What are some good, non-microtransaction riddled mobile games?
Let's list some great mobile games. Preferably ones you can pay for once and be done, or free ones that have microtransactions that you don't need to do to just play the game (e.g. Marvel Snap). Leave out pay for power or games that have "charges" to stop you from playing until you buy more or burn time.
Edit: Thank you everyone for your suggestions! I compiled a list here that is, I believe, mostly Android. If you're looking for iOS only suggestions it looks like Apple Arcade was recommended regularly and also user Recognition101 had a comprehensive list I will refer you to: https://recognition101.github.io/ios-games/
Here is the Android Games List:
-Square Enix re-releases
-Stardew Valley
-Monster Hunter Stories
-Disgaea series remakes
-Vampire Survivors
-Slay the Spire
-Shattered Pixel Dungeon
-Slice and Dice
-Bloons series
-Sproggiwood
-Pysol FC
-Lexica
-Mindustry
-Overboard
-Old PC Game ports like Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, SW:KOTR 1 & 2
-Hoplite
-Simon Tatham's Puzzles
-Rogue Adventure
-Cultist Simulator
-Mini-Metro
-Wordament
-Retro Bowl
-Antiyoy
-Marvel Snap
-Star Realms
-Wingspan
-Team Fight Tactics
-Battle for Polytopia
-Where's My Water?
-Underhand
-Badland
-Eat Me Please
-Z Origins
-Yellow
-Dawncaster
-Ollie's Arcade
-Orna
-Night of the Full Moon
-A Dark Room
-The Ensign
-Universal Paperclips
-Opus: Rocket of whispers
-Opus: The day we found Earth
-TerraGenesis - Space Settlers
-Sheltered
-Seedship
-Framed
-Plague Inc.
-Gravity Defied
-Magic Research
-Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes
-Peglin
-Civilization series
-Rebel Inc.
-Boom Beach
-Professor Layton Series
-Slay
-Ritual
good a time as any to mention there are a surprising amount of JRPGs on mobile that are ports of old (and even recent) games.
Square Enix has a lot of it legacy titles on mobile as full games, I could fill a post simply listing all of them. So in short: half the Final Fantasies, Dragon Quest, Chrono trigger, The World Ends with you, Romancing SaGa... if it's an older 2D title from Square try searching for it.
if you are on IOS, I will make a special recommendation to play Fantasian. This was a game made from the "Father of Final Fantasy" and I have heard nothing but great things about it. But it is an Apple Arcade title and I have no apple devices, so I haven't been able to play myself.
another IOS exclusive, but a port of a classic 90's game: Lunar
Stardew Valley is an obligatory mention. Made in the times right before f2p models took over, and it arguably pioneered the modern faming sim craze.
Monster Hunter Stories (you may have heard of MHS2 on the Switch, this is a port of the prequel on the 3DS).
Disgaea 1's remake and Disgaea 4
One particularly interesting one coming soon is Megaman X Dive. It was in fact a f2p microtransaction game, but Capcom turned it into a $30 offline game starting next month. I don't think the mobile pages are up yet, so there's a steam link. I hope this becomes a more common practice for the sake of preserving what could be years of content and narrative.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. If I had to give an "anti-recommendation", I would be leery of any games made by Kecmo unless you are already an avid JRPG fans. they have a dozen RPGs on the store, and while I woudn't call them bad (like, quickly made RPG Maker game bad), they are extremely old and basic RPGs. The kind that gave the genre its stigma in the 90's before the Final Fantasy craze.
Although with Started Valley the free updates (these updates add things to the game) are slow going because Concerned Ape (it is just him) does not handle the mobile version or the console versions of the game. Another company handles that for him, after he updates the PC version. And the updates are going to be more slow going because he is making another game, which I am looking forward to. But the mobile version is good, the only difference between the PC and the Mobile is that there is no Multiplayer on the mobile version. Don't know if you can mod the mobile version or not.
Just a minor issue, the mobile version is still a great port of a great game.
It's been a while since I played Stardew Valley, but I thought I read a while back that he wasn't going to put out any more updates. Did that not happen, or am I remembering wrong?
Single dev passion project games tend to say that when they startup other projects. And then they get bored/have another idea and figure "why not?". Terraria has had I don't know how many "final updates" at this point.
There is suppose to be an 1.6 update for Stardew Valley sometime this year, according to Game Rant. Which is suppose to make modding the game a lot easier to do, and fixes some bugs for modding. And after this update, Concerned Ape is going to go all in his newest game. So, no new updates for Stardew for a while.
It's rumored that Fantasian will be out on Steam fairly soon, so PC gamers will be able to play it. Hopefully that also includes an Android port.
Vampire Survivors and Slay the Spire are very compelling on phones. FTL, Papers Please and Osmos for iPads.
ugh, so many times i screwed up actions on Slay the Spire because the touch screen controls are just not there yet... (its also on Steam and switch)
I’ve exclusively played on the phone so I don’t really have a reference point, but I got used to working around the quirks reasonably quickly.
And Xbox! It was on gamepass, but it's been awhile since I've had an Xbox so idk anymore.
Along the lines of Slay the Spire, Dicey Dungeons is also good on mobile. Doesn't have quite the same strategic depth as Slay the Spire, but has more characters and play styles to mess with.
Not sure I like the art style, but I didn’t like StS’s either. Got it downloaded, cheers
I find the controls for Vampire Survivors and it's clones so sluggish on mobile. Really turned me off of them without a controller
It’s way easier with a mouse, that’s for sure
I found that Vampire Survivors played much better on a 10-inch tablet than on my phone. I had to struggle with the controls much less. It's still not as good as playing on a PC with a mouse or controller, but overall, it provides a decent experience on the tablet.
Check out Rogue Dungeon. It's borrows a lot of game play from Slay the Spire
Hard agree for StS, I bought it on PC first and really liked it and got it right away when it came out on mobile. On PC it was pretty good but it quickly became my most played just because it's such an easy game to play and be able to leave and come back seamlessly.
I think that’s it for me. Super easy to drop in and play a few rounds and that suits me better than it ever would on PC. Occasionally I make a misplay because I forgot some critical part of the setup for the run which is a little frustrating, but you just close the app and try again.
Also the controls are defiantly fine.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a fun, addictive dungeon-crawl with regular updates from its solo-developer Evan. It's completely free with a donation option, but has no advertisements.
Battleheart is a fantasy battler where you make parties of four characters and take them to fight monsters in different zones, unlocking new abilities and getting gold for items. Also completely free with no advertisements.
It isn’t free at all on the iOS App Store. It costs.
Which one? I'm an Android user so I have no clue about iOS, but hopefully it's still a one-time payment deal.
Sorry, I should’ve specified. Shattered Pixel Dungeon.
I just checked Battleheart and that one costs as well. Both seemingly one time payment but I didn’t buy them.
There are many versions of pixel dungeon out there. I'm sure you might be able to find a free one.
Slice and Dice is a rougelike turned based combat and is everything I want in a game. Works well on Android.
Paid
Vampire Survivors. Has DLC, but it's worth it. I believe there's a free version with ads. Also look up 20 Minutes til Dawn, which is free with ads or paid.
Bloons TD6. Has microtransactions but doesn't feel dark patterny or aggressive, and I have a very low tolerance for money grubbing. If you lose you spend easy to earn in-game currency to continue, or start over. Also if you make an account with Kiwininja you can sync to your PC or other device, but would need to buy the game again. Progression for free just feels normal, like a well-made game.
Sproggiwood: it's a roguelike with small dungeons, no micro transactions.
Free, no ads, also all available on F-droid.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon. It's a full traditional roguelike. You unlock classes between runs, and it can be played spoiler-free (no needing to look stuff up).
Pysol FC: The fattest solitaore games collection ever.
Lexica: Boggle but bigger and single-player.
Mindustry: Get it free on F-Droid, it's a tower defense/resource management game. You colonize zones and resist waves of enemies.
I will heartily vouch for Shattered Pixel Dungeon and Mindustry. Also, Lexica is what cures my insomnia.
If you like Vampire Survivors then you may like Magic Survival, which was the inspiration for VS.
I tried it actually, it was pretty great
Anything from Apple Arcade is microtransaction free and there are some real gems in there like Sneaky Sasquatch (the beginning is really simple, but it expands to a huge world).
Same with Netflix Games, if you have a Netflix subscription, all their mobile games are free, ad-free and have no microtransactions.
Fully agreed on the Netflix comment. I went in suspicious, but I soon found how damn refreshing it was to play mobile games without their business model being thrown in my face at every turn. This honestly may be the future, since I never played a mobile game in my life until I downloaded Into the Breach through Netflix and never looked back. Incredible selection of vetted, straightforward mobile games that aren’t trying to hustle you at every turn.
Also, Overboard, a fantastic whodunit-reversed murder commit mystery where you need to figure out through repeated tries how to get rid of your husband at sea and get away with it. It's a lovely little game. Pay once, no mtx.
My wife may like this game
Oh! It looks like the developers also made 80 Days, which was one of my favorites from more than 5 years ago!
80 Days is basically a choose-your-own-adventure version of Jules Verne’s Around The World In 80 Days, which is a fun bit of a travel planning / push your luck game.
I wonder why this can't be played on a Pixel 5
Baldur's Gate 1&2 and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1&2
Also, if still available, GTA3 & Vice City & San Andreas trilogy. Controls are not that great but still perfectly playable.
Civlization 6, if you really don't like to have normal life.
Normal? What's that? Seriously though thanks for the recommendations
Yeah, I know :-D
You can find more standard "big" games you know from PC or consoles on mobile.
Stardew Valley, XCOM...
Civ VI doesn't show up on google play for me. Tells me it's not compatible with Android 13 which I find strange.
I can vouch for both KotOR games, both play great on mobile and I finished them with no issues.
XCOM was tough for me to play on mobile, I think because of the small screen. I've finished it multiple times on console.
But yeah, the vast majority of no-mtx games you'll find on mobile are going to be ports of older games.
I had Civ6 on iPhone (only the demo version), I haven't actually looked fornit on Android since I have other ways to play on the go.
I finished XCOM on iPhone SE (the OG one). It was about too small, but I really wated to play it :-D
If OP wants to give it ago, there is Open Microwave (or whatever the name) which is Android port of OpenMW which is open-source remake of Morrowind engine - Morrowind in your pocket!
Also I think Heroes of Might and Magic 3 either exists in store or can be run with VCMI on Android.
Hoplite - Slick little turn based strategy game. Free version is fun and the pay once version adds a ton of content.
Simon Tatham's Puzzles is a game with like 40 puzzles, it has kept me engaged for months now. No frills just lots of puzzles. It is completely free on Android and iOS, no ads, no data harvesting.
I've also been playing Rogue Adventure. It's a card based roguelike in the vein of Slay the Spire, but actually works well on phones and if you don't intend to do an entire run in one session. Lots of classes, cards, and several modes. Free to download and play, there are optional ads to occasionally get more gold or double your XP at the end of a run, but they're optional and you can pay a one time fee to remove them.
Shout-out to melonDS and GBA.emu if we're including emulators. Melon is full featured and free. GBA.emu is a one time buy, but the only full featured GBA emulator I could find.
Simon Tatham's puzzles has been a staple on my mobile devices since the days of the Palm Pilot. Simple and straightforward, with no frills whatsoever. Purely puzzles. Also available for PC.
I'm a big fan of Simon Tatham's puzzles and glad to see it mentioned!
I can recommend a few, since the only ones I play/keep around are the kind that don't rely on MTX.
Cultist Simulator - Narrative card-based puzzle/resource management game where you are the head of a cult and make the choices for it, good or ill. Success or failure can depend on some trial-and-error...and reading wikis if you're stuck.
Mini Metro - A minimalist puzzle game where you have to create and maintain a subway system. It's fairly easy to pick up but a bit harder to master.
Wordament - A word search game put out by Microsoft. You have a small grid and have to create words using the letters given by dragging over them to form the word. It can get pretty tough on some levels; the Scrabble dictionary works great if you get stuck.
Good lord, how small is the text on the cards with the mobile version? It's still unreadable on PC.
It can be a bit tough sometimes, definitely a game that favours larger displays.
Retro bowl is an amazing American football pixel style game. Easy to get into, VERY easy to sink many hours into. It is not free, but there is no subscription model and the developer keeps it up to date with current NFL rules and changes. Best poopin game, in my opinion.
Yes, i dont care much for most phone games but retro bowl is such a good use of the medium*
* the medium here being the toilet, obviously.
I tried this out on your recommendation. I hesitated because it does seem to have microtransactions. I'm glad I did though because it's really great! I thought I was going to play Tunic on my 7-hour train ride, but I ended up playing Retro Bowl almost the entire trip!
It seems like the microtransactions would actually destroy the sense of progression in the game. I can't imagine they are worth buying. Luckily, the game doesn't nag you about them… except for the 99¢ purchase to unlock the "full" game (which gives you a few coach coins and the ability to play kickoff returns). I found that one to be worth it, and it was fun to have a small injection of coins to beef up my team.
I haven't seen it recommended yet.
Antiyoy
Easy to learn, relatively simple and addictive turn-based strategy game. Free and no ads.
It's not new by any means, but I still go down holes of playing it regularly and because it's turn based it's perfect for playing while doing other things.
Nice one!
The game Antiyoy was inspired by, Slay!, is also pretty fun. My dad played a ton of Slay, but I could never get as far as him in the levels. Antiyoy feels a bit more optimized for mobile, and is probably the one I prefer of the two.
Since you mentioned Marvel Snap I assume you enjoy board/card games. Luckily there are a number of pay once and be done in that category.
Star Realms: a digital port of the deck building game. One on one game where each player acquires cards to add to their deck from a shared pool. Play those cards to attack your opponent and destroy their bases. One time cost for the base game and online multiplayer. Additional dlc options to add additional expansions (optional until you are sure you want more variety)
Enter the Spire: Roguelike card battle based dungeon crawler. Choose your class, path and fight through 3 acts of encounters until you face the final evil. One time purchase.
Wingspan: Excellent port of the board game. Collect birds and utilize their powers to achieve the most victory points. One time purchase with expansion as a separate dlc addon.
Unless you and I are thinking of different games or a regional translation is different, I think you meant "Slay the Spire"
Nope you are 100 percent correct. It is Slay the Spire
I highly recommend Slay the Spire. Very easy to pick up, but very hard to master.
I easily got 50 hours in it between my PC and mobile
Keeping track of (and purchasing way too many) decent, buy-once1 iOS games is somewhat of a hobby of mine. You can check out my list here:
iOS Games Worth Playing
I sort the games mostly by support for: controllers, cloud saves, and devices (Phone/iPad/TV).
As far as recommendations, it really depends what you're looking for! If you're looking for a console-like experience with a gamepad, a few of my favorites are:
If you're looking for a mobile-first experience that uses multi-touch in a creative or unique way:
Feel free to ask for specific genres or kinds of games and I'll give a recommendation if I have one!
1: By "buy-once" I mean any game that doesn't include any in-app purchases (IAP) that can be purchased more than once (buy-once IAP for things like "unlock full game" or expansion packs are fine).Man, solid list on the site. I’ve played a ton of those over the years. Glad to see Furdemption on there - I worked a side gig for those guys last year and am a mod on their Discord.
Oh, this is great! Android here, but I'll pass it on to iOS friends.
I really enjoy Team Fight Tactics
It's the autobattler by RIOT games, by for my money it's by far the best one in the market, and it certainly has the best support and content schedule.
It has a bit of a learning curve, but after a few hours I found myself addicted, and then again with each major patch (every 3 months or so)
It's a decent 30-45m time sink. They've had their problems in the past, but of late it's been pretty solid. The graphics are pretty inpressive, and the pinch zoom to better watch the action is surprisingly detailed. It's not pay-to-win, and no ads. They release their season packs, but that's just the usual cosmetic customization fodder.
I'll just add, the game has several modes, standard is 30-40 minutes (depending on your placement) but there is a different mode, hyper roll, where it's 10-20 minutes
I don't mobile game much- but I really appreciate the simplicity & variety within the Lichess app.
It connects you to the same platform as Lichess.com, for open-source free chess. I appreciate it mostly for it's support for chess variants- such as Antichess, King of the Hill, Horde, and (my personal favorite) Atomic.
It's very well used even by grand & international masters, so even if you don't feel like playing a game, you can watch a number of tournaments with excellent gameplay (heck, even Magnus Carlson shows up periodically to play a bullet tournament).
Underhand for me is one of the best meal sized games for Android atm. It's free, with no ads, and an interesting gameplay loop, where you play as a cultist trying to summon gods. I'd recommend everyone give it a try. As far as I know it's not on iOS unfortunately.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=edu.cornell.gdiac.underhand
Seconded. It was made for a game dev thesis I think, but it's a full game, very fun and challenging once you figure it out. I beat it a while back, but I almost want to dig it back up and play through again.
Try BADLAND, a fast paced side scrolling puzzle game with a great atmosphere.
Do you like board games? lots of good options there w/ challenges, AI, online.
Web based PWA like Wordle/Waffle
Must Play: Data wing. No ads, cost, fun little story and then done.
Tents and trees is a great little sudoku game that's free and has daily puzzles, no need to buy hints or extra puzzles if you don't want. Atomas is another fun little puzzle game
tried just a basic solitaire, sudoku, crossword, or chess app?
Those have free content, from memory.
I'm currently enjoying Pikmin Bloom, which is a walking game. You walk around planting flowers in your area/town/whatever and you send your Pikmin to fight mushrooms and collect various types of nectar.
Think Pokemon Go, but much easier to play and you don't need to stare at your phone all the time when you're out walking. It is by the same company Niantic, and while you can pay for stuff, it is absolutely not necessary.
If you have Netfix they offer a fairly good library of mobile games for free, no ads or in app purchases. I've used it to play Spiritfarer and TMNT Shredders revenge. Just hit the games tab in the Netfix app on your mobile device.
Z Origins. It's a faithful port of an excellent and unique micromanagement RTS. The controls fit touchscreens perfectly.
yellow is a great minimalistic puzzle game.
Dawncaster is one of the best games I've played on mobile, card based rogue like.
It does have a couple expansions (3) you can purchase, but they are relatively inexpensive and they put a lot of work into them. They also put out lots of big free updates as well
The Iconfactory just released an app called Ollie's Arcade that is a gallery of retro-games.
There are technically micro-transactions, but it's basically just that each additional game in the arcade costs $2 to buy. So it's not like, fake currency or anything. It comes with a Flappy Bird clone and you can buy Snake and a Lunar Lander clone for $2 each. Presumably they'll keep adding more over time.
Also Apple Arcade is specifically a shortlist of games like this and it has a great selection. One I enjoyed a lot was "What the Golf."
I am having a lot of fun with Orna. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=playorna.com.orna
It is an GPS RPG style game. Starts out fairly simple, but as you go up tiers there is a lot of complexity and build choices. Lots of different ways of engaging with the game, as well as constant events and new features.
It funds itself through selling cosmetics. You can buy things like keys to access dungeons, but those keys are fairly easy to get otherwise, so there is little need to. The game is designed to not make you feel like you need to pay for anything, and this is a conscious design choice on behalf of the developer.
On iOS, there’s a bunch of games that are included with Netflix. Two of note are BTD6 and Into The Breach.
Night of the full moon.
It is a hand drawn rogue-lite deckbuilder. This is one of the few mobile games I've spend money on and did not regret it a bit.
You can try the first class for free to get a feel for the game.
Every class has a distinct feeling to them and I've enjoyed playing all of them. There is a lot of replayability to find out who killed your grandma and it is a lot of fun even after finding the last boss.
The adfree extra removes any ad and you still have access to the extra boni (the ad icon is still there, but if you access it, there are no ads).
All in all a game worth paying for:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ztgame.yyzy
There seems to have been an update to the shop system, since I last opened the app.
There seems to be an app internal currency now and I am not sure if you can gain it by playing.
Everything I bought was a direct money transaction. It might be possible that you can only buy stuff with the new currency now, which is a steep downgrade from the game I invested in...
Crying Suns
It's a sci-fi space roguelike with tactical grid-based combat. Only available on tablet, if I recall. Lots of different play styles supported, with several factions to unlock. 4/5 stars
I have played this game on my tablet and it is fantastic. Much more engaging than FTL in my opinion, which is still a great game. Excellent recommendation. Added to the list.
Off the top of my head these 8 games have stuck with me longer than most mobile games and I would recommend them to anyone.
A Dark Room
The Ensign
Universal Paperclips
Opus: Rocket of whispers
Opus: The day we found Earth
TerraGenesis - Space Settlers
Sheltered
Seedship
Steve Jackson’s Sorcery for iPad, it is so free of the usual evil I hesitate to call it a mobile game.
Little Inferno or World of Goo are classics. One Billion Humans is a great puzzle game as well.
Also you can play Morrowind on Android through OMW (OpenMicroWave) if you have the game files on PC.
Plague, Inc is an excellent game that had almost no micro transactions in my memory
Gravity Defied is a trials motorcycle game and hands down it is my favourite mobile game of all time. I've been playing it for almost 20 years now and will probably play it for at least another 20 more with how many levels are available thanks to mod creators.
Edit: An iOS version is also available.
Is it like the venerable Elasto Mania, or just looks similar?
It's very similar since your goal is to navigate an obstacle course as fast as you can on a trials bike but the physics are a bit more realistic and doesn't feel as floaty. You can also break your suspension if you land too hard.
Sounds better than the original honestly. I know what I'm doing next time I'm on an airport or whatever!
Funny I was just playing it in the airport the other day, it's perfect for that. Hope you enjoy it!
Magic Research, it's an "idle" game but progression actually takes some strategy and you have to figure out bosses, they definitely need to be actively fought.
Free to Play
Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes (swgoh) is actually very free to play friendly. Was just reading a comparison to the marvel game and one thing that was mentioned is that you can max out characters completely free to play in swgoh, where as getting red stars in marvel is very difficult without paying. If you have time and like star wars, you can go all the way to end game content without paying.
I paid for no ads on Rogue with the Dead and its been pretty fun as a idle game.
You hire troops for your army and march to the right. You switch off between upgrading side quests to get money faster and upgrading your troops and abilities. When you die, you get blue gems which can be used to hire new kinds of troops and get items. There's a currency tied red gems but you get a daily allowance of them which is pretty good if you go no ads.
I'm hooked on Peglin - it's become my guilty pleasure. Dungeon crawl/JRPG combat, with each attack governed by a Peggle-like Pachinko game.
Another one! I'ts been my recent addiction. Fills the gambling/pachinko whole in my heart I never knew I had.
If you're a fan of the strategy series, Civilization, there's an open-source version for both Android and desktop. I haven't noticed any difference in feature parity.
The only game I find myself coming back to on mobile is Rebel, Inc.
I’m a big fan of Boom Beach, which I think is the least micro transaction-y of the Supercell games. I maxed out ftp.
The Professor Layton trilogy is on iOS and Android for $10 each. Great ports from the Nintendo DS. While it’s a children’s game, the puzzles are plentiful and you encounter puzzles of all difficulty levels.
One I haven't seen mentioned is Blackbox. It's iOS only and costs a few bucks to unlock the entire game. The first few levels are free. There are no ads at all.
It's a puzzle game about exploring your phone, but you never have to touch the screen. Each puzzle has to do with some system function or hardware sensor- basically treating it as a little black box.
The puzzles are awesome and the art is delightful. There's also a lot of Easter eggs to find!
My go-to is Slay. I used to play the Windows version of this game all the time... pretty sure I originally found it through one of those old Shareware compilation CDs. Was extremely happy to see that the developer did a mobile port!
I haven't seen anyone mention Ritual - it's a weird, kind of hack-and-slash, spell-flinging RPG with nice artstyle.
Also I feel obligated to say that Pokemon GO, despite having microtransactions and being led by the trash company that is Niantic, is still quite a good, fun and rewarding game, as long as you're willing to go outside. It helped me stop being a couch potato and now I walk 50km every week and have a big collection of cute critters.
The lichess app or lichess. org is great for chess. It has a snappy interface and no ads or micro transactions.
Although these games have not been updated in a while, I would recommend smash hit and pinout by mediocre AB. These two offline endurance games are free with an option to pay for an easier difficulty and more modes (only for smash hit).
Smash hit is a simple game where you tap the screen to shoot balls at glass obstacles. You lose when you run out of balls, but you can gain balls by aiming for some specific glass shapes in the background.
pinout is a version of pinball where the board is extended upwards by a very large amount. The goal is to get as far up as you can while a timer runs down. You can extend your timer by aiming your ball towards white pellets, some power ups, and towards some quick mini game segments that provide a nice change of pace. Note that pinout has not had an update in 6 years and the game may not occupy the entirety of your screen if you have a larger device.
Lemudroid; I play so many old GB/GBC/GBA games during my commute
Not free since it's part of the Apple Arcade subscription, but Sneaky Sasquatch is a fantastic game for people of all ages.
On this note, I'd also love to see games that also aren't riddled ads. I'm happy to pay for something, but I want no ads or microtransactions or subscriptions.
I like cozy games on my phone, ideally.
Mini Metro is my go-to mobile game. Free on Play Pass, but it's not terribly expensive anyway. A great train/transit line layout game.
I have polytopia and played the crap out of it. Great game