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.

  • gergo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    10 hours ago

    Kingdom two crowns

    Bad north

    Alto’s odyssey

    Geoguessr :)

    And i won’t mention Shattered PD because everyone else did…

  • Dogiedog64@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    10 hours ago

    Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a great one, Balatro is exceptional in every way, and Slay The Spire is crazy good.

  • runner_g@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    3·
    14 hours ago

    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.

  • AceFuzzLord@lemmy.zipEnglish
    4·
    17 hours ago

    Most every game I can think of when it comes to games, most people have already suggested. Though I haven’t seen Feudal Tactics ( available on fdroid ) mentioned. The game isn’t all that complex, but it can be time consuming on larger maps.

    I also just looked something up and Maze Mice from TrampolineTales ( the Luck Be A Landlord dev/team(?) ) is available on the play store, if you don’t mind paid apps. Cannot say what the price is in other currencies, but $4.99USD is the price I saw.

  • bstix@feddit.dkEnglish
    2·
    15 hours ago

    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.

  • wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    16·
    1 day ago

    FOSS (no ads, available on FDroid):

    Puzzle games:

    • Simon Tatham’s Puzzle Collection
    • Gurgle (Offline, infinite Wordle Dupe)

    Strategy games:

    • Mindustry,
    • Tanks of Freedom
    • Unciv (It’s Civilisation V, but free)

    Mindless games:

    • Ricochlime

    Emulator:

    • RetroArch (just need the ROMs)

    Free (no ads): Seedship (by John Ayliff)

    Paid (no ads): Beyond the Chiron Gate (also by John Ayliff)

  • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    1·
    15 hours ago

    The ones I have played recently are Pirate Solitaire and Vector Pinball, both available on F-Droid.

  • lapping6596@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    1 day ago

    I love Bloons TD 6. I think it’s fully worth the asking price given they still consistently release updates and content

    • PiraHxCx@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      2·
      14 hours ago

      I’ve played all the previous Bloons TD on Kongregate when that site was fire, however seeing it so promoted on Play Store makes me afraid of aggressive monetization, as everything on Play Store seems to be just an ad simulator.

      • lapping6596@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        13 hours ago

        Actually, the devs seem to respect the players. I’ve only once spent more money than the initial purchase and it was to add a rogue like campaign feature. There are micro transactions, but it is actually feasible to just play and earn everything. I have all of the heroes unlocked and most of the skill tree.

        Edit: to add, I have the game via steam as well and the cloud saves go between both. Only needed to buy the rogue like mechanic once but base game each time as the rogue like is attached to the cloud account on their servers.

  • PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    30·
    1 day ago

    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