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Are there any good casual/low-stress mobile games that aren't filled with microtransactions?

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.

half_built_pyramids ,

Vector pinball

Tarquinn2049 ,

Sparklite, I don’t know what it looks like purchases-wise, it was free with gamepass and had no in-app purchases when acquired that way. It’s probably one of the newest games I’ll post about. New enough that it was possible to get it with gamepass, lol. The game sort of has a modern retro zelda feel. I don’t think it’s a particularly long game, but it’s certainly enjoyable and pretty casual. I think if it has transactions, reading other reviews it might be like a “purchase the rest of the game” style thing. So basically a free demo that you can then choose if you like the game enough to pay.

Tarquinn2049 ,

Hmm, I was gonna say moonshades, last time I played it there wasn’t much for things you could buy. But when I look now, there is. So I can’t say for sure how unnecessary any of it would feel now, but it wasn’t necessary back when I played last. It’s kind of like the old early 3D party dungeon/maze crawlers where you use the arrow keys to walk one “block” at a time. There is only 2 party members in this. So you still sort of get the group synergy stuff, but each character is a bigger share of the team power. You could do a tank/healer thing or magic damage/melee damage, or not have either one focus on anything in particular.

I hope it’s still not necessary to buy anything, it was a good game. But the store is pretty comprehensive now, so that has me worried.

Tarquinn2049 , (edited )

Cardinal Quest 2, it is possible to spend money, but honestly spending money would be worse than earning the stuff yourself. I still probably gave them some money, since I think the game was free. You don’t have to have played Cardinal Quest 1, it’s pretty story light. Kind of like playing Diablo 2 if you never played Diablo 1. Kinda the same game as the first with much better execution after learning some lessons. The game itself is pretty easy, but there are optional challenges you can take on that can be as their name implies. Lots of replayability as there are many character classes and 4 different stories. Over time you’ll likely want to beat each story with each class. Mostly cuz it keeps track, lol.

BigBananaDealer ,
@BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee avatar

royal match has no ads at all, its pretty fun just gotta ignore the microtransactions which is pretty easy to do at least compared to other games

Cringe2793 ,

I tried playing this but I just suck at it. At higher levels I just get stuck at the same stage for a super long time.

whotookkarl ,
@whotookkarl@lemmy.world avatar

If you don’t mind a classic chess. Blitz/bullet/rapid/horde are different styles that don’t take as long to learn enough to have fun. Chess puzzles or against the computer are available if you want to keep it strictly single player. Lichess for multiplayer or I like chess tactics pro for puzzles.

Crosswords, there are programs like alphacross that aggregate from other sources to try different puzzles to find ones that aren’t too easy or hard.

Tarquinn2049 ,

Galaxy Genome, it’s a space exploration game. Sort of a project to make a comprehensive 2D version of Elite: Dangerous. Or at least it started as that, I don’t know if it has achieved and surpassed that by now. It was pretty far along last I played. And that was a while ago now. I kind of play games on and off for years, so that is mostly gonna be a running theme of all the games I post here. Games that you find yourself wanting to pick back up again, over and over.

fpslem ,

I really liked Lara Croft GO. It’s better than Hitman GO or other GO games.

catloaf ,

Alto’s Adventure is a pretty chill game to play when killing time. play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.noodlec…

I also like the “connect the dots” puzzle games, like this one: play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.playval…

Neither game requires microtransactions for the full experience. They might have ads, but my adblocker blocks them if they do.

Tarquinn2049 , (edited )

Grim Quest and Grim Tides. Two games by the same person. I haven’t played Grim tides yet, but it’s also free. Grim Quest is not a particularly large game, but I’ve still managed to play it over many years. I did a full run of each difficulty one by one. There is a bit to learn before it feels easy and casual, but it does get there. To be fair, I try to play it without dying. If I let myself die, it would be alot more casual even from the start. Dying is not heavily penalized on default settings, but you can alternately choose to play hardcore. Otherwise dying usually just means you gained less money for that run, and didn’t make the game any harder. The game only gets harder when you successfully clear a dungeon. You can also just exit the unfinished dungeon without dying and keep most of what you have acquired so far on that run, minus a small fee for quitting the dungeon.

There are preset difficulty options, but you can also craft your own custom difficulty. There are things you could spend money on, I think it may have started out with ads. But I consider games with ads that you can pay to get rid of as basically a free demo, and getting rid of ads is the purchase price if you like the game. So they don’t deter me if they don’t basically break the game to add ads to it, or affect the flow of the game whether the ads are there or not.

Protoknuckles ,

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

Tarquinn2049 ,

Exiled Kingdoms, its an older isometric 2D adventure RPG. Kinda feels like it would have been made 30 years ago for pc, but it was made relatively recently for phones. I don’t think there was any micro transactions. It may have had an initial purchase price, not sure. That’s usually what I look for in a phone game. The traditional model of buying a game and then just playing a game. No gross mobile game stuff.

Tarquinn2049 , (edited )

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.

mossy_ ,

Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector. You put down furniture. Cats sleep on the furniture. You get gold to buy more funiture, and the cycle repeats.

AllNewTypeFace ,
@AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space avatar

Isn’t that lousy with video ads now?

mossy_ ,

Admittedly I haven’t played it in, like, five years but when I did it only had banner ads in the pause menu

surewhynotlem ,

Friends and dragons. It’s a bit like easy chess with d&d style classes and species. It has transactions, but you can easily do well for free. I’ve been free playing for years (though I did throw them $10 around year 2 because of how much entertainment I got from it)

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