"0h h1" is a fun, easy logic puzzle game that I find myself going back to when I have a minute to kill.
Card Crawl/Card Thief/Miracle Merchant are good puzzle-like games
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
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.
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.
Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector. You put down furniture. Cats sleep on the furniture. You get gold to buy more funiture, and the cycle repeats.
Solitaire, straight out of classic Windows (pre-advertising death throes):
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.potatojam.classic.solitaire.klondike
Hoplite, classic turn based dungeon/puzzle:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.magmafortress.hoplite
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.
I really liked Lara Croft GO. It's better than Hitman GO or other GO games.
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.
Slice and dice
Shattered pixel dungeon has been a mainstay on my phone for what feels like a decade now
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.
desert golf and its follow up golf on mars are big hits at my house
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
Polytropia
- Though im sure that one has ads. Probably depends on what you grab from the internet, as usual.
Mobile games suck.
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.
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.
Grand prix story and game dev tycoon.
Both good games, low stress, clear progression
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.
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.
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 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.
Pixel dungeon, but it's not really low stress.
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."
Vector pinball
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.
Monument Valley and Gorogoa are both excellent and free of nonsense.
Both are available on mobile and Steam. Gorogoa also on GOG currently 70% off.
Meant to link monument valley 2: https://www.monumentvalleygame.com/mv2
Flow is a fun puzzle game with a hint of nostalgia
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
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.
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!
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.
Games
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Weekly Threads:
Rules:
-
Submissions have to be related to games
-
No bigotry or harassment, be civil
-
No excessive self-promotion
-
Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
-
Mark Spoilers and NSFW
-
No linking to piracy
More information about the community rules can be found here.