Are there any good casual/low-stress mobile games that aren't filled with microtransactions?

PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works to Games@lemmy.world – 277 points –

Are there any good casual/low-stress mobile games that aren't filled with microtransactions? For example: easy puzzle games, match-3 games, low-difficulty adventure games, or clicker-style games.

So far, the only good examples I've found are Monument Valley, Suika Game, and (sort of) Vampire Survivors.

I'm personally looking for games that have more progression or variety, but any suggestions are welcome.

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Slay the Spire has a decent mobile version. Not sure about the casual part, but at least it's turn based

It can be played pretty casually. A run usually takes around an hour but you don’t have to play it in one go. And on the base difficulty it’s pretty approachable. You definitely don’t have to play 500 hours to enjoy it. But you can if you want to :)

Slay The Spire is an excellent recommendation. Although a lot of people find roguelites stressful because they get stressed about losing progress. You just have to play with the right mindset:

No worries

Stardew Valley and Terraria may both fit your list, although Terraria stresses me out a bit.

Stardew Valley is a good one, but I definately wouldn't consider Terraria casual or low-stress.

Not to mention using touch controls for it is brutal. At least, for me it is. Might be decent if using a controller with your phone.

I've tried it even with the razor kishi. No dice. This game was born for mouse and keyboard.

Stardew Valley can be stress inducing if you are that type of player.

  • "Let me do a bit of fishing on the beach OH FCK it's already 1 AM. Intense cardio session towards my house before JoJo employees steal 1000G."
  • "I need to give Demetrius a gift by the end of the day. WHERE TF ARE YOU ROAMING ABOUT? Come take your gift!"
  • "Let me visit the shop for some seeds. WHO THE HELL CLOSES SHOP on a Wednesday? Am I the only one working in this town?"
  • "Marnie TF you closing shop at 3 PM! My chickens need hay and you are frolicking in the bar"

Terarria can be played as casual or low stress. You choose when to advance the difficulty, and how elaborately you contruct your preparations for the next step. But for a largely stress-free casual playstyle, focus on being a summoner. Also, there isn't much penalty for dying. So if you can wrap your mind around not being bothered by dying, then any playstyle can feel casual really. It's certainly a tough mindset to achieve for some of us though, lol.

I agree. I only mentioned it because it was recommended to me as low stress, so I thought it was just me that didn't get it lol

Note with Stardew Valley: it is not unplayable without a controller, but if you have clumsy sausage fingers like me, the poor touch controls really took me out of the game.

Stardew valley stressed me out so much I stopped playing before even reaching that first year party. It looks like a casual fun game, but there are so many characters to make friends (even if it's optional, it's stressful because of the implication/expectation). And you need to tend to your garden, and even if you don't do anything, midnight rolls around and you feel like you didn't do anything useful and it's overall very stressful to me. May be it gets easier once you get sprinklers and whatnot, but early game was anything but casual and fun for me.

I completely understand. It was very overwhelming for me at first and sometimes can still be overwhelming depending on how my computer is working lol

If you ever decide you want to try it again I highly recommend modding it (and I would be happy to send you what I use). That said it's not a bad thing to play other games if you like them better :) games should be fun not stressful imo

Edit: removed the extra "my"

Sure, please let me know what mods you use

Alright, I found my list :) I apologize in advance for the length lol. I don't know how familiar you are with mods, so here is some context:

I use a PC and was not successful in helping a friend get mods on her Mac, so I don't know if these work on a Mac. Mobile mods are also much harder to get to work mainly because of OS restrictions but also because phones are different, so most of these probably won't work on mobile. Also, if you already have an unmodded game going you should be aware that adding mods could break it. There are ways to turn them off and on but I've only done it once (for a multiplayer game) and it was a lot of work lol. I think it'd be easier if I had a better memory and played more often though. There are also ways to have different folders of mods if you go between single and multiplayer, so that might be helpful if the people you're playing with have different or no mods.

I get my mods from Nexus Mods and I have the Vortex mod manager, which will tell you when each one is due for an update (with a few errors). There is at least one other mod manager but I have never used it.

These are just the mods I intentionally sought out - each one will have its own dependencies (additional mods to download) - all of them require SMAPI iirc, which is basically a way for modders to make mods work without reinventing the wheel.

The expansion mods will have the most dependences since they add so many things to the game. Also, I have not updated my list for awhile and there has been at least one big update recently, so some of these mods may not work anymore or may now be implemented into the game itself.

I added a brief description of each mod, but their Nexus page will have the best and most updated description, as well as a place for any issues/bugs that have come up.

  1. Tractor mod - allows you to use a tractor to plant crops, go to the mine, etc. I haven't actually used this one but I've had it forever lol. The tractor costs a lot of money so you will not be able to use it right away.
  2. Lookup anything - this allows you to have basically an encyclopedia. Some details include when and where to fish for certain fish, what objects can be used to make other objects, etc. It also has pictures so you know what things look like.
  3. Chests anywhere - this allows you to access chests basically anywhere in the game instead of just when you are directly in front of them. Note that if you are playing multiplayer then only the host will have access to all of the chests if they are anywhere besides the homestead. Something to do with syncing I believe?
  4. Automate - this automates certain tasks, such as using the furnace or making mayonnaise, so you can spend time doing other things like finishing quests and talking to people (or just exploring).
  5. Farm type manager - allows you to spawn various items anywhere (like rocks, plants, monsters, etc). I don't believe the season matters but I don't really use this mod much.
  6. East Scarp - an expansion mod. It adds a new location/map as well as new characters and quests. I would consider this the middle expansion if I rank all 3 of the expansion mods I use by size/complexity.
  7. Swim - allows you to swim almost anywhere there's water. Has an additional download so there can be an underwater map with quests etc. i have never downloaded the extra map. Also, you may want to change the swim button if you download the warp mod since they default to the same button. But it's not a super big deal if you don't change it (the button is what allows your player to swim vs prevents it, helpful if you need to do something on the shoreline or the dock and don't want to jump in the water).
  8. Ridgeside Village - expansion mod. Adds a lot of characters, quests, etc. This is the biggest/most complex expansion mod that I have imo.
  9. Free Love - allows you to have multiple spouses without making anyone mad. I would use alongside the date night mod so you don't get overrun by date requests! They get offended if you don't go out with them lol.
  10. Destroyable bushes - allows you to cut down bushes as you would a tree for extra wood. I don't use it much.
  11. Stardew valley expanded - expansion that adds more characters and quests. I would consider this the smallest one that I have, although it's probably actually the biggest one if you actually use all of the locations/quests. There are just some things I refuse to do lol
  12. NPC map locations - shows where each person is currently on the map. I think it also shows player locations? Pretty sure lol. Also it works for all of the maps afaik.
  13. Automatic gates - gates open and close automatically
  14. Mikey's Greenhouse - allows you to make a bigger greenhouse. I recommend setting this one up at the beginning because it's a pain in the ass if your greenhouse already has stuff in it.
  15. Warp multiplayer - warp to like 6 different locations on the map, including a custom location, without using any equipment. Can be used on singleplayer.
  16. Warp multiplayer (locations) - used alongside the above mod. Not sure why you need both. But you do lol.
  17. Wear more rings - allows you to wear more rings than normal. Can be customized - i think i can wear up to 16 rings but not sure. At some point you don't really need all those extra rings because you can combine them. However it is very easy to change the number of rings you can wear - it's a slider bar in the mod menu.
  18. Pause time in multiplayer - allows you to pause the game (works in single player as well). IIRC a majority of the players (both if it's 2 players) have to agree to pause before it will pause.
  19. Date night - allows you to choose the probability that you will go on a date with your partner. I recommend setting it very low if you have multiple partners. Otherwise two or more will ask you on a date on the same night and you will make somebody upset.
  20. Craftable autopetter - allows you to craft an autopetter, which will save you from the tedious task of petting your animals (you can still pet them if you want but they wont be upset if you dont)
  21. Event limiter - sets the number of events that will happen in a day. I must use this for another mod because i have never configured this one.
  22. Greenhouse sprinklers - adds an upgrade option to your greenhouse so that you dont have to water everything. I believe there are 2 upgrades but i can't remember why.
  23. Show birthdays - this will tell you everyones birthday on a given day on the calendar. Extremely helpful with expansion mods.
  24. Deluxe grabber redux - allows the grabber to pick up pretty much everything in the area instead of whatever the game limits it to.
  25. Plant and fertilize all - plant or fertilize the entire area with the press of a button. Extremely helpful if you have a large area you want to do at once. Not helpful if you want to plant multiple types of things.
  26. PFM automate - this is another automation mod, I'm not sure which one is current so I would look at the one I listed earlier as well.
  27. Better chests - name, categorizes, change size, carry chests...so many things you can do
  28. Fruit tree honey - make honey from fruit trees instead of just flowers
  29. Gift taste helper - hover tip that tells what someones favorite gift is (calendar or social page)
  30. Skull cavern toggle - change difficulty of the skull cavern. I believe this has been added to the vanilla game since i last updated mine.
  31. Skull cavern elevator - adds an elevator to the skull cavern. Absolutely required to relieve the stress that is the skull cavern lol. You can thank me later 😂
  32. Reverse proposal - allows NPC to ask you on a date
  33. Lockpicks - a purchaseable item that allows you to go into peoples houses in the middle of the night (or whenever else they might be locked). Kinda creepy and i never ended up needing it lol
  34. Custom music - use your own background music. I got frustrated and removed it bc it turns out i really like the game's music lol
  35. Convenient chests - allows you to craft and cook from nearby chests. I think better chests also does this so idk if i actually use both or not. But either way it's nice to not have to reach into each chest and grab things. Just remember if you use this that it may use something you were trying to save, so keep that in mind.
  36. Simple crop label - hover tip of what each crop is. Great if you always forget what you planted (especially if you don't play regularly)

Let me know if I can help in any way :) I hope you find this useful!

I like "Traveler's Rest" because the game doesn't force you to keep regular hours at your tavern. If you want, you can spend the whole day crafting and restocking until you're ready to deal with customers again.

Does terraria have a chill mode?

Not sure if you saw this comment above. Looks like there are ways to change the difficulty. I'm not sure that would help me though. The monsters move fast for me.

Oh I knew that at least. I usually turn that all the way up and play on PC. I was thinking more along the lines of Minecraft passive mode or whatever they call it these days. I suppose it wouldn't make sense in the context of terraria though. Terraria is about the fights.

That's true. Maybe I should try it on PC. I know a lot of people really like it so I would like to give it a fair shot.

Pixel Dungeon: Roguelike, infinitely replayable. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.watabou.pixeldungeon

Auralux: A simple real time strategy game. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wardrumstudios.auralux

2048: Simple to learn, difficult to master puzzle. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.androbros.puzzle2048eng

The first link says not found :( maybe not available in Canada? Seems this one is a good replacement, will try it out? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shatteredpixel.shatteredpixeldungeon

Other ones say it was made for an old version of Android or incompatible, and can't be downloaded (I have a pixel 5 with android 14)

Short answer: yes.

Shattered Pixel dungeon is based on pixel dungeon, adds a bunch of new stuff and is reasonably actively developed.

I'll second Pixel Dungeon. It's the only one I've played, but it perfectly fits OP's reqs.

One time purchase:

  • Peglin ✨
  • Luck be a landlord ✨
  • Forager
  • Dicey dungeons
  • Dead Cells (optional DLC)
  • Bloons Tower Defense 6 (out of the way IAP) ✨
  • Terraria
  • 20 minutes till dawn (has a non premium option with some micro transactions)

Free:

  • Antimatter dimensions (long idle-ish game) ✨
  • Legends of Runeterra (just play the story modes) ✨
  • Team fight tactics (cosmetics only)
  • Plague inc (and probably rebel inc, but I haven't played that yet) ✨
  • Super Auto Pets (cosmetics and extra optional sets) ✨

Star on the ones I'd specifically recommend for casual play

You need to make a bulleted list because your lists came out as jumbled paragraphs. At a minimum you need to put two spaces at the end of each line to preserve line breaks.

I'll fix it since you put in all the effort to write that up.

One time purchase:

  • Peglin ✨
  • Luck be a landlord ✨
  • Forager
  • Dicey dungeons
  • Dead Cells (optional DLC)
  • Bloons Tower Defense 6 (out of the way IAP) ✨
  • Terraria
  • 20 minutes till dawn (has a non premium option with some micro transactions)

Free:

  • Antimatter dimensions (long idle-ish game) ✨
  • Legends of Runeterra (just play the story modes) ✨
  • Team fight tactics (cosmetics only)
  • Plague inc (and probably rebel inc, but I haven't played that yet) ✨
  • Super Auto Pets (cosmetics and extra optional sets) ✨

Star on the ones I'd specifically recommend for casual play

I reached Challenger on Teamfight Tactics in a couple seasons and I've gotta say it honestly gets a bit tiresome how often they change the game. Mortdog and Co do a great job on balance but you just can't swap from set to set that often and expect things not to break. Plus they like to nerf the things I like the most, and that's inexcusable.

I also didn't really care for it as mobile game because you can't hop in and out, you start a match you need to finish the match and they're not short. Even the "quick" mode is like fifteen minutes long.

In other words? Great desktop game for people that don't mind the meta changing entirely every six months. Great "mobile" game if you want to kill no less than thirty minutes.

I didn't star it for a reason lmao, it's a good game but not great casually

Games I know of on Android:

  • Ganz Schön Clever — Digital adaptation of a board game. It's like bingo except you roll dice and there's actual skill involved.
  • Knotwords — Crosswords but instead of word clues, each region of the board indicates what letters appear there.
  • Threes — 2048 was a ripoff of 1024, and 1024 was a ripoff of Threes. Threes is the OG.
  • Sagrada — Digital adaptation of a board game. Build a stained glass window by rolling dice and placing them on your board in the right pattern.
  • Simon Tatham's Puzzles — Big compilation of various puzzle types.
  • Handshakes (by Pet Pumpkin) — "Solo co-op" sokoban puzzle where you try to get two guys to shake hands.
  • inbento — Assemble lunch boxes by sliding tiles around to match the reference picture.

Alto's Adventure and Alto's Odyssey are excellent

I use Privacy Friendly versions of Sudoku and Minesweeper on the F-Droid store. I also really enjoy Nonograms (aka Picross), and haven't found a good foss app for it, but the app "nonograms.com" has been a good experience for me. I paid like $5 for the ad free version and that's been it, nothing else.

I liked egg inc for a while, if you're looking for clicker type games.

Other than that I can recommend

  • Stardew Valley
  • Peglin
  • Sudoku
  • Nanograms
  • Dungeon Village 1 & 2

Multiple of these are paid, but I'm 100% on board with paying a small amount for an app rather than paying a multiple of that for in-game Battlepasses and whatevers.

It annoys me a lot to say this, but Netflix has some excellent games in their roster. So if you have a Netflix subscription, check those out. I personally very much enjoyed

  • Storyteller
  • Into the Breach

But they also have ports of some very good PC games like Spiritfarer, Terra Nil or World of Goo.

Peglin is available for Mobile?? Adios

Any little casual simulators by Kairosoft, the pay to play "full versions" are pretty cheap. Manage a lil apartment building, manage a tiny sushi restaurant, manage a little Japanese village. 8 bit style, very soothing. The free versions are quite limited in scope and cut you off from further progression after a few levels, but no microtransaction reminders, either. The mention of "Dungeon Village" reminded me, is that Kairosoft?

My recommendation l is going back to the basics: chess, especially lichess.org

You can choose a mode however you want, and it may or may not be stressful. Multiplayer with friends or random online people, choose a time between 30 seconds for a game and infinity to move.

If you don't want to play right now, you can solve tactical exercises.

Mini metro Mini motorways

I may or may not have opted to ignore the stress part.

I had nearly given up looking for good mobile games when I remembered that emulators exist. Nintendo DS games map pretty well to a smart phone, there are some games that use entirely touch controls. I'm using the MelonDS emulator and I've mostly been playing advanced wars: days of ruin and puzzle quest 2. Puzzle quest is pretty excellent and chill by the way.

On android, lemuroid is pretty good for this sort of thing and you can change the arrangement of your nds/3ds screens.

If you like the older Pokemon games and can get the ROMs on your phone, PokeMMO is really cool. It's an emulator that turns the first 5 generations of games into an MMO where you can take the same character across each region.

There's a handful of changes to the base game, but most are small: Berry farming is changed, there's an Exp Share for EVs now, Sweet Scent is used to summon a 1v5 against wild Pokemon... There's character customization... There's some QoL stuff like shiny encounters having a sound effect and adding a confirmation box so you don't accidentally flee, and the stats page for your Pokemon is way more detailed.

In my experience the relatively small selection of the F-droid store is full of these type of games.

Troll patrol

Sudoku

Unciv

Shattered Pixel Dungeon

Pirate Solitare

..just to name a few All full versions, no ads or premuim options. Love F-droid, its a shame the selection is quite small.

The website https://nobsgames.stavros.io/ helps surface these, and let's you filter out based on different things.

One that I like in particular is Gauguin. It's a Sudoku-like with different math-y rules.

Anuto TD is a tower defense game that is also really good, but not so low stress.

Lichess, if you're into Chess. It's a great, no compromise, high quality app. Stressful if you get too worked up about competitive, but puzzles are at least relaxing.

Man mobile gaming is such utter crap in general, I hope the handheld gaming PC trend picks up and people start developing actual competing games for Android instead of micro transaction filled pay to win pieces of shit games

The problem isn't that no one is making good games, it's just that the mobile market is dominated by too many large companies intent on keeping it the way it is and enough of the consumers are ok with that.

The really good games I have played on mobile are mostly indie roguelike ports from PC, like Slay the Spire, Dead Cells or 20 Minutes Till Dawn. Or something more classic like solitaire, minesweeper or crosswords/nonograms/sudoku puzzles

Holedown

You just aim a ball and clear blobs before they reach the top. No timer. I usually play this with my screen split to YouTube.

Stardew Valley is casual, low stress, with heaps of content.

For quick few minutes I've recently been into Pirate Solitaire which is on F-Droid.

I'm seconding Simon Tatham's puzzle collection, Nonograms Katana, and Stardew Valley, all of which are in regular rotation and fill different niches in my soul.

Came here to say Simon Tatham's puzzles.

I also like, from f-droid, Tower Jumper, and from Play, hillclimb racing.

  • seen much praise of mindustry here on Lemmy, but not got into it myself
  • rabbit escape is like lemmings/pingus
  • I like go, but play casual. CrazyStone on Play works well for me. It's doing something with the internet on startup, probably benign model updates, but I block its internet access.
  • I also remember Doom and Destiny being very fun and fairly casual. The free version is not too bad on ads. The second one I never got far in - felt like it was constant ads interrupting gameplay

This isn't exactly what you asked, but I highly recommend emulation. I have had ePSXe downloaded on every phone I've had for the past ten years to play PS1 games. There are so many good titles, all of them free, playable offline. You might like Intelligent Qube Mr. Driller Devil Dice for puzzles. I love playing final fantasy, legend of dragoon, suikoden, Spyro, crash bandicoot. I don't care about graphics, but I am a sucker for playing through a story.

ScummVM is my emulator of choice, like ePSXe it runs on phones and opens it up to a bunch of classics

Nonograms Katana. I guess there are micro transactions for useless crap but it's not pay to win. If you're on iOS, it's just the puzzles but if you're on Android, it includes a "mini game" where you...build out a village? And fight monsters in dungeons? It's really weird....but I'm in it for the puzzles.

Nonograms are great for puzzles that are hard enough to be satisfying when you solve them, but easy enough to be relaxing. I use Picture Cross Color on iphone.

This one is good but Hungry Cat Nonograms is the best mobile picross game imo. Thousands of puzzles, amazing controls, beautiful art. It has ads which can be removed with a single in-app purchase. Been playing for almost 8 years and they're still releasing weekly content.

I certainly don't want to argue about which is better as I haven't played that one but Katana also has 155k puzzles! Users add a ton each day and you can follow your favorite artists. No purchase necessary and no ads (unless you watch one for some of the aforemented useless stuff)

I will say that there's plenty of garbage puzzles due to them being user-generated. And a good portion are color nonograms which I don't like all that much

Magic DosBox, not a game. But in combination with https://www.old-games.com/ , it's a pretty good selection of all the old games made for Dos back in the wild west of indie games back before they were even called that. There are, of course, also old commercial games that have transitioned to freeware now too. Should be able to find lots of awesome games there. Moraff adventure games are particularly interesting. Bit of a steep learning curve, but great to come back to now and then. The site has reviews of every game and sorts them into categories. It can be a little overwhelming just due to the sheer number of available games, but take it slow, and work your way through. It's worth the time investment to find gems.

You can check out whatever is available on F-Droid. I personally enjoy playing Freebloks once in a while, it's a mobile version of the Blokus boardgame

An alternative is checking out itch.io, searching with the proper tags, like puzzle, might yield decent results for your tastes.

You can also get Cookie Clicker or play the web version

Blooms TD 6 - fun tower defense game with solid progression and everything can be earned by playing what I think is a reasonable amount.

Why don't you try emulation? Most phones nowadays are capable of emulating easily up until Gamecube

Personally, I don't enjoy it much without physical buttons :(

Same here, that's why I got me one of these tiny Bluetooth controllers. I have an 8bitdo Zero 2 which, while lacking joysticks, is very portable. Alternatively, a bigger and full layout but still pocketable remote is the 8bitdo sn30 pro, it's rather slim and quite comfortable imo, and compatible with switch and PC too if you also game in either of those systems.

Not sure if it fits your criteria but the only mobile game I play is pinball deluxe. If you like real pinball, then you'll love it, it tries to stay as true to real pinball as possible on some/most tables, it does have small transaction stuff you can buy but I still haven't bought any including all the additional tables etc after playing it 6 months + and if you did, then it's just an 8€ one time buy to get all the content and remove the ads, I'm gonna get that once I actually get bored of the "free" tables.

Yass, this was a daily driver for six months straight. The missions are actually fun and help you get access to free tables. Nice surprise, graphics are gorgeous.

"0h h1" is a fun, easy logic puzzle game that I find myself going back to when I have a minute to kill.

There are a lot of great suggestions here already, so I will just share Mini Review with you as a discovery tool. I like to use them because they have a lot of filters to help you find a mobile game. For example, here's their list for free, single-player, offline games with no ads or in app purchases, sorted by highest user score. They also have an app for both Android and iOS with the same info and filtering as the site.

A Dance of Fire and Ice is an incredible rhythm game that you buy once and that's it. I think there's an expansion pack but it's a single purchase. Whether that's your idea of "casual" really depends on what you like. You can always play chill low difficulty levels when you need to zone out, and high difficulty levels when you want a challenge. It can get stupidly hard.

You can try a demo online at that link. It told me webgl wasn't supported on mobile, but it worked pretty well for me just now on firefox, even if it was a bit laggy. It should work fine on PC.

I pirated it on PC after my kids told me about it and ended up buying it three times on Steam and twice on mobile. It's just that good. I've built a custom digital drum to play it and I'm now making a custom MIDI controller, so we'll see if that does better when connected to the game.

The game works as well on mobile, if not better because the touchscreen is so responsive.

Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector. You put down furniture. Cats sleep on the furniture. You get gold to buy more funiture, and the cycle repeats.

Isn’t that lousy with video ads now?

Admittedly I haven't played it in, like, five years but when I did it only had banner ads in the pause menu

I'm not sure it fits 100% with what you're looking for, but I'll take chance and recommend Slice & Dice (Google Play, Apple App Store). Free demo, no ads, single in-app purchase to unlock the full version. This game is easily the best value-for-dollar mobile game I've ever purchased.

Tetris

A couple that I like:

  • 80 Days - it's not free but I think it's worth it. It's a sort of steampunk version of Around the World in 80 Days where you have to plan your routes, and buy and sell things in different cities to make money. The main gameplay is sort of choose-your-own-adventure events that happen during travel and in different cities.

  • Card Thief - I just started playing this recently. It does technically have a microtransaction but it's more like, they let you play for free if you don't mind waiting for chests to unlock, or you can buy the game to bypass this. The main gameplay is sneaking through dungeons represented by a 3x3 grid of cards randomly drawn from the deck; collecting treasures and avoiding getting caught.

desert golf and its follow up golf on mars are big hits at my house

I really liked Lara Croft GO. It's better than Hitman GO or other GO games.

You should download Mini Review

It is a currated version of the Play Store with many filters including paid/free, IAP, genres, ...

The reviews are very thorough and always include a paragraph about the "presatoriness" of IAP if any

Rodent Rush, it’s similar to Chips Challenge from back in the day but a bit different, and imho it’s a better game.

It’s only on iOS though as far as I can tell.

Old school RuneScape, it has free "demo" version which you can easily put a 100+ hours in. And if you really love there is a subscription model that's kinda expensive if you bill monthly, but no other micro transactions.

Shattered pixel dungeon has been a mainstay on my phone for what feels like a decade now

I have clocked a lot of hours in Slice & Dice both on mobile and on PC well worth the 8 bucks even though I've paid it three times now I think. Honorable mention to Suika(Watermelon game) about 3 bucks on the Play store.

Flow is a fun puzzle game with a hint of nostalgia

Anti-mine: foss minesweeper Blockinger: foss tetris Puzzles: foss app with 40 ish mini games Lexica: foss boogle Lichess: foss chess

Johngbac: gba emulator L game: one of the simplest game which will make you rage. Underhand: light card game.

I don't think there's any meta progression as far as I'm aware, but I find Shattered Pixel Dungeon (available on both android and ios) to be a low stress enough game. I suck at it, so I've never gotten much further than the first boss fight, but the game is about running through randomly generated dungeons, going down floor by floor as one of 4 different characters.

Any of the PAID games from Kairosoft. Dungeon Village, Grand Prix Story, Game Dev Story. He has since re-released all his games as f2p microtransaction junk, but the full price versions are generally really good.

  1. Though im sure that one has ads. Probably depends on what you grab from the internet, as usual.

Mobile games suck.

Heh, it's a numbered list.

markdown formatting is weird bruh, sometimes it adds spaces, sometimes it removes them sometimes it just fucking yeets newlines, sometimes it adds them, what a weird "standard"

Andor's Trail, it's barely recogniseable as a "phone" game, other than that it does indeed run on phones. I don't remember if it had ads or anything, been taking it from phone to phone for over 10 years now. I don't think it had ads or anything. It's open source, but has a pretty consistent feel despite having like 50+ contributors so far.

It's an adventure RPG. The low level experience might be best with a bit of grinding, but.... casual grinding... lol. I kind of just wander around collecting "meat" until I feel strong enough to leave the areas near town and set out on the rest of the adventure. But there has been alot more work around town since the last time I started a new character. So it might feel more natural now.

It doesn't quite fit, but there are a lot of boardgame phone adaptions, and they rarely have microtransactions. Cat lady, carcassonne, ghanz schoan clever, doppelt so clever, hex roller, rail road ink and roll player are some of my favorites

I have a 2048 clone from F-Droid and a Solitaire-like games collection from F-Droid that keep me busy on flights, etc. No stress, easy, entertaining.

Assuming that you have Netflix, open it, scroll to games and open the section. There are tons of great games without any microtransactions or ads. They're overwhelmingly commercial games licensed by Netflix.

Grand prix story and game dev tycoon.

Both good games, low stress, clear progression

Some good games I recommend are Alto's Adventure / Odyssey, any bejeweled game, Cell to Singularity, Idle Slayer, Monument Valley, Reigns, Sky Force Reloaded, and Stick Fight Shadow Warrior. Hopefully that's enough!

Reigns is so stressful, do not want! What are you trying to do, I'm spiraling just being reminded!

I used to play Unblock Me. Made it maybe 1000 levels in various difficulties before stopping.

Neopets still exists and is going strong! The community is wholesome and so amazing, You can play it on your phone's internet browser, it's wonderful nostalgic break from everything else, and they have a TON of free games built in... Solitaire, Pyramids, Bullshit, Battleship, Minesweeper, Brick Breaker, Mahjong, Blackjack, Poker, Keno, etc.

I still play every day and have a BUNCH of goodies for new players, if you do check it out!

I haven’t been on neopets in years and now I can’t login anymore. I think at a certain point they changed their login system and my email got lost so I can’t do password recovery anymore. Such a shame because I had put in a lot of work into that account as a kid and had millions saved up.

Wuthering Waves is Hella good. Technically it's an open world gacha game, but I played through all the storyline (the developers will be forever updating the story a la Genshin Impact), and I never spent a dime on it.

Also, I have spent money on Cooking Diary. However, I went about 3 months of daily play before I did, and it was more about me being impatient/telling myself "You got 3 months of daily play, you can drop the devs $4.99". I've played that game just about daily since Memorial Day 2023, and I've dropped $5.00 quarterly. There are regularly moments of infinite lives that exceed an hour or two, that it genuinely isn't necessary. I spend the money more as a "thanks for not making this ducking game contingent on microtransactions, making it good, and maintaining/update it."

Beleentoro Pro might be something for you. Basically a chill factory game, which I enjoyed for a long time. Other games by the developer Yiotro might be worth a look too.
There are also free versions of most of their games available, with ads iirc (not sure, has been a while). But if you don't want the ads: the pro versions are really cheap. One time purchase for everything.

Another idea I have a puzzle game called: Mekorama by Martin Magni. The last time I played you got an option to pay what you think the game is worth at the end of the game. But you don't have to.

Mini Metro by Dinosaur Polo Club is also really good, but comes with a purchase.

If you like tower defense, Bloons TD 6 by Ninja Kiwi is a must have. Comes with a purchase and has the option of microtransactions for cosmetics, but you can get those by playing as well. More importantly, it's tons of fun.

In case you've got a Netflix subscription, check out their games. They have lots of games in their repertoire which you would have to buy if you went through the App/Play stores. (Bloons TD 6 should be included there for example.)

Edit: corrected Bloons TD 5 to Bloons TD 6.

Friends and dragons. It's a bit like easy chess with d&d style classes and species. It has transactions, but you can easily do well for free. I've been free playing for years (though I did throw them $10 around year 2 because of how much entertainment I got from it)

Not sure what sort of length on play you're looking for but wingspan and terraforming Mars are both really good board games that have good-to-quite-good mobile versions.

Golf on Mars and Desert Golfing. Super simple. No ads. Its just 2D golf that keeps on going with any gimmicks.

Royal Match and Royal Kingdom are both add free and free to play. You can buy stuff, but you dont need to

bloons td6 is a nice cozy game, one of my faves

If you play it through Netflix, there are no micro transactions.

the micro transactions are completely optional in the first place really, the currency is super easy to earn by just playing

Grim Quest and Grim Tides. Two games by the same person. I haven't played Grim tides yet, but it's also free. Grim Quest is not a particularly large game, but I've still managed to play it over many years. I did a full run of each difficulty one by one. There is a bit to learn before it feels easy and casual, but it does get there. To be fair, I try to play it without dying. If I let myself die, it would be alot more casual even from the start. Dying is not heavily penalized on default settings, but you can alternately choose to play hardcore. Otherwise dying usually just means you gained less money for that run, and didn't make the game any harder. The game only gets harder when you successfully clear a dungeon. You can also just exit the unfinished dungeon without dying and keep most of what you have acquired so far on that run, minus a small fee for quitting the dungeon.

There are preset difficulty options, but you can also craft your own custom difficulty. There are things you could spend money on, I think it may have started out with ads. But I consider games with ads that you can pay to get rid of as basically a free demo, and getting rid of ads is the purchase price if you like the game. So they don't deter me if they don't basically break the game to add ads to it, or affect the flow of the game whether the ads are there or not.

Exiled Kingdoms, its an older isometric 2D adventure RPG. Kinda feels like it would have been made 30 years ago for pc, but it was made relatively recently for phones. I don't think there was any micro transactions. It may have had an initial purchase price, not sure. That's usually what I look for in a phone game. The traditional model of buying a game and then just playing a game. No gross mobile game stuff.

Galaxy Genome, it's a space exploration game. Sort of a project to make a comprehensive 2D version of Elite: Dangerous. Or at least it started as that, I don't know if it has achieved and surpassed that by now. It was pretty far along last I played. And that was a while ago now. I kind of play games on and off for years, so that is mostly gonna be a running theme of all the games I post here. Games that you find yourself wanting to pick back up again, over and over.

I really like Usagi Shima. There is not much gameplay, but it's a nice game to just relax for a few minutes. Also "Really Bad Chess" is a nice twist on chess. :D

If you don't mind a classic chess. Blitz/bullet/rapid/horde are different styles that don't take as long to learn enough to have fun. Chess puzzles or against the computer are available if you want to keep it strictly single player. Lichess for multiplayer or I like chess tactics pro for puzzles.

Crosswords, there are programs like alphacross that aggregate from other sources to try different puzzles to find ones that aren't too easy or hard.

If you are comfortable with games that are not technically classified as freeware yet, but functionally, they probably should be... then emulation of older consoles is a great way to go too. While they are certainly not "legal", I don't think anyone playing them has ever gotten in trouble. Only the people that try to make money off of it find that the console companies are motivated enough to shut them down. Otherwise, it doesn't feel super risky to just play stuff. Just stick with games that are impossible to pay for if you want to be completely safe. There was a ton of good games on 16 and 32 bit consoles that you literally couldn't pay for now if you tried. And even as new as gamecube is getting pretty hard to possibly pay money for.

Newer stuff, I only feel ok emulating what I actually own. But as time goes on, newer and newer stuff becomes the new old stuff. A pretty wide variety of console emulators for android are in a good place now.

I do recommend a controller though if you go this route. Ideally one of the ones that also holds your phone for you. Either by making it into a switch/steamdeck kind of shape, or the ones that hold the phone above an xbox style controller. Both are good.

This is exactly what I've been doing recently. These older games are basically old enough to be considered abandonware/technologically obsolete.

If I can't obtain it legally then I find it hard to be upset about obtaining it through other ways.

Cardinal Quest 2, it is possible to spend money, but honestly spending money would be worse than earning the stuff yourself. I still probably gave them some money, since I think the game was free. You don't have to have played Cardinal Quest 1, it's pretty story light. Kind of like playing Diablo 2 if you never played Diablo 1. Kinda the same game as the first with much better execution after learning some lessons. The game itself is pretty easy, but there are optional challenges you can take on that can be as their name implies. Lots of replayability as there are many character classes and 4 different stories. Over time you'll likely want to beat each story with each class. Mostly cuz it keeps track, lol.

If you have a Netflix account, you can get Bloons TD6 for free on Android. It's fun and the microtransactions are completely unnecessary and hidden away. Beware it's a battery hog though

Also, if you like puzzles, look up the various variant sudoku apps from Studio Goya, particularly the one called "Cracking the Cryptic"

Hmm, I was gonna say moonshades, last time I played it there wasn't much for things you could buy. But when I look now, there is. So I can't say for sure how unnecessary any of it would feel now, but it wasn't necessary back when I played last. It's kind of like the old early 3D party dungeon/maze crawlers where you use the arrow keys to walk one "block" at a time. There is only 2 party members in this. So you still sort of get the group synergy stuff, but each character is a bigger share of the team power. You could do a tank/healer thing or magic damage/melee damage, or not have either one focus on anything in particular.

I hope it's still not necessary to buy anything, it was a good game. But the store is pretty comprehensive now, so that has me worried.

I'm enjoying isle of arrows right now. Tower defense but instead of having a set map and same towers you get to draw cards and have to make do with what you get. Some cards give you pathing for the mobs, other expand the buildable area, others give you towers. Simple and fun. Game pauses between waves so you can take as long as you want to prepare.

First one coming to mind for me is Pillar Hop. Very simple, chill, and just had ads iirc (I block them, but I'm pretty sure it does, anyway.)

Sky: Children of the Light

You get to run/fly/swim/dive around and explore several mostly chill realms, helping out "spirits" and collecting light (one kind for currency, another to increase flying ability), and optionally interacting and cooperating with friendly randoms from around the world. There is a story to it which I won't spoil, but there is always more to do even after playing through it.

There are zero ads.

There are some optional transactions, but they aren't pushed constantly (there are changing "seasons", and you can buy a pass for each one which will give you access to special cosmetics and the in game currency to buy them with, but there is plenty to collect without it).

Seasons also repeat (not exactly as they were, but the spirits from them return and their items become available again) so if you missed something the first time around because you didn't have enough in game currency, or you took a break from the game, you'll get another chance at it (I also think items that were initially only available with the pass you buy for real money, later become available for in game currency).

Keeping that in mind, you can grind as much or as little as you like, and there is also a limit to how much currency you can collect a day, so there's only so much grinding you can do if you are so inclined. If you're not that bothered about buying all the items, you can take a really relaxed approach and just play through the tasks and explore at your own pace (even learn how to play an instrument lol).

The first time I played it a few years back, I didn't really "get" the game, or think to look up any information about it, so was just randomly flying around and getting confused and frustrated when things were a little less chill at points, so I quit. But a few months ago I decided to give it a second chance and having actually taken the time to understand what is going on in the game, this time around I'm enjoying it a lot more.

Mini Motor Racing might be a good match. It has some DLC available (additional cars), but none of it is necessary to enjoy the game.

Cell to Singularity is a great little mobile game that does have microtransactions but are easy to ignore/avoid. I played through it several times and may need to dust it off for another playthrough. Great music too.

royal match has no ads at all, its pretty fun just gotta ignore the microtransactions which is pretty easy to do at least compared to other games

I tried playing this but I just suck at it. At higher levels I just get stuck at the same stage for a super long time.

Emulating a Nintendo DS and looking for stylus only games is my recommendation. Games like Kirby Canvas Curse, Kirby Mass Attack, and Warioware Touched are fun.

You can get a port of space cadet pinball from GitHub!

Imagzle. There are "buy more levels" but there are plenty on the main one. It gives a picture, more or less, abstractly related to something. Art, movie, book, many random things

Potion Permit is about $7, but pretty fun. If you got $10 to spare, Ex Astris is a jrpg that's pretty good.

Gubbins is a fun word game, it's a one time purchase and apparently part of the profits go to charity due to Hank Green investing in it in a creative way.

Gardenscapes is the original match 3 and build a mansion and is still my favorite. There are micro transactions to get additional power ups, but the fact that they are constantly updating with new seasonal events and you never run out of levels

the original match 3

Shariki and Bejeweled would like a word.

You didn't build a garden in bejeweled. I said original match 3 and build. I was playing bejeweled on a flip phone. Didn't know about shariki.

Sparklite, I don't know what it looks like purchases-wise, it was free with gamepass and had no in-app purchases when acquired that way. It's probably one of the newest games I'll post about. New enough that it was possible to get it with gamepass, lol. The game sort of has a modern retro zelda feel. I don't think it's a particularly long game, but it's certainly enjoyable and pretty casual. I think if it has transactions, reading other reviews it might be like a "purchase the rest of the game" style thing. So basically a free demo that you can then choose if you like the game enough to pay.

I play chess, mahjong on mobile.

There's also final fantasy pixel remasters, Baldurs Gate, planetscape torment, shadowrun games and trials of mana on mobile too.

Star command, anomaly, world of goo, EDGE, knight of pen and paper...

These are some good ones I got from humble bundle over the years but many are quite dated so not sure if they're still around. No BS microtranactions

World of Goo!

I was trying to remember that when I saw the question

I don't like mobile gaming but oh my god that's such a well designed game

I played a cool one called Pirate solitaire, very charming

Word Cookies. I absolutely love it. You can pay for things, but it is absolutely not necessary and is basically only if you feel the need to use boosts that allow you to cheat your way past the level. I think it costs $2 to go ad-free.

It does give you regular popups asking if you want to buy coins, which I admit is annoying, but they are unnecessary to enjoy the game. There's also endless opportunities to get coins and other boosts for free. I have something like 80,000 coins and dozens of boosts and other than the $2 to go ad-free, I've never given them any money.

You do have to have certain word skills to enjoy it as much as I do. If you're the sort who can crush it at Boggle, it's the game for you.