IMO, smartphones had the chance to revolutionize the gaming industry, but ended up wasting almost all of that potential on skinner boxes riddled with ads and microtransactions. Most of the best mobile games are ports from other systems, like the mobile edition of Minecraft and whatnot.

I think Pokémon Go was possibly the closest any major publisher has come to actually realizing the full potential of mobile games as a format, but it still fell painfully short with massively dumbed down mechanics and an absolute grindfest of a progression system.

There are still a few good indie projects out there (I like Soul Knight) but generally the mobile gaming market is so full of absolute dreck that I usually just don’t bother.

Generally, the games that have a larger up-front price are good. Bonus points, if they were ported from PC or consoles and don’t track you.

Monument 1 and 2 are great puzzle games well worth the purchase price.

After trying bunch of Android games I found Nintendo DS games that can be entirely played with a stylus have been the best games to emulate and play on mobile.

Edit: Kirby Mass Attack is great and felt like a native experience.

Some others that might be worth trying.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/925329-nintendo-ds/65539209

Almost all mobile-only games from mobile-only game developers and advertised in mobile-only environments are trash. Look for mobile games related to other gaming environments or advertising channels. Android games through Humble Bundle are great (although they don’t do mobile-only bundles any more?). Android ports of PC or Switch games tend to be pretty good. Open source Android games run the gamut of quality, but the ways they are bad are the same ways open source PC games are bad, not the very different set of ways that mobile games are bad (microtransactions, ads, etc).

I find Dark pattern games site to be fairly informative on which mobile games are good and which are not. The Healthy Games section has bunch of good games while the dark games section has games you should actively avoid.

If game is listed as healthy and has a good rating there’s a pretty good chance for it being actually good.

There are a ton of good mobile games but the reason you can’t find them is because 99% of what you see in app stores are paid advertisements. Every section is basically paid, and the few which aren’t get botted by major companies. That app that has 5 million downloads and 4.6 average score? Most likely spammed with bots that give it 5 stars. Google Play is a disaster.

Here are some Android games I would absolutely recommend:

• Fancy Pants Adventures

• Data Wing

• The Battle of Politopia

• Sonny

• Plato

• Cube Escape Collection

• Pocket City (or its sequel)

• Bloons TD 6 (paid)

• Dicey Dungeons (paid)

• Dead Cells (paid)

• Downwell (paid)

• Baba Is You (paid)

• Levelhead (paid)

• Kingdom Rush series (paid, usually on sale though)

• If you own Netflix you get to play their catalogue of games for free. I recommend Into the Breach, Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon, Oxenfree

I could go on, but the point is ignore everything you see on the store. The store is garbage. Try to look for games that are well-talked about online.

Edit: Forgot to mention, there’s an app called MiniReview where you can browse game reviews from people who actually care. It’s a good resource if you’re looking for good games.

It could just be you are not the target market for these games and you see through the bullshit. A lot of them are designed with shitty dark patterns to keep you coming back for more. Also, a lot of those reviews are probably fake to draw in the curious.

Mobile games aren’t games, or at least not what I’d consider a game. Mobile “games” are simple puzzles, swipe action fighters and click-and-wait builders. They are built around the concept of microtransactions and are in place to make developers money and to be a time-suck for the end players.

There’s no good mobile exclusive game, in my experience. There are plenty of great games that are 1:1 ports of their PC or console versions, with buy-once pricing and no microtransactions.

The ones I have installed on Android are: Baba is You, Slay the Spire, Peglin, Downwell, Super Hexagon, SNKRX, and 20 Minutes Til Dawn.

It is really hard to find good mobile games.

Most games are just blatant pay to win fronts. I especially despise those “idle whatever” style games where you wait for your ‘money’ to rake up. Boring stuff.

With smartphones getting more and more powerful, I miss sophisticated games on it. And I am not talking Skyrim here. Even most stuff we could play on Newgrounds 15 years ago blows most of the shit in the store out of the water.

There is just not a big enough market for it, it seems.

If you want good mobile games, look out for paid ports of PC indies, like:

• Door Kickers: Action Squad
• Baba Is You
• Bad North
• Bridge Constructor Portal
• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
• Crypt of the Necromancer
• Dead Cells
• Don’t Starve
• Don’t Starve: Shipwrecked
• Downwell
• Forager
• GRIS
• Retro City Rampage DX
• Reventure
• ScourgeBringer
• Sparklite
• Teslagrad
• This War of Mine
• Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion

There are a few hidden gems (I enjoy Plague inc. and Rebel inc. on occasion, for example), but for the most part, the majority of mobile games are mtx-laden cash grabs. So the actual quality is commensurately low because the devs figured out they don’t have to put in real effort to implement gambling and hook addicts.

Pretty much. Unless you’re an anime/gacha fan there really isn’t any ‘good’ mobile games since the entire world decided that premium mobile games aren’t worth it. Which pretty much fed back into itself. So the only thing approaching good will be either emulation/ports of games from console, the your mileage may vary genres (incrementals/idlers, and gacha) and the occasional diamond in the rough.

Just download a SNES/Genesis/GBA emulator, no need to waste time sifting through the piles of shit that is mobile gaming.