Ask Lemmy

Shattered Pixel Dungeon may be the best android game available at the moment.

My most played android game is probably the port of Simon Tatham's puzzle games. It's available on GitHub, F-Droid or Google Play.

My other pick would be TIC-80, there's thousands of games on there

For anyone interested: your have way more options for favorite game on Android than you think.

Emulation works great on modern phones. Eden emulator runs Switch games and some work very well with just touchscreen controls (e.g. Into the Breach).

If you're ok with on screen controllers or with carrying around something like an 8bit Zero 2or Micro, then you could emulate a mind-blowing number of consoles and games.

mindustry is good

Also I'm playing Morrowind on OpenMW these days

Edit: And STK!

Slay the Spire

Polytopia

Bloons 6

LoLdle

Stardew valley is fairly solid

Unciv - Open source Civ game based on Civ V

If you're open minded to emulation there are tons of options for consoles on android. The ones I use are AetherSX2 for PS2 games, myBoy for GBA, PPSSPP for PSP, and then if you want to get real crazy OpenMW for Morrowind and Winulator for 2000s era PC games (I have TESIV Oblivion running on a dog water Android phone at 30 FPS with Winulator).

I was expecting some dlsite games since this has the NSFW tags.

Mini metro has to be my top. Simple costs money so no ads (mandatory for me). You are basically just creating subway lines to move shares around and manage flow.

• All the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_Escape games (Rusty Lake)
• SPACEPLAN (idle game with great scenario and great music)
• the Conceptis puzzles (free stuff for free)
• Desert Golfing, and Golf on Mars
• Sorcery 1, 2, 3... (choose your own adventure)

Terraria. It's $5.

Slay the Spire is excellent on mobile.

The classic star wars rpg Knights of The Old Republic is on android. I keep it on my phone so it's always an option for me.

Limbo is pretty great.

Been playing Open Sudoku, it's great

endless sky, hyperrogue

I'm not playing much on Android, but I have enjoyed Open Sudoku, and I was surprised Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is free on Android, which I enjoyed on PC.

"The Room" series, excellent puzzle games with a great ambience

Aside from other suggestions already made (but seriously the answer is SPD)

• Peglin - think if peggle was a roguelite inspired by slay the spire
• Mini metro - minimalist puzzle game where you built out a metro system
• ~~Balatro - yes you can get balatro on your phone~~ (it was in the op)

Edit: balatro was in the OP so I'll add another

• Brotato - made a bit harder than the PC version with the touch controls IMO, but still a good time killer on the phone

It's an old game but I recently discovered Kittens Game. I also love Balatro, but Kittens it is more complicated and deeper. It's basically balancing spreadsheets for fun. Don't look at the wiki until you can get 120 kittens.

The ace attorney series

Danganronpa series

Rusty lake series

Magic survival

The game that inspired vampire survivors. Also it's way better than VS.

Slice and dice

I would hate to know how many hours I've spent on this game. It's disgustingly addictive. I love it.

Solomon's Keep and Solomon's Boneyard are fun

Occationally one of these physics mini-games:

• Soccer physics
• Wrestle jump 2
• Basic biking

https://ottoojala.itch.io/

And for a short (fart-joke) laugh:
https://boern.itch.io/diarrhea-4
(but that's Browser/Windows/Linux based - not Android directly)

P.S. Still searching for a modern Android port of Spaghetti and Marshmallows

Not exactly fresh meat but if you want some old school proper mobile gaming experience, before it got enshittified...

Galaxy On Fire.

The first game sadly never got the HD treatment but it is still playable - that is if you can find an Android device that can still run 32bit apps, or a patched APK.

The second game got an HD release but didn't get the "big screen" treatment, at least on iOS. But at least the game is available from the App and Play Stores.

The third game sadly got its servers pulled in 2020, though I have heard about modded APKs floating around that can work without the servers... but to be honest that game was quite the let-down compared to previous instances.

The developers of these games went on to work on CHORVS and Everspace 2, but to me neither game gave back that OG GoF feeling.

Now that they're out on mobile I gotta go with Subnautica and Little Nightmares

You (and anyone reading) should replace 2048 with "threes". Its the original game that 2048 is based on (developer claims they never knew threes already existed but not sure about that), it has way more details and love aaaaaand it actually works as a game. In 2048 you win by going down,left,down,left,down,left, repeat until high score. In threes you actually have to think

Currently it's a game called SeaFood.

It's kinda vore-y aesthetically (nothing nsfw but it's about pirate monster dudes tryna eat you), but the card game is actually pretty fun and challenging.

Tiny Room Stories - Town Mystery

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiarygames.tinyroom

I like unciv which is an open source clone of civ 5 I think. If you like games like Vampire survivors I would also recommend Magic Survival which to my knowledge is the or one of the first games in that style for mobiles

My favorite game on Android is currently Krumit's Tale, followed by Shattered Pixel Dungeon.

Hole.io

It's completely ad-laden garbage but I looove the art style for some reason and the actual gameplay outside of the weird resource management shit they added to sell in-game currency is soooo satisfying.