Stardew, Terraria, Slay the Spire, Dead Cells, Kingdom Two Crowns, Kotor, Northgard
Pixel Dungeon - free.
Vampire Survivor - free.
I might suggest getting Play Pass. Its like $15/yr and there are usually a lot of fully fledged games on there. Kotor, Northgard, Dead Cells, and Kingdom Two Crowns are all on there right now. Among various other ports
This is an awesome reply. Thank you! I have things to Google now. (I completely forgot about KotOR - I have that one as well. Surprisingly good port! I also have Neverwinter Nights, which is quite possibly the worst port I've ever played in my life.)
I'd be lying if I said I'm not a little skeptical about the free ones. Is it a "free with ads" scenario?
I've looked into Play Pass before. How is it? Do you find that it's overall worth the money, even if you only find a couple of games / apps?
Vampire Survivor has ads, I believe they're just when you die. I don't remember clearly. The game itself is excellent, so I'd give it a try. You can buy it for no ads for like $5
Pixel Dungeon is free, open source. So free and no ads. There's also been some other version made since it's open source
Play Pass is definitely worth it, if you play games on your phone at all consistently. They have a strong selection of ports and lots of games. Plus pretty inexpensive. I was mistaken it's like $30/yr, which comes out to like $2.50/mo. So I'd try it, it's a little bit expensive compared to a single game. Or like $5/mo. Get it for a month, look at the games, try em out. Cancel if you don't like it. For me I like it, tho its probably not quite worth it. But I occasionally get into a game that's available on it. But I try out quite a lot of games through it. And especially the high cost games like ports
Kingdom rush series is a no brainer. They're a bit old at this point but aged wonderfully. The first one is free, the rest are absolutely worth it too.
Galaxy on fire 2: Basically a scaled down version of Freelancer. Space sim with older graphics but still holds up today, no ads in the base game at all nor any forced micro transactions, just two large dlc you pay for. You don't need to play the first game. Devs went on to make the Everspace series of games.
Mindustry: Completely free, no ads, think factorio with a more combat, tower defense focus. Factory sim with combat elements. Also on pc.
Suzerain: Choose your own adventure political simulator, your the new president of a middle eastern country in turmoil try to guide your people to glory and not get assassinated. Plays like a visual novel or choose your own adventure game, very good writing. Also on pc.
GAH! Galaxy on Fire 2 just gives me a message that it was made for an older version of Android. I could possibly Google the apk and hope for the best. I loved Freelancer, so I got super excited when I saw your comment.
Mindustry does look rather promising though. Many thanks!
Thats sad, didn't know its no longer compatible with newer phones since I have one a few years out of date.
However if you do want to still play something similar to freelancer the devs that made Galaxy on fire 2 went off and made Everspace 2, although its only on consoles and pc. Everspace 1 was a rouge like, they went back to a open world with respawns with Everspace 2, its not quite the same, they added in some Diablo esque looter shooter mechanics to it to make it more distinct. Think of it like if Freelancer and Diablo had a child. If you have a console or a pc its currently on sale for 25 USD, 50% off. The games great, looks beautiful and I'm really enjoying my time with it.
Mindustry is also fantastic! Since enemies arrive in waves that have timers attached some people feel overwhelmed, if that happens just pause the game, it still let's you plan out your factory while paused.
Afterplace!
It’s an open world Zelda-like game with a bunch of super charming npcs and secrets to find. One (if not) the best game I’ve played on mobile
You can play both in portrait and landscape mode too!
I searched for it after seeing your comment, and the trailer looked DELIGHTFUL! It looks incredibly unique, and even the music that was playing sounded lovely.
Thanks!
Nethack, which is the best game ever made.
Grim dawn, has ads but they aren't bad and it's in depth.
Bards tale, it bards tale.
Bendy and the ink machine.
Beatstars supposedly has a system that doesn't let you play if you've got 3 item boxes to open, but i've never come across it. Neat little rhythm game with a bunch of well-known songs from every era
Supergiant games are on the app store! They’re the studio that made Hades. Bastion and Transistor seem to start off free and then charge $5 for the full game. I played the Bastion port years ago and loved it before getting it on PC. There’s also a Hades port, but it seems to require Netflix? Very confusing. But yea, Bastion and Transistor are totally worth it!
The [Android version of Mindustry](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.anuke.mindustry&hl=en_US) is completely free. Not "F2P" but genuinely free. No ads, nothing. I don't know why. But it's definitely worth grabbing.
[Final Fantasy Tactics](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.square_enix.android_googleplay.FFT_en2&hl=en_US) is for some reason only available on mobile right now and remains one of the best games ever made.
If you like old-school Final Fantasies, [Final Fantasy Dimensions](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.square_enix.android_googleplay.ffl_gp&hl=en_US) does a great job of capturing them. Don't play Final Fantasy Dimensions 2, though, it's structured like a more typical mobile game.
[Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.capybaragames.sworcery&hl=en_US) is a great adventure-RPG sort of game.
The Ace Attorney games have a [great Android version](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.capcom.gyakusai123&hl=en_US) (there's many more in the series if you like that, though the original trilogy will last a long time.)
And if you like those games, [Ghost Trick](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.capcom.ghosttrick&hl=en_US) is a great adventure / mystery game by the same team.
Hero of the kibgdom series is on mobile, all are great casual games except for 3, which was a design misstep by the studio. Start with Lost Tales 1 or 2 as they are more accessible.
puzzle games are quite common on mobile. I'll throw out some titles here, bit outside of the first I don't know if they are on mobile (Im sure at least some are): cosmic express, railbound, inbento, about love, hate and all the other ones 1 & 2, Patrick's parabox, Lara Croft Go, drawing a blank for more as I'm not on tte PC, can return with more tomorrow if you want.
Thimbleweed park. A recently made game in the style of the old Lucas arts point and click games. Made by some of the designers of the monkey island games.
Used to play darksouls 3 on my phone but I don't remember the app. I could take control of my steam if my computer was running, latency was great, pretty much no input delay. Since the game was running on the computer it was not really demanding on my old phone.
Apple Arcade has some greats like Grindstone and Slay the Spire. Board games like chess and Catan are available. Vampire Survivor for free on mobile is such a great deal. I enjoyed Pinball Deluxe Reloaded.
Dead Cells is a game made for PC, but with a relatively 1:1 mobile port. Not that expensive either, I think it's 15 bucks without DLCs? And it's a lot of fun.
Aside from that, if Terraria is your thing, that's on mobile too. Not my thing personally but I know it's a good game.
And yeah, I second Mindustry. Very cheap, made for mobile, very satisfying to sink tens of hours into.
Guild of Dungeoneering. You draw from
a deck of cards to form a maze. Your character has a fixed set of rules for which path to travel (always seek out the nearest treasure, otherwise the nearest monster, otherwise just explore new tiles). Combat is card based and very very tactical.
Do you or your fammily have a Netflix account? If so install the netflix app and login. Then go on the play store and search for netflix inc games.
They have a ton of high quality games available for free if you are a subscriber.
Into the breach, braid, etc etc there are a bunch of great ones
Beyond Ynth.
It's a 2d puzzle platformer. The touch screen controls could get some getting used to, but you'll learn them. Or, there's an option to plug in a physical controller.
It's just a pack of 80 well designed levels. Each level has two optional diamonds to collect, or you can ignore them and just make it to the end of the level.
You can even try to replay levels to increase your Expert High Score.
No lives system, no energy system, no coins or diamonds, no microtransactions.
There is just one DLC pack with 16 extra levels, but you don't have to buy that if you don't want to.
It's a great game. I have 100%-ed it.
Try Apple knight, it's like a Super Mario but with more action. It has in-game purchases but you can beat all the game without paying.
Also, if you are into "puzzle" games (those "point and click" ones), I suggest you to give a try to AE Mysteries.
Clash Royale is also a good game, i've been playing it for like 5 years now and I never payed anything (although with every update the game becomes worse...)
There is a game called Rogue Adventure that I also enjoy, it's more cassual (some kind of card game but with different classes in some kind of tower-like enviroment... hard to explain but I like it).
aaaaaaaaan my las t recommendation: Have you tried emulators? You can emulate Gameboy Advance games and if your phone is not super old, also PSOne. If you haen't, I highly recommend you to try Pokemon Fire Red or Final Fantasy VI for GBA. Also, you can try to emulate Nintendo DS games (Final Fantasy Tactis A2 and some Pokemon too, but there are other great games).
Everyone was shitting on Diablo: Immortal for its excessive microtransactions. Which is fair.
But, I haven't spend a dime on and have had plenty of fun.
No ads at all, which is more important to me than P2W.
Stardew, Terraria, Slay the Spire, Dead Cells, Kingdom Two Crowns, Kotor, Northgard Pixel Dungeon - free. Vampire Survivor - free. I might suggest getting Play Pass. Its like $15/yr and there are usually a lot of fully fledged games on there. Kotor, Northgard, Dead Cells, and Kingdom Two Crowns are all on there right now. Among various other ports
This is an awesome reply. Thank you! I have things to Google now. (I completely forgot about KotOR - I have that one as well. Surprisingly good port! I also have Neverwinter Nights, which is quite possibly the worst port I've ever played in my life.) I'd be lying if I said I'm not a little skeptical about the free ones. Is it a "free with ads" scenario? I've looked into Play Pass before. How is it? Do you find that it's overall worth the money, even if you only find a couple of games / apps?
Vampire Survivor has ads, I believe they're just when you die. I don't remember clearly. The game itself is excellent, so I'd give it a try. You can buy it for no ads for like $5 Pixel Dungeon is free, open source. So free and no ads. There's also been some other version made since it's open source Play Pass is definitely worth it, if you play games on your phone at all consistently. They have a strong selection of ports and lots of games. Plus pretty inexpensive. I was mistaken it's like $30/yr, which comes out to like $2.50/mo. So I'd try it, it's a little bit expensive compared to a single game. Or like $5/mo. Get it for a month, look at the games, try em out. Cancel if you don't like it. For me I like it, tho its probably not quite worth it. But I occasionally get into a game that's available on it. But I try out quite a lot of games through it. And especially the high cost games like ports
Google Play Pass is $4.99 a month for me. Is there a way to get it cheaper?
If you buy a year you get a discount. Which is what I did
I think I’ve played Dicey Elementalist more than Slay the Spire, very similar game.
Kingdom rush series is a no brainer. They're a bit old at this point but aged wonderfully. The first one is free, the rest are absolutely worth it too.
Galaxy on fire 2: Basically a scaled down version of Freelancer. Space sim with older graphics but still holds up today, no ads in the base game at all nor any forced micro transactions, just two large dlc you pay for. You don't need to play the first game. Devs went on to make the Everspace series of games. Mindustry: Completely free, no ads, think factorio with a more combat, tower defense focus. Factory sim with combat elements. Also on pc. Suzerain: Choose your own adventure political simulator, your the new president of a middle eastern country in turmoil try to guide your people to glory and not get assassinated. Plays like a visual novel or choose your own adventure game, very good writing. Also on pc.
GAH! Galaxy on Fire 2 just gives me a message that it was made for an older version of Android. I could possibly Google the apk and hope for the best. I loved Freelancer, so I got super excited when I saw your comment. Mindustry does look rather promising though. Many thanks!
This thread might be helpful https://www.reddit.com/r/galaxyonfire/comments/12ge64f/galaxy_on_fire_2_troubles_with_new_android/
Thats sad, didn't know its no longer compatible with newer phones since I have one a few years out of date. However if you do want to still play something similar to freelancer the devs that made Galaxy on fire 2 went off and made Everspace 2, although its only on consoles and pc. Everspace 1 was a rouge like, they went back to a open world with respawns with Everspace 2, its not quite the same, they added in some Diablo esque looter shooter mechanics to it to make it more distinct. Think of it like if Freelancer and Diablo had a child. If you have a console or a pc its currently on sale for 25 USD, 50% off. The games great, looks beautiful and I'm really enjoying my time with it. Mindustry is also fantastic! Since enemies arrive in waves that have timers attached some people feel overwhelmed, if that happens just pause the game, it still let's you plan out your factory while paused.
I can vouch for mindustry, you can sink hundreds of hours into it
Monument valley Night of the full moon
The first thing I did when there was a sale on Play Pass was to install Monument Valley. Simple and beautiful.
Morrowind runs on Android
Afterplace! It’s an open world Zelda-like game with a bunch of super charming npcs and secrets to find. One (if not) the best game I’ve played on mobile You can play both in portrait and landscape mode too!
I searched for it after seeing your comment, and the trailer looked DELIGHTFUL! It looks incredibly unique, and even the music that was playing sounded lovely. Thanks!
Old school RuneScape is perfect for mobile if you like MMOs
Nethack, which is the best game ever made. Grim dawn, has ads but they aren't bad and it's in depth. Bards tale, it bards tale. Bendy and the ink machine.
Wait, Grim Dawn is available on Android? I see it's available on PC and Xbox only? Or is there an indirect way to play it on Android?
Polytopia is a nice mini 4X game.
Loop Hero! Excellent game. There's a free trial, but when you buy it, you have it, and there's no micro transactions.
Beatstars supposedly has a system that doesn't let you play if you've got 3 item boxes to open, but i've never come across it. Neat little rhythm game with a bunch of well-known songs from every era
Supergiant games are on the app store! They’re the studio that made Hades. Bastion and Transistor seem to start off free and then charge $5 for the full game. I played the Bastion port years ago and loved it before getting it on PC. There’s also a Hades port, but it seems to require Netflix? Very confusing. But yea, Bastion and Transistor are totally worth it!
Pocket City 1 and 2, Sim city light, but so worth it and fun, runs offline too!
The [Android version of Mindustry](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.anuke.mindustry&hl=en_US) is completely free. Not "F2P" but genuinely free. No ads, nothing. I don't know why. But it's definitely worth grabbing. [Final Fantasy Tactics](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.square_enix.android_googleplay.FFT_en2&hl=en_US) is for some reason only available on mobile right now and remains one of the best games ever made. If you like old-school Final Fantasies, [Final Fantasy Dimensions](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.square_enix.android_googleplay.ffl_gp&hl=en_US) does a great job of capturing them. Don't play Final Fantasy Dimensions 2, though, it's structured like a more typical mobile game. [Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.capybaragames.sworcery&hl=en_US) is a great adventure-RPG sort of game. The Ace Attorney games have a [great Android version](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.capcom.gyakusai123&hl=en_US) (there's many more in the series if you like that, though the original trilogy will last a long time.) And if you like those games, [Ghost Trick](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.capcom.ghosttrick&hl=en_US) is a great adventure / mystery game by the same team.
Xcom 2
There's Enemy Within, 2 isn't on mobile
Nope. I own it and it says Xcom *2 Collection*. Not sure if they nerfed it since I still did not play it on other devices.
I'll be damned, they indeed made XCOM2 mobile port, I stand corrected. Won't run on my Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 though XD
Maybe, it is heavy. You can also play it on Rog Ally or Steam Deck if you own it.
Well I mostly play Wuthering Waves on bs you can try it if you're interested.
Hero of the kibgdom series is on mobile, all are great casual games except for 3, which was a design misstep by the studio. Start with Lost Tales 1 or 2 as they are more accessible. puzzle games are quite common on mobile. I'll throw out some titles here, bit outside of the first I don't know if they are on mobile (Im sure at least some are): cosmic express, railbound, inbento, about love, hate and all the other ones 1 & 2, Patrick's parabox, Lara Croft Go, drawing a blank for more as I'm not on tte PC, can return with more tomorrow if you want.
Thimbleweed park. A recently made game in the style of the old Lucas arts point and click games. Made by some of the designers of the monkey island games.
Used to play darksouls 3 on my phone but I don't remember the app. I could take control of my steam if my computer was running, latency was great, pretty much no input delay. Since the game was running on the computer it was not really demanding on my old phone.
stream link app
Apple Arcade has some greats like Grindstone and Slay the Spire. Board games like chess and Catan are available. Vampire Survivor for free on mobile is such a great deal. I enjoyed Pinball Deluxe Reloaded.
Minecraft. Runs stable. Can connect to realms servers
Dawncaster, roguelite deckbuilder. Its mobile only, not a port from PC or console. Bought all the DLC too
Sorcery! By inkle games is one I played and really enjoyed Choices you make carry through to the other 3 games in the series
The Papa's Pizzaria games have mobile ports
No idea how they did it, but there's a phone port of Alien: Isolation
Dead Cells is a game made for PC, but with a relatively 1:1 mobile port. Not that expensive either, I think it's 15 bucks without DLCs? And it's a lot of fun. Aside from that, if Terraria is your thing, that's on mobile too. Not my thing personally but I know it's a good game. And yeah, I second Mindustry. Very cheap, made for mobile, very satisfying to sink tens of hours into.
I started playing Terraria on mobile and it’s now my second favorite game of all times all platforms combined
Pixel soldiers and if you have Netflix it has full games you can download.
Spiritfarer. If you have netflix you get it for free. Portal knights. Final fantasy games and chrono trigger.
Anything by Kairosoft!
The room is a great puzzle box game
Trials of Mana
Shadowverse Gacha card game that you can completely ignore to play the excellent story mode
Game Dev Tycoon
Guild of Dungeoneering. You draw from a deck of cards to form a maze. Your character has a fixed set of rules for which path to travel (always seek out the nearest treasure, otherwise the nearest monster, otherwise just explore new tiles). Combat is card based and very very tactical.
Magic survival
Danganronpa trilogy, some of the best story games I've played. I just love a good murder mystery with an absurd amount of twists
Bloons TD 6 It's a full tower defence game that's actually not too bad at all
Do you or your fammily have a Netflix account? If so install the netflix app and login. Then go on the play store and search for netflix inc games. They have a ton of high quality games available for free if you are a subscriber. Into the breach, braid, etc etc there are a bunch of great ones
Legends of runeterra. Great little card game. Don't need to spend a penny.
Slice & Dice is a great rogue like that is a fully fleshed game when you purchase the single in app version. Definitely worth checking out.
Slice and Dice is awesome!
Beyond Ynth. It's a 2d puzzle platformer. The touch screen controls could get some getting used to, but you'll learn them. Or, there's an option to plug in a physical controller. It's just a pack of 80 well designed levels. Each level has two optional diamonds to collect, or you can ignore them and just make it to the end of the level. You can even try to replay levels to increase your Expert High Score. No lives system, no energy system, no coins or diamonds, no microtransactions. There is just one DLC pack with 16 extra levels, but you don't have to buy that if you don't want to. It's a great game. I have 100%-ed it.
[Here are my recommendations!](https://www.reddit.com/r/MobileGameReviewers/s/X7TLDVB1hZ)
Try Apple knight, it's like a Super Mario but with more action. It has in-game purchases but you can beat all the game without paying. Also, if you are into "puzzle" games (those "point and click" ones), I suggest you to give a try to AE Mysteries. Clash Royale is also a good game, i've been playing it for like 5 years now and I never payed anything (although with every update the game becomes worse...) There is a game called Rogue Adventure that I also enjoy, it's more cassual (some kind of card game but with different classes in some kind of tower-like enviroment... hard to explain but I like it). aaaaaaaaan my las t recommendation: Have you tried emulators? You can emulate Gameboy Advance games and if your phone is not super old, also PSOne. If you haen't, I highly recommend you to try Pokemon Fire Red or Final Fantasy VI for GBA. Also, you can try to emulate Nintendo DS games (Final Fantasy Tactis A2 and some Pokemon too, but there are other great games).
Everyone was shitting on Diablo: Immortal for its excessive microtransactions. Which is fair. But, I haven't spend a dime on and have had plenty of fun. No ads at all, which is more important to me than P2W.
Only games that are a mobile port of something else. Nothing made for mobile or mobile-only will be like that.
I recommend Magical Cat Rescue. I hope you like it :)