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.

  • TheNamlessGuy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    22 hours ago

    I quite like Funky Smugglers, but AFAIK its discontinued. If you can find an APK and can stand waiting a minute for it to realize that the server is down, it works fine though

  • Dogiedog64@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

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

  • wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    18·
    2 days 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)

  • PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    29·
    3 days 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

  • A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.worldEnglish
    32·
    3 days ago

    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

    • Sculptus Poe@lemmy.worldEnglish
      91·
      3 days ago

      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.

      • Mirror Giraffe@piefed.socialEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        Great suggestions but pen and paper directed ä switched to a disgusting microtransactional monetisation scheme and os unplayable now.

  • gergo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    Kingdom two crowns

    Bad north

    Alto’s odyssey

    Geoguessr :)

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

  • runner_g@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    4·
    2 days 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.

    • IDraw4u@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      22 hours ago

      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

  • frank@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    16·
    3 days ago

    Oh man I love games that are just games. You pay a price, you get a game, you play the game.

    On the turn based side we have Slay the Spire, Slice and Dice, and Lost in Fantaland. All kind deck builders but with pretty different combat. Great games with lots of depth. Also Kingdoms Two Crowns by Raw Fury is an incredibly good game. But a little more real time. I can say great things about all of them.

    On the heavier note, fucking Subnautica has a mobile port now, which I hear is good. Of course you have Stardew Valley for a farming sim.

    On the annoyingly spammy with pay to win features but still good games underneath, all the Ironhide games are good, especially the tower defense ones (Kingdom Rush)

  • lapping6596@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    2 days 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·
      2 days 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·
        2 days 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.