4w ago

Free Android Games & FOSS - no ads, no IAPs, no gacha.

Latest entries - April 10th, 2025:

AAAAXY ✅️ (F-droid or Play Store) - Puzzle
osu!(lazer) ✅️ (official website) - Rhythm
Forge ✅️ (GitHub) - Deck builder
Anuto TD ✅️ (F-droid) - Tower defense
Minesweeper - Antimine ✅️ (F-droid) - Puzzle
Zoysii - Logic game ✅️ (F-droid) - Puzzle
2048 (Privacy Friendly) ✅️ (F-droid) - Puzzle
Lato ✅️ (F-droid) - Casual
Flowit ✅️ (F-droid) - Puzzle

Other recent entries:

Dungeon Squire - Roguelike dungeon crawler with minesweeper mechanics
OpenTTD - Management
Gauguin ✅️ (F-droid or Play Store) - Puzzle

Introduction

(scroll down for the actual list)

I recently realized there are still, to this day, some actual "hidden gems" in the Play Store. Not the fake ones everyone talks about which, in a way or another, often have a catch or aren't very "hidden". I mean free games with no ads or IAPs of any kind that are fun to play.

So I was thinking maybe it's time to compile a list of them. Please suggest the ones you've found and enjoyed!

Edit: I'm now including free games (no piracy) from other sources beside the Play Store (which will be specified within brackets), such as github or F-droid. If they're also FOSS, like all F-droid games, they'll have this green checkmark ✅️. For the games that have both F-droid and Play Store versions, the green checkmark is for the F-droid version.

I won't try them all as I did with my premium games list, because you could simply download and try them for yourself without spending a dime. I'll simply list them.

‼️Also, please do checkout MiniReview - Game Reviews for more free games that match the following criteria (use the "Browse" tab and select the correct filters). The same app for iOS - App Store - is here.‼️

Entry Criteria

FREE
NO ADS
STRICTLY NO IAPs (except donation buttons, but I'll have to check before adding the game to the list, so no guarantees it'll be added quickly)
NO PIRACY
it has to be a legit, full game you've played and liked. No demos, no emulators (everyone knows RetroArch anyways)
no entire repositories. You can recommend them in the comments if you really want, but this list is for games you'd like to recommend
if it's a Play Store game, it should be compatible with the latest Android version at the time of entry
must include a link to the game, especially if from sources outside the Play Store. Not direct-download links, just links to the page
sketchy sources won't be considered. Play Store, GitHub, and F-droid are welcome

I've saved this post so to keep it updated over time, for my own reference and for your benefit. So feel free to save it and check out new entries every so often.

THE LIST

Legend

✅️ - Free and open-source software (FOSS)

☕️ - includes a fair donation button, with or without minimal cosmetics only

~~[Game title]~~ - removed from Play Store

Shooter

Stealth

Mr Rumble - Stealth Action

Platform

Rhythm

osu!(lazer) ✅️ (official website or GitHub)
Phigros
~~Lofi Ping Pong~~
~~Orzmic~~

Arcade

RPG

Roguelike dungeon crawler

Deck builder

Forge ✅️ (GitHub)
Underhand
Beecarbonize

Adventure

Puzzle

AAAAXY ✅️ (F-droid or Play Store)
Minesweeper - Antimine ✅️ (F-droid)
Zoysii - Logic game ✅️ (F-droid)
2048 (Privacy Friendly) ✅️ (F-droid)
Flowit ✅️ (F-droid)
Gauguin ✅️ (F-droid or Play Store)
Sudoku
Tetrix
Frozen Bubble
Water Sorting Puzzle
Freeze! 2 - Brothers
Freeze!
Empty.
Skyward Joyrney
Simon Tatham's Puzzles ✅️ (F-droid or Play Store)
~~Code challenges and puzzles~~
Pixics - Pixel art puzzle game ☕️

Tower defense

Anuto TD ✅️ (F-droid)

Strategy

Racing

Management

OpenTTD

Simulation

Casual

Lato ✅️ (F-droid)
Snake Game
Rabbit Run

Sport/Competition

~~Rocket League Sideswipe~~

Visual novel

Happy gaming ;)

ps: please let me know if there's any wrong information about the games included in this list (especially regarding the ones with free donations) so that I'll fix the post, if necessary.

61 comments

Hi everyone!
I'm moving my two lists of games from Reddit to Lemmy, as I'm planning to jump platform and totally abandon Reddit in the future. The reason is well, Lemmy is better, and Reddit's admin have suspended or shadowbanned my account without reason, deleting all my contributions to the community (Android Gaming) there.
Most notably my two lists of games which I've curated for over 4 years: "100% free games" and "Favorite PAID games".
Lemmy's still young and, unfortunately, there isn't a relevant or active Android gaming community yet, so I'm uploading here hoping I'm not doing anything wrong!
I'll probably cross-post the two lists on android(at)lemmy.world too.
I'm very new to Lemmy so ANY feedback is appreciated. Thank you!
- Some small markdown suggestions:
  Headers require a space after the number signs, like:
  ## **THE LIST**
  I think "Introduction" and "Entry Criteria" should both be headers as well
  Each of your genre headers should get three number signs, since those are each subsections of the "THE LIST" section
  
  First of all, thanks for your observations and suggestions. I love to be precise with my posts and learning more about markdown formatting.
  Headers require a space after the number signs
  A question about this: does it change the way it actually looks? I'll fix it, but I'd love to know if there's a practical difference in using space vs no space?
  I think "Introduction" and "Entry Criteria" should both be headers as well
  You're probably right, as general rules go, but the reason why headers in my list are formatted this way is because I wanted to draw attention to the actual list and genres, rather than to the introduction/criteria. As I'm expecting most users to browse this list when they want to checkout some games.
  Each of your genre headers should get three number signs, since those are all headers that fall within the "THE LIST" section
  I've actually tried that recently, but didn't like the way it looked. I think something was off with the spacing between genre headers and first line when using three hashtags. Might give it another try soon.*
  *fixed the genre headers with three hashtagas
- Thanks for posting that here!
- Welcome! FYI you can type !android@lemmy.world to link a community
  
  Thanks! Would this be helpful for cross-posting to that community? My goal is to have a post showing in these 2 communities, and when I update the original one in this instance, the update will automatically carry on to the community in the other instance.
  I tried cross-posting using a function in the Summit app, but the updates don't carry on... Do you know how I could achieve this?
- Thanks for your work on this! Will pin it for awhile :).
  
  That's great! Hope it can be helpful :)
  I will start including FOSS games into this list soon, labeled as such for clarity.
  Also, here is my paid games list in case you find it appropriate to pin this one too.
  Cheers!

Anything on F-Droid should fit your criteria, but here is what I have installed:
Flowit
Fill all boxes with the color of their border
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.bytehamster.flowitgame/
Lato
A downhill snowboard game with beautiful graphics
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/ardash.lato/
2048 (Privacy Friendly)
Try to reach 2048 in this puzzle game
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.secuso.privacyfriendly2048/
Zoysii - Logic game
A simple logic game: find the best path to delete every number in a square space
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/xyz.deepdaikon.zoysii/
Minesweeper - Antimine
A puzzle game where you search for all hidden mines.
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/dev.lucanlm.antimine/
Anuto TD
Another Ugly Tower Defense
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/ch.logixisland.anuto/
- That is great! I should probably start adding FOSS games from F-droid.
  
  And careful throwing around terms like "100% Free" around here, considering most of the titles in your list are not free open source software in the "libre" sense that Lemmy users tend to expect more than Reddit users do.
- Simon Tatham's Puzzles
  A port of Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection, a collection of 40 single-player logic games.
  https://f-droid.org/en/packages/name.boyle.chris.sgtpuzzles/
- Anuto is fun, I really like the back-to-gradeschool graphics
- Simon Tatham's Puzzles
  A port of Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection, a collection of 40 single-player logic games.
  https://f-droid.org/en/packages/name.boyle.chris.sgtpuzzles/

Welcome to Lemmy! Love the post and I look forward to more, just one small suggestion. The title reads a little bit spamlike, I almost dismissed the post as some sort of ad.
- Lol! You're right, actually. But it's accurate, to the point and, I suppose, easy to find for users.
  What would you suggest instead? Maybe removing the "100%"?
  
  I think changing it to something like "List of my favorite 100% Free Games - no ads, no IAPs" should suffice. To me, that comes off as having a more genuine/personal feel

See also https://nobsgames.stavros.io/android/
Many of these are paid, but they're one-time payments and usually a reasonable price.
- Ye I'm all for one-time paid games! I'll drop my premium games list here tomorrow
  
  Thanks for your lists. It's hard to find mobile games that offer fun and a fair deal.

Guaguin is a sudoku-like puzzle game that I enjoy a ton. Instead of the usual 9-block square, this has random shapes with a number and a math operator on them. The goal is to have no repeating digits on rows/columns, and each block needs its mathematical problem to be solved. For example a block labeled 20x needs to filled so that all the numbers inside of it multiply to 20.
Play Store
F-Droid
- Excellent recommendation! I'll add it to the list, thank you.
- Seconded, I've spent a good amount with this and enjoyed the different numbering systems (e.g. binary, hex) to tickle my brain
- I love Gauguin and came here to comment this. Great addition!

Every time this topic appears, I always make sure Simon Tatham's Puzzles is mentioned.
A no frill collection of puzzles that just works.
- Yup! It's there in the list and a great collection :)
  
  Thanks for adding this! I had this installed a while ago but when I got a new phone I couldn't remember what it was called and couldn't find it. I clicked on this post specifically to see if it was on here, and was happy to find these games again!

Forge is a very nice Magic the Gathering implementation. It has (almost?) all cards ever and it's single player. There is an APK, but also a desktop version.
https://card-forge.github.io/forge/

Links that didn't work for me / not on the play store anymore: Satyrn, Supertux, Supertux classic, Dribble, Bad Trip, Lofi Ping pong , Rocket League sideswipe, Butterfly soup, Butterfly soup 2
- Thanks for the feedback. I'll check.
  Edit: fixed them
  
  Great, thanks for the list!

This only kinda meets the criteria since emulators are available on the play store, though roms will have to be sourced elsewhere, but... 100% roms and emulators. The N64 content and earlier emulate really well on a smartphone, especially when paired with a bluetooth controller.
IIRC ever version (different language releases, etc) of every game for Nintendo consoles from when they first became a company through all of the N64 content is a grand total of like 20bg: each individual game is tiny, so you can easily fit all your favorites on your phone.
I'm not sure what the latest and greatest emulators are today, but when I dabbled into this stuff last time, there were free, no bullshit options.
Quick search reveals a couple communities for it here on Lemmy:
!emulation@lemmy.ml
!emulationonandroid@lemmy.ml
I'd hit the side bars of those communities and go from there.
Note: downloading roms you don't own the license to is piracy; and even if you do own the license, your ISP won't know that, so I'd recommend practicing some basic internet safety like using a VPN. Also, ad blockers are an ABSOLUTE MUST on any website that provides or directs you to roms, otherwise you'll have like 20 links on your page that all say "Download!" that will lead you to some flavor of shitware.
But yeah, if you want games without all the modern bullshit in them like ads and lootcrate gambling, etc, then what better option than games that were made before all that cancer existed?!
- While I enjoy emulation, it is kinda OT for this list.
  Also, is it me or the two links in your comment are broken? It seems like they both miss an "h" in "https".
  
  While I enjoy emulation, it is kinda OT for this list.
  Kinda, but only kinda. I wouldn't put any how-to guides or anything here, but letting folks know that it's an option is worth posting.
  Also, is it me or the two links in your comment are broken? It seems like they both miss an “h” in “https”.
  Weird. They both worked for me; I changed them to the ! links - see if that works any better. ...actually iirc that makes it better for mobile users anyway.

TIL CDDA is on the play store

Consider adding osu!lazer to the rhythm game list. While not available from Play Store yet since some features are on development, it gatekeeps no gameplay feature with a paywall. Only server sided features like friend/mod rankings.
https://github.com/ppy/osu/releases

More open source games with no ads
OpenTyrian
OpenTTD
- Thanks! OpenTyrian is obsolete, unfortunately. I will add OpenTTD.

Nice list, will be checking out some of these as I've only been playing Sudoku lately. Thank you!
- You're welcome! Have fun :)

Why is this only including Play Store games and not F-Droid?
Because far and away the free, no Ads, no IAP Android game I've gotten the most use out of is Unciv.
- Unciv is there in the list, under Strategy. It's on the Play Store too.
  I shall add F-droid, github and any other source too when I have time, but I'll need help from the community because I don't know many of those

Glad to see you here! I hope this helps getting traction towards a critical mass on Lemmy!
- Hey! I hope so too, but I'm sure Reddit itself will do most of the legwork for us haha! They're going the way of the Xitter.
  And BTW thank you for reminding me Lemmy existed and I should have gotten on it long ago!

Hey, thank you for this great list! Do you think you could maybe add a small description for every game?
- Hey, thank you for this great list!
  You're welcome :)
  Do you think you could maybe add a small description for every game?
  Sorry, I won't do that. I think it's easy enough to click on the links and check all the info on the Store, with pictures and description. Furthermore, I did not play all these games as they're user recommendations, so it'd be too much work for little benefit.
  
  Acceptable

Achikaps
- I think it's paid on the Play Store and called Achikaps Pro?

Saving this for later. Great list!

AAAAXY is quite fun, if a bit confusing at times.
AAAAXY is a nonlinear 2D puzzle platformer taking place in impossible spaces
Website
F-Droid
Google Play

61 comments