Best mobile games with 0 microtransactions?
Best mobile games with 0 microtransactions?
I do like having games on my phone, but it's always a struggle looking for games with 0 microtransactions. So would like a game I can out right pay for, or one with ads. The ability to disable ads for $5 is chill though.
I've played a lot of games that you can "have fun being f2p" but some days I just get really sick and tired of games I play trying to sell me things every 30 seconds.
So do you guys have any?
If not I may go back to playing GBA games on my phone XD
EDIT: Oh selling like expansions is probably fine if it's legit like a full other game. I'm on android
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is great, it's an open-source dungeon crawler. Neither adds, nor transactions, micro or otherwise. If you want to pay tho, there's a donation link for the dev team.
And if you still want too play GBA games, check check out the Lemuroid emulator, it's also open source and has no adds. Works for nintendoDS too.
You can find both of these on F-Droid. They're also be on Google Play, but since I've only tried the F-Droid version idk if the other has adds.
Surprised Slice & Dice hasn't been mentioned, it's amazing. That and Dawncaster.
A useful tool is DarkPattern.games, which lists dark patterns in mobile games (such as micro transactions).
- Slice & Dice
- Balatro
- Stardew Valley
- Terraria
- BloonsTD6
- Arcadium
- Shattered Pixel Dungeon
- Geometry Dash
- Mini Metro
- Brotato
- Slay the Spire
- Peglin
Whatever emulator you can run and the ROMs of your choice.
Mindustry is basically Factorio-meets-tower-defense. It's open-source, also available on desktop.
Into The Breach
Mini Metro. Its a transportation strategy game where you build and manage a city´s metro system through the style of the London tube map. You pay once and get the whole game. No ads or micro transactions.
Open Tyrian is an old shoot em up thats open source and has been ported to dozens of platforms, including android. It plays very well with touch controls.
If you want a Minecraft like game thats free and has no microtransactions I recommend Minetest (Now called Luanti). Its open source and has tons of mods.
Some good ones from the fdroid app-repo.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon - already mentioned roguelike
SGT-Puzzles - already mentioned microgame puzzlers
Frozen Bubble - already mentioned bubble-shooter
Vector Pinball - already mentioned pinball
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.artificialworlds.boxstacker/index.html - Physics puzzler
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.simondalvai.ball2box/ - flick ball to the box for 3-stars
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.gpl.rpg.AndorsTrail/ - Massive story quest driven RPG
https://f-droid.org/packages/de.chadenas.cpudefense/ - Tower defense on a PCB
https://f-droid.org/packages/ch.logixisland.anuto/ - trad tower-defense
https://f-droid.org/packages/it.alessandropira.wesnoth114/ - hex turn-based fantasy RPG
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.lettucepie.flickybee/index.html - flick the bee through the course
Balatro and Slay the Spire both have a lot of reply value. Very different games.
Papers Please
Rollercoaster Tycoon Classic, if you feel like playing rollercoaster tycoon 1/2 on your phone. They slightly altered the UI to make it more touch friendly.
The Netflix version of mobile games have their micro transactions removed (or at least all the ones I've downloaded).
FreecivUnciv on Android is an almost feature complete re-creation of Civilization 5 with minimal graphics. You can also download the JAR and run it on a desktop if you have a Java SDK installed. As a Civ player that started with 4, I found it easier to pick up than freeciv which is trying to replicate something more like Civ2.Edit: provide correct name
Https://lichess.org/training lets me pretend I'm improving my mind by playing.
Plague Inc - control a plague and try to kill all humans on earth (tactical simulation)
Interstellar Pilot and Interstellar Pilot 2 - human explorers jumped through a wormhole to distant space and lost contact with earth. Factions control different sectors, some are friendly some are warring. You start with a single ship and try to do anything between simple survival and building a new faction to conquer all of this new space. (Open world rpg with tactical simulation elements)
Battlecruisers - The machines won, humanity is no more. You are not the smartest robot and somehow you managed to accidentally hijack a military battlecruiser. You are pursued across the world's oceans by several navies while you try to figure out how to get out of the mess you created. (shipbuilder)
Stardew Valley! It was worth the $5 already in vanilla, then it got updated with more content at no extra charge and then again. And now 1.6 is around the corner with even more. It is the love child of one dev that keeps on giving and giving and giving. And there are tons of mods of all kinds including entire world overhauls that adds even more replayability. Very much recommended.
Balatro
Threes
Fun puzzle game that got ripped off by 2048 and it's endless clones. They wrote a blog post on how shitty mobile game development can be.
Bunch of puzzle games with no ads or transactions
You can play Morrowind on Android through OpenMW Android. I think this is the most updated version but you have to build it yourself: https://gitlab.com/cavebros/openmw-android
DATA WING is a great racing game with an amazing, short story.
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a fun little RPG with lots of humour
Dribble is a surprisingly unique platformer, free with no iaps and unique swipe controls.
You can get ports of the marble blast games on Android, I particularly like Ultra.
Balatro, works really well with touch, numbers go brrrrrrrrr
I really enjoyed playing the platforms cats are liquid: a better place(there is also a light in the shadow, but that game is worse); catbird, nameless cat, kitty death room and the 4 dadish games
If you want a game that has microtransactions, but rarely try to sell you things, i would recommended the tower defense game(i think) the battle cats. There is also a 10 year celebration that gives you a lot of rewards
Hoplite, Pixel Dungeon, micRogue
Minecraft pocket edition has microtransactions but it only ever pushes them on the menu never actually in game so maybe that's a compromise? Also it's simple but this port of Simon Tatham's portable puzzle collection is pretty good and has no ads or microtransactions https://f-droid.org/en/packages/name.boyle.chris.sgtpuzzles/
The whole Cube Escape Series.
Balatro has no micro transactions but will consume your life regardless
Cookie clicker paid, stardew valley, Terraria, freedoom (gzdoom + open source IWAD packaged on fdroid store), mindustry, original peggle you can find apk on internet archive, opensurge, minetest engine with voxelibre game for open source minecraft.
Open MicroWave (Morrowind)
Stardew Valley
Fran Bow . It's a psychological terror click adventure, available on both Mobile and PC. On mobile I think it has 5 different chapters, and 0 transactions other than the buying price. Really recommend it!
Old school RuneScape
There is a f2p that you can get hundreds of hours out of, but the full game has a monthly membership. It’s possible to sustain the membership with the in-game money you make just skilling/pvm drops.
SW: Knights of the Old Republic and SW: Knights of the Old Republic II are available for Android and iOS. These are complete ports of the original games, not knock-offs, and Aspyr did a pretty good job retooling the UI for mobile screens. I think they're totally worth the price.
Endless Sky is a solid space trader and combat game, free on f-droid
Frozen Bubble is a pretty fun
bubble bobblePuzzle Bobble clone, also on f-droidArx Libertatis allows you to play the full version of Arx Fatalis, a super in depth underground RPG inspired by Ultima Underworld. You need the PC game files to transfer to your phone though.
Well, backgammon is the best gambling game ever invented. Knowing how to play marks you as a person of distinction the world over. Computers can almost beat the best players in the world.
Lots of backgammon Android apps, the best is Backgammon NJ
as a Rhythm Game Enjoyer I always gotta recommend Cytus. There are paid songs but the base game has over 100, each with at least three difficulties :3
tho even if you like rhythm games I definitely recommend looking up the game first because I have yet to ever properly convince my other rhythm game-loving friends to genuinely play cytus. Still it is one of my all time favorite games
If you enjoy puzzle games then Baba is You, Snake Bird and Railbound will keep you busy for quite a while.
I have the following games on my iPhone:
- Infectenator - https://apps.apple.com/se/app/infectonator/id547566699?l=en-GB
- Plauge Inc. - https://apps.apple.com/se/app/plague-inc/id525818839?l=en-GB
- Mini Metro - https://apps.apple.com/se/app/mini-metro/id837860959?l=en-GB
- Reigns - https://apps.apple.com/se/app/reigns/id1114127463?l=en-GB
- Freeways - https://apps.apple.com/se/app/freeways/id1203896014?l=en-GB
- Myst - https://apps.apple.com/se/app/myst-mobile/id6444813759?l=en-GB
- Chrono Trigger - https://apps.apple.com/se/app/chrono-trigger-upgrade-ver/id479431697?l=en-GB
- 80 Days - https://apps.apple.com/se/app/80-days/id892812659?l=en-GB
- Netwalk - https://apps.apple.com/se/app/netwalk-network-puzzle-pro/id1614316916?l=en-GB
mindustry is free on Android, it's a tower defense/factory building game (it's also open source)
I got bloons td 6 for like 7 bucks, for some reason it also has microtransactions but they are not required or pushed onto you. I think btd6 is the best tower defense game, it just has so much content and is still getting regular updates.
Yellow and the subsequent games are pretty interesting puzzle games
I haven’t seen DATA WING by Dan Vogt mentioned! It’s a short top down “racing” game with really fun space drifting physics that’s 100% free to play with no ads and no micro transactions. Each level is only a minute or two long so it’s great for on the go
Old school Runescape
The Lifeline series from 3 minute games is excellent if you like a twist on choose your own adventure games.
Kairosoft titles are typically $5 to $7 dollars. Tons of Dev and Tycoon style business builder titles. Most are fantastic.
Luck be a Landlord is fantastic! I just got it and spent way too much time playing it.
Ascension if you like deck builders. It has full expansion packs like getting the physical card game, but it’s fun without them and the expansions are cheap as hell. There’s a pack where you get tons of them that goes on sale sometimes. It doesn’t have dark patterns, but the packs could be classified as DLC I think. They’re just a couple dollars USD instead of 20-30 like the physical cards.
Full disclosure: I own the physical cards and fucking love this game.
I'm enjoying NecroMerger. It has optional ads (no forced short ads either) and the micro transactions are either some general buffs, ad-free version or gems. The gems are dished out royally imo, where I've purchased most of the premium currency content by just playing.
Something you can't play right now but can sign up to play for later: WalkScape. It's an RPG game in a similar style to RuneScape, but you actually have to walk to craft, skill and walk around the map.
The team has often said that they are against microtransactions and other monetization schemes that currently plague the industry, so they have plans to release a freemium version and a paid version.
I Love Hue is really peaceful
Halls of Torment released recently and seems to be a direct port of the PC version. I've been enjoying it quite a bit
I used a 3 month trial for Play Pass and have found quite a few games through it. It strips out ads and microtransactions and gives you all the content for free, at least in my experience so far. Some of the games in this thread are included. I'm debating keeping it after the trial
Soul knight is good, but does have micro transaction
If I am getting a mobile phone game, I want a paid game, a game that I pay for outright and and doesn't mess with me about payments later.
Old school RuneScape