Ask Lemmy

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp went paid about a year ago and there are no MTX or ads anymore. You can also take a look at Epic, they offer a mobile app with giveaways of paid games just like they do on PC.

Alto's Adventure. One of those simple is powerful games. Though it can get really frustrating as there definitely are situations where the game just decides that actually, you're done.

Swordigo

Yes, several:

Ports of PC games:

80 Days
Gris
Myst (2021 release)
Gone Home
Papers, Please

Then you have pure phone games

Mini Metro
Reigns
Freeways

Then you have old web browser games ported to the phone:

Plauge Inc.
Infectenator

There are plenty more, these are just a few that I have on my phone

I like the board game Risk on mobile, and Lichess.

Lichtspeer is a nice time waster, Roundguard is a Peggle-Roguelike. For on the go I can recommend Krumit's Tale, Meteorfall, You must build a Boat, Hoplite, Shattered Pixel Dungeon , Reigns, Slay the Spire. I can also recommend Cryings Suns, Stardew Valley (of course) and Yes, your Grace.

Most are paid, but if you want to try a lot, get yourself a month of Play pass where most are included.

On Android Nonograms katana for picross

Lichess.org for chess

Scummvm for retro adventure games, tons of other retro console and handheld emulators on the Google store and f droid.

I used to use alphacross for crosswords but last time I installed it I couldn't get the puzzle feeds I used anymore. I tried forkyz but it's hard to find active, compatible feeds.

And for general free as in gratis entertainment Libby depending where you are, archive.org, and librivox for books and audiobooks

For paid games agent a, baldur's gate 1-2

There's a free mobile game called sky that I'd highly recommend, it's extremely calming but also very well made.

https://sudoku.coach/ is installable as a progressive web app and is probably the best sudoku app I’ve encountered. Extremely customizable and good for learning new solving techniques

Space flight simulator is pretty fun

I'm a big fan of Shattered Pixel Dungeon!

If you like incremental games, the Kittens Game by bloodrizer is awesome. Free website, or like a 3 dollars one time payment for the app.

Here are some that I've played:

Shattered Pixel Dungeon - Roguelike

Endless Sky - SpaceSim

Simon Tatham's Puzzle Collection - Puzzles

Katawa Shoujo - Visual Novel

Snoot Game - Ditto

Gurgle - Worldle clone

TuxKart - Mario Kart clone

Luanti

Solomon's Keep and Solomon's Boneyard.

Keep is a traditional dungeon crawler and Boneyard is an endless wave survival game.

yes, if you like emulation. Just put a gamecube in there, maybe a playstation. I had fun with hoyo stuff too, but fuck the gacha mechanics.

https://gitlab.com/lecarore/breakout71

Mecharashi has had me kinda hooked lately. It's a mech builder with turn based squad tactics combat. It's got gacha elements but I haven't felt the need to spend any money. Free rewards have been plenty to get the pilots and mechs I want. It's also a noticeably crash free game. I often swap between apps, changing podcasts and whatnot. This makes many games I play crash or return to the login screen, but not this one. Highly recommend.

Both KOTOR games have mobiles released that are pretty good

Ace Attorney I believe had a very good mobile port.

One I’ve been addicted to, and have spent no money on, is Zenless Zone Zero. Gacha game with action-style combat using dodges, parries, and flashy effects. In some ways a cool demonstration of what phones can render now. Very much depends on what your gacha/FOMO resistance is.

I play territorial.io and geoguessr

I Love Hue

It's a casual color puzzle game. Relaxing and minimally intrusive

Chess.com

Plenty of bots to get my buttons kicked in chess.

Tetris.

Maybe it's not what you're looking for, but classics are classics for a reason. If you're on anything remotely standard you can find a port.