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
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Shattered Pixel Dungeon is great, it’s an open-source dungeon crawler. Neither adds, nor transactions, micro or otherwise. If you want to pay tho, there’s a donation link for the dev team.
And if you still want too play GBA games, check check out the Lemuroid emulator, it’s also open source and has no adds. Works for nintendoDS too.
You can find both of these on F-Droid. They’re also be on Google Play, but since I’ve only tried the F-Droid version idk if the other has adds.
the dev team
The team is one guy. His name’s Evan.
I also highly recommend Shattered Pixel Dungeon. I’ve been playing it for years.
There’s also a version of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup on mobile. Although the UI is quite clunky with the control and shift commands imported from PC. But the gameplay is more elaborate than Shattered Pixel Dungeon, I’d say.
Great game. Been playing it for years.
However, the mobile UI has some serious issues since it was more of a secondary thought. It’s really easy to accidentally tap to move somewhere and ruin an entire run that you were really enjoying. There’s no undo or any way of editing the save to help recover the run. I’ve stopped playing for months because I was just so discouraged after shit like that constantly happening. In fact, I’ve hit that point just now.
Some stuff like that’s definitely happened to me. My dumbest defeat was after drinking a potion of levitation to get past some disintegration traps, accidentally tapped he wrong part of the screen, thought I might still have enough fuel to make it to the chest and I’d use my spirit chain on the way back… But nope, I fell right on a trap and died. I had an ankh, but not a blessed one, so even tho I could make it back to that room’s entrance I had no way to recover my bag.
Surprised Slice & Dice hasn’t been mentioned, it’s amazing. That and Dawncaster.
A useful tool is DarkPattern.games, which lists dark patterns in mobile games (such as micro transactions).
I am ready to dedicate my life to adding reviews to that site and getting more people to contribute. I want an app store that automatically filters out things below like a 2.
I am in love.
That site is sick! TYVM!
Started playing Balatro on my phone at work.
I didn’t need to know mobile balatro was a thing, oh no. Not good… not good.
How bad could it be, just a quick little game.
Don’t download Balatro on mobile unless you want to lose your job, family, friends, and health. It’s that addictive.
Ok, I won’t, thanks!
Ooh yeah pc games that have good mobile ports are a good shout!
That doesn’t have MTX? That’s surprising.
I mean I would riot if a buy to play game had mtx
Sadly, plenty do now days.
We need more riots.
- Slice & Dice
- Balatro
- Stardew Valley
- Terraria
- BloonsTD6
- Arcadium
- Shattered Pixel Dungeon
- Geometry Dash
- Mini Metro
- Brotato
- Slay the Spire
- Peglin
Whatever emulator you can run and the ROMs of your choice.
Mindustry is basically Factorio-meets-tower-defense. It’s open-source, also available on desktop.
Ahhhh Mindustry, such an amazing game! I play it on my phone almost daily
Slay The Spire
How is the mobile port? I like the PC version but recall someone saying the mobile port specifically wasn’t great.
It’s exactly the same game
The only quirks I’ve noticed are minor. You sometimes go back to your home screen if you try dragging a card too close to the edge of the screen. Sometimes the the lower background elements don’t stay in the background and cover pertinent information
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.
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.
Thank you so much for the Mini Metro suggestion! Loving it!
It’s been a while. Have you thrown your phone yet?
Still loving it! After fucking up a bunch of times I started reading up on some strategies. Still stuck on London, but I’m enjoying it
Very similar, but in my opinion slightly more fun, is Mini Motorways
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
Balatro and Slay the Spire both have a lot of reply value. Very different games.
I didn’t see Unciv recommended yet, it’s a decent mobile open source version of Civilization.
Pocket City 2 also gets a shout-out, it’s not very deep but a nice casual city builder with a one time purchase.
You beat me to it regarding Unciv
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
Oh no! It looks like you don’t have enough block! Would you like to buy enough block to survive this round with 1 HP for $0.99?
Into The Breach
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.
Seconding SPD, it’s great
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
