If you can handle frustration or know that a rogue-like is for you: Shattered Pixel Dungeon
Shattered pixel dungeon is awesome. Definitely frustrating, and has a bit of a learning curve but it's rad. Infinite replay value
Definitely a hard but fun game. I think I've made it to the 3rd zone/layer/whatever only once and died like a floor later. Absolute hype moment.
I figured someone would already have beat me to this suggestion. The dev specifically keeps the compatible with older devices. There's a community on Lemmy: !pixeldungeon@lemmy.world
Balatro, tbh I can’t confirm it’s lightweight but it’s pixel art so I imagine your phone can handle it
Balatro does have a lot going on graphically and even my pixel 8 pro starts to heat up when playing it. The game's art style may be pixel art, but there are a lot of shaders on all the cards and the cards themselves are either 3d or have some perspective stuff going on to make them able to rotate away from the camera
also, there's the giant shifting background which is another complex shader that can't be turned off.
I think the game has been optimized since release a bit, but still, it's not just simple card images.
Yeah hard to tell if it will work well, pixel art or not, and its a bit too expensive just to test it (there should be a way to cancel the order in google pay if I'm not mistaken though). On the other hand, such a fun game it is definitely worth it and the perfect phone game.
If you enjoy chess, I recommend Lichess
It's free, open source, no ads, you can play with or without an account, you play against bots or against people of all levels, you can use the app or you can play from the website or you can install the web app
Oh and it loads fast
Enjoy!
And for those who enjoy chess but love chaos and seeing the world burn, you have Really Bad Chess
Which in my personal opinion, can be as fun as it can be irritating x)
I have a Pixel 4a and it heats up a little playing Balatro, but all of the below it has no issues with:
Flipflop - a fun take on solitaire
Downwell - a vertical platformer
Holedown - an inverse breakout, minus the paddle
Desert Golf - a true indie classic!
Radiant - a Galaga/Space Invaders-ish shmup that's old enough to probably be lightweight these days.
anything by Kairosoft - a developer of sim management games I've been playing games from since I had a flip phone. Just find a theme you like and go crazy.
NYT games - They have more than Wordle! Connections, a word grouping game, in particular is fun, and so is Strands a themed word search. They're all updated daily for free on one app. They just lock off previous days' puzzles and the crossword. (Though they have a small quick crossword that's also fun.) It's actually discounted right now for an actual subscription
Reigns - I found this very fun. It's not for everyone. It uses Tinder's swiping to let you make decisions and try to run your kingdom. Good luck.
Prune - a puzzle that that relies on pruning your growing plant to reach the goal
80 Days - a narrative game with a decent amount of reading, as you attempt to buy, sell, and barter your way through your adventure.
Crossy Road - Frogger-inspired game with more maps and more fun.
Plague Inc - also a classic. Control a disease as you attempt to infect and destroy humanity. (This was popular before COVID.)
Burrito Bison - time your taps to launch your lucha libre across the map.
Super Mario Run - just simple enough to make you mess up sometimes. But it's not bad. I liked it.
OK, I'll recommend you a few that are all open source, simple, free, with no ads, and should be handled by just any phone. You can find the games in f-droid between other places.
For those that are into crosswords: Forkyz
A slightly different take on sudoku style game: Gauguin
A game to place pieces removing full lines both vertically and horizontally, kinda like Tetris but pieces are not falling and you just put them wherever you want: 1010! Klooni
A tower defense game using hand drawn graphics: Anuto TD
And one I have from the play store, not open source, that is a clone of minesweeper, called... Well you can guess it: Minesweeper for android
All of those I have used on my own device and have worked great, definitely good time killers if you are into any of those kind of games.
Antimine is a really good open source mine sweeper clone for android. There is also Mines3D, not as polished, but adds a 3d element.
Oh thanks! I'll need to check that one out!
I will also recommend pirate solitaire on fdroid. Web version.
That also don’t harvest all your data…
These were listed yesterday
https://lemmy.world/post/23416167
Also, Andor's Trail is a huge RPG. Plenty of grind.
Simon tathams puzzle pack
Any of the "colors" series from 'bart bonte' (search yellow, or orange, or blue and he should be the first to pop up, his other games are good too)
Balatro (the only one I'm not sure how light weight it is, I think it should be pretty light weight)
(As others have said, lichess)
Pythagorea
Magic research 2
Rebuild 3
Any of the "pathpix" series
Slice and dice
Unciv
A hundred more recommendations that are "okay" level of fun
Three of my personal goto free options:
Nonograms are pretty simple logic puzzles in the same vein as Sudoku, but I enjoy them a lot. The app I personally use is Nonograms Katana.
Super Auto Pets is a really good, streamlined auto-battler. If you've ever played Autochess or Teamfight Tactics, its the same idea, but stripped to the down to the core principles and with a cute animal theme. Each turn you buy animals with abilities, then enter combat with another player and the animals automatically fight. Win 10 battles without running out of lives to win.
And not technically free without sailing the seas, but you should also be able to emulate gba games easily. Even if you don't like playing more precise games with the touch controls (like me) there are a few great turn based games like Advance Wars and Fire Emblem.
Get Lemuroid and go crazy on 16-bit era and GBA RPGs.
All in Hole.
It really is a stupid game, but sometimes you just need occupied for a few minutes.
You slide a hole around and things fall in it. The hole gets bigger, and bigger things fall in. It's strangely satisfying.
Seconding Simon Tatham's Puzzle Collection. Quite a number of different puzzles, very lightweight.
Vector Pinball (also available on f-droid) is a pretty decent pinball game. Very lightweight, free, no ads.
Also Vodobanko (not free) for a hostage rescue type game. There's a free version too if you want to try before you buy.
thanks for the rec, been playing vodobanko half the afternoon. Solid game.
Stardew Valley should be lightweight enough, it runs fine on my old-ish Kindle Fire.
Gubbins is a fun word game and a one time payment to unlock the ability to play more than once a day but it kinda chugs on the tablet. It's free to try it at least.
2048, 10000000000
I'd say try out Super Auto Pets! It has a bit of a learning curve, but once you grasp the system it's very fun to come in 1-2x a week and do the weekly pack. They're also one of the most ethical mobile games I've ever seen when it comes to payments. Most of them are one-time only and actually get you a good amount of extra content. There is a monthly subscription thing, but last I checked it's basically just for cosmetics.
I like Sudoku
Super hexagon
I've had it for years through many phones,.so a modern cheap phone should run it fine. It's colourful, trippy and addictive in small doses.
Mini metro, slay the spire
I enjoy playing Okay? .
The goal of the game is to craft the perfect trajectory, so that your ball hits all shapes on the screen.
The game is free, while allowing you to pay what you think it's worth. There are no ads, unless you want a hint.
The difficulty curve is well-shaped, however at the end some levels will leave you stuck for weeks
I like Farmrpg a lot, it’s free with no ads. The community is very friendly and supportive, so it’s a nice little nook of the internet.
Balatro
I wouldn't consider this particularly lightweight - it's a bit of a battery monster, even with the moving background turned off
I find the Fdroid offerings dull personally... I just podcast or audiobooks instead.
But if I were to play on my phone, I normally like games that are also available on consoles. This can be Slay the Spire, Stardew Valley, and Vampire Surivors.... Vampire Survivors may slow down your phone but some of the other ones should be okay.
Play Othello in your browser against people around the globe, no app install required. The website is really nicely built, very clean.
Mindustry is available in F-Droid.
Honestly I recommend looking through the entire Games section of F-Droid. There's good stuff in there like Freebloks and Chip Defense and Frozen Bubble.
If you ever played (and enjoyed) the flash game Hex Empire, you'll probably like Feudal Tactics, available on Fdroid, Play store, and itch.io
Flappy Bird
ANUTO TD, SUPER METRO MEGA WARS (fdroid)
Anuto has so much character.
Project Muse, and I'm the best in the world at it!
I discovered this game via a lemmy comment, and I feel like it's my duty to pass the addiction along: Cookie Clicker (I play on pc, but it looks to me like it'd be pretty light on mobile)
Suika Game The same great game for Switch, now available on mobile. Combine like fruit to evolve them into larger ones- keep going until you get watermelons. There are physics-based elements and if you overflow the play area, you lose.
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