I do like having games on my phone, but it’s always a struggle looking for games with 0 microtransactions. So would like a game I can out right pay for, or one with ads. The ability to disable ads for $5 is chill though.
I’ve played a lot of games that you can “have fun being f2p” but some days I just get really sick and tired of games I play trying to sell me things every 30 seconds.
So do you guys have any?
If not I may go back to playing GBA games on my phone XD
EDIT: Oh selling like expansions is probably fine if it’s legit like a full other game. I’m on android
If you enjoy puzzle games then Baba is You, Snake Bird and Railbound will keep you busy for quite a while.
Balatro and Slay the Spire both have a lot of reply value. Very different games.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a really good roguelike for mobile. Ton of variety, no ads, only thing you can buy is a supporter pack that gives the ui a different fringe color, and that doesn’t get pushed.
Papers Please
Luck be a Landlord is fantastic! I just got it and spent way too much time playing it.
Ascension if you like deck builders. It has full expansion packs like getting the physical card game, but it’s fun without them and the expansions are cheap as hell. There’s a pack where you get tons of them that goes on sale sometimes. It doesn’t have dark patterns, but the packs could be classified as DLC I think. They’re just a couple dollars USD instead of 20-30 like the physical cards.
Full disclosure: I own the physical cards and fucking love this game.
Some good ones from the fdroid app-repo.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon - already mentioned roguelike
SGT-Puzzles - already mentioned microgame puzzlers
Frozen Bubble - already mentioned bubble-shooter
Vector Pinball - already mentioned pinball
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.artificialworlds.boxstacker/index.html - Physics puzzler
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.simondalvai.ball2box/ - flick ball to the box for 3-stars
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.gpl.rpg.AndorsTrail/ - Massive story quest driven RPG
https://f-droid.org/packages/de.chadenas.cpudefense/ - Tower defense on a PCB
https://f-droid.org/packages/ch.logixisland.anuto/ - trad tower-defense
https://f-droid.org/packages/it.alessandropira.wesnoth114/ - hex turn-based fantasy RPG
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.lettucepie.flickybee/index.html - flick the bee through the course
Stardew Valley! It was worth the $5 already in vanilla, then it got updated with more content at no extra charge and then again. And now 1.6 is around the corner with even more. It is the love child of one dev that keeps on giving and giving and giving. And there are tons of mods of all kinds including entire world overhauls that adds even more replayability. Very much recommended.
Slay the Spire is one of my favorite games of all time, and has a nice android port I play before bed all the time. No ads, just caw caaaw
Whatever emulator you can run and the ROMs of your choice.
Freeciv on Android is an almost feature complete re-creation of Civilization 5 with minimal graphics. You can also download the JAR and run it on a desktop if you have a Java SDK installed. As a Civ player that started with 4, I found it easier to pick up than freeciv which is trying to replicate something more like Civ2.
Mini Metro. Its a transportation strategy game where you build and manage a city´s metro system through the style of the London tube map. You pay once and get the whole game. No ads or micro transactions.
Open Tyrian is an old shoot em up thats open source and has been ported to dozens of platforms, including android. It plays very well with touch controls.
If you want a Minecraft like game thats free and has no microtransactions I recommend Minetest (Now called Luanti). Its open source and has tons of mods.
Thank you so much for the Mini Metro suggestion! Loving it!
Minetest is a good suggestion, but it’s worth noting that the base application won’t have anything playable on install. A few of the games made with it attempt to recreate Minecraft, but it’s not limited to that.
Also, while the core team has announced the name change, it’s still listed as Minetest on both the play store and F-Droid.
Rollercoaster Tycoon Classic, if you feel like playing rollercoaster tycoon 1/2 on your phone. They slightly altered the UI to make it more touch friendly.
Sweet! Imma make Mr Bones Wild Ride
Yellow and the subsequent games are pretty interesting puzzle games
