games.

• Baba Is You if you want a mind-bending puzzle game.

• Marvel Snap if you like competitive card games, have way too much time on your hands, and hate yourself a little.

Snake