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 had nearly given up looking for good mobile games when I remembered that emulators exist. Nintendo DS games map pretty well to a smart phone, there are some games that use entirely touch controls. I’m using the MelonDS emulator and I’ve mostly been playing advanced wars: days of ruin and puzzle quest 2. Puzzle quest is pretty excellent and chill by the way.
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.
It can be played pretty casually. A run usually takes around an hour but you don’t have to play it in one go. And on the base difficulty it’s pretty approachable. You definitely don’t have to play 500 hours to enjoy it. But you can if you want to :)
Slay The Spire is an excellent recommendation. Although a lot of people find roguelites stressful because they get stressed about losing progress. You just have to play with the right mindset:
One that I like in particular is Gauguin. It’s a Sudoku-like with different math-y rules.
Anuto TD is a tower defense game that is also really good, but not so low stress.
Lichess, if you’re into Chess. It’s a great, no compromise, high quality app. Stressful if you get too worked up about competitive, but puzzles are at least relaxing.
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.
I also like, from f-droid, Tower Jumper, and from Play, hillclimb racing.
seen much praise of mindustry here on Lemmy, but not got into it myself
rabbit escape is like lemmings/pingus
I like go, but play casual. CrazyStone on Play works well for me. It’s doing something with the internet on startup, probably benign model updates, but I block its internet access.
I also remember Doom and Destiny being very fun and fairly casual. The free version is not too bad on ads. The second one I never got far in - felt like it was constant ads interrupting gameplay
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Hoplite
Mini metro Mini motorways
I may or may not have opted to ignore the stress part.
YES I really need the sixth circle station in Manhattan thank you
Old School RuneScape potentially fits this description
“0h h1” is a fun, easy logic puzzle game that I find myself going back to when I have a minute to kill.
Soko++
I had nearly given up looking for good mobile games when I remembered that emulators exist. Nintendo DS games map pretty well to a smart phone, there are some games that use entirely touch controls. I’m using the MelonDS emulator and I’ve mostly been playing advanced wars: days of ruin and puzzle quest 2. Puzzle quest is pretty excellent and chill by the way.
On android, lemuroid is pretty good for this sort of thing and you can change the arrangement of your nds/3ds screens.
Star command, anomaly, world of goo, EDGE, knight of pen and paper…
These are some good ones I got from humble bundle over the years but many are quite dated so not sure if they’re still around. No BS microtranactions
World of Goo!
I was trying to remember that when I saw the question
I don’t like mobile gaming but oh my god that’s such a well designed game
Apparently a sequel for World of Goo is coming.
Knight of Pen and Paper 2 collects data on mobile. Idk about 1.
Never played 2. I got it on humble bundle aeons ago
I’ve been addicted to Simon Tatham Puzzle Collection recently, it’s very fun. For example pegs puzzle, I have not yet found a solution
Mini Motor Racing might be a good match. It has some DLC available (additional cars), but none of it is necessary to enjoy the game.
Stardew Valley is casual, low stress, with heaps of content.
For quick few minutes I’ve recently been into Pirate Solitaire which is on F-Droid.
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.
First one coming to mind for me is Pillar Hop. Very simple, chill, and just had ads iirc (I block them, but I’m pretty sure it does, anyway.)
Slay the Spire has a decent mobile version. Not sure about the casual part, but at least it’s turn based
It can be played pretty casually. A run usually takes around an hour but you don’t have to play it in one go. And on the base difficulty it’s pretty approachable. You definitely don’t have to play 500 hours to enjoy it. But you can if you want to :)
Slay The Spire is an excellent recommendation. Although a lot of people find roguelites stressful because they get stressed about losing progress. You just have to play with the right mindset:
The website https://nobsgames.stavros.io/ helps surface these, and let’s you filter out based on different things.
One that I like in particular is Gauguin. It’s a Sudoku-like with different math-y rules.
Anuto TD is a tower defense game that is also really good, but not so low stress.
Lichess, if you’re into Chess. It’s a great, no compromise, high quality app. Stressful if you get too worked up about competitive, but puzzles are at least relaxing.
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.
Came here to say Simon Tatham’s puzzles.
I also like, from f-droid, Tower Jumper, and from Play, hillclimb racing.