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.
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’m using Simon Tatham’s Puzzles for nonograms.
It’s basically this webpage in app form: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/pattern.html
It doesn’t result in a pixel art picture when you solve it, if you care for that, but the solutions do have contiguous regions.
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.
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
Or the well-maintained and developed derivative:
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.shatteredpixel.shatteredpixeldungeon/
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.
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.
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.