I would really love to kill some time on my phone. The games I have tried include: Slay the spire, shattered pixel dungeon, unciv, dead cells. Other than that, are there any solid phone games or otherwise ports, paid or not?
The Balatro port is also good.
There’s a mobile port? I could’ve been stacking Xmult while on the john this whole time???
This is no longer necessary - there’s a native version released by the developer available on iOS and Android.
Digital crack
Thanks but I already waste too much time on my PS version.
Slice and Dice is great
I’ve enjoyed TES: Blades and Fallout Shelter, though I think they both got too micro transactional.
RetroArch even with onscreen keys is surprisingly good, if that’s your thing.
Osmos and Super Hexagon are oldies but goodies, and not pay to play.
I came in here to specifically recommend Fallout Shelter, and actually its TES counterpart: Castles.
I only played a little bit (cause I knew it would suck me in) but it’s pretty much exactly Shelter but with Elder Scrolls stuff. You can have different people join your town and fulfill different jobs like tailoring, blacksmith, crafting and such. You can decorate individual rooms with themes, and I think even furniture pieces. You can create lineages and rivalries between characters. I think the tutorial usually has you make a decision that will lead to something like that (like the first king has an affair with a khajiit woman even though he has a wife and child, who’s next in line for the throne) but you can make someone else king if you want.
Roguelikes really do fit the mobile format, don’t they?
Peglin has a decent port, too, and it’s also a good fit. Solitairica is a fun mobile-first take that may scratch the Balatro itch when you’re done with Balatro.
For people who are into more linear stuff, Capcom and Square have ported a lot of their portfolio. The Phoenix Wright games are there, a bunch Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, too. The Layton games as well, which are a good match for smaller sessions. They went ahead and put the painfully underrated Dragon Quest Builders in phones, but you’d better have a beefy phone and/or a power bank for that one.
Oh, if you were able to play Dead Cells on a phone effectively you may also be interested to know that Bloodstained and Castlevania SotN both have competent mobile ports. I wouldn’t choose those versions over a handheld, but hey, they exist.
Speaking of unexpected but decent ports. The old Baldur’s Gate games, for some reason.
Oh, Mini Metro is in there. Human Resource Machine is in there, if you want to brush up on your assembly coding skills while you poop. Hearthsotne and Marvel Snap are good to play on phones if you are into competitive CCGs…
I think this is no longer making sense. It’s like asking if there are any decent games on Steam.
Breakout 71. It’s a roguelike brick breaker. Quite addictive and well made.
Thanks for this, super enjoyable to play. Link for the lazy: https://renanlecaro.itch.io/breakout71
Awesome! Good call with the link!
That sounds fun. Im gonna check that out.
Edit; THANK YOU FOR BRINGING THIS INTO MY LIFE
Haha, awesome! Enjoy!
Magic Survival, the inspiration behind Vampire Survivors. Never paid a dime, got over 100h at this point, and is the only mobile game on my phone, it’s great.
Sad the dev never made a PC port.
- Sky: Children of the Light
- Balatro
- Vampire Survivors
- Cookie Run: Tower of Adventures
- Pokemon TCG Pocket
- Minecraft
One of my personal favorites has been Plants vs Zombies 2: Reflourished. It’s a modded version of the original game that removes all ads and microtransactions and is a challenging enough game.
Also, Shattered Pixel Dungeon. Simple enough to figure out, simple controls, and no 2 runs are the same until you unlock seeded runs by beating a run ( which I can somehow never do ).
Dawncaster is a really solid roguelike deck builder. One time payment, no ads, paid DLCs with additional archetypes and maps.
Dolphin if you’re into GameCube games. I’ve played through all of Paper Mario and smugglers run on my phone. Now I’m spending a majority of my time in the original Animal Crossing.
Retro Bowl is good. Pay to unlock, but it is one time payment and the game is solid
I really like Space Flight Simulator. It’s a simplified 2d kerbal basically. Also a sucker for Antiyoy, Balatro, Auralux, and of course an emulator (delta for iOS) so I can play pokemon games.
Polytopia? No ads, game is 100% playable for free, cross platform online multiplayer.
If you have a Netflix subscription, the app lets you install many games that aren’t looking for microtransactions within.
Most of the Ace Attorney games are on smartphones.
I’ve also been having a lot of fun with Zenless Zone Zero. F2P, combat is based around swapping between a team of three, and making use of parry / dodge frame effects.
Plenty of NES and SNES games emulate nicely on a phone, even with touch controls.
As do handheld systems like GB/GBA/DS/PSP. IMO they emulate even better on phones since those games were already designed for small, handheld screens.
But most modern phones can also handily emulate up to some newer consoles, like N64/PS1-era with ease, though I’ve found that touch controls becomes a lot harder the more modern the console goes.
