Submitted 7 months ago by sleepybisexual@beehaw.org to gaming@beehaw.org
I’d like to get into android gaming if there is anything good out there. I am open for any genre but I have a few requirements
Has to be either free or have a free way to get it
Has to not be riddled with spyware (hard ask I know lol)
No mandatory accounts
Offline if possible
Preferably controller support out of the box
Is this too much to ask? Any recommendations?
Should I just look at what other old console games I can get?
Free and without bullshit is a tough ask, you’re not gonna find many games like that. I do have a few recommendations though:
You could also download Retroarch and some roms, it would require some setup but once done it works like a charm.
You can find a very nice list of games that fit your requirements here:
Look in to F-droid, I tried few games it is hit or miss some are really good and some meh.
AAAAXY, super retro mega wars, minetest, lots of puzzle games - just a few that I tried and were decent or really good.
I enjoy Vector Pinball quite a bit. Have also been playing Chip Defense, Gridle and Lexica.
I’m into that, wait, those games have controller support? :o
Not most games on f-droid, no. But still worth looking into, imo.
Dolphin (Wii and Gamecube emulator) sounds like something for you.
MineTest should also fit your criteria.
I believe there are a few games on F-Droid, I haven’t tried any of them tho. Other than that, I believe the best games for you would be Wii games or an older console. Possibly also switch (with yuzu if you find an apk), but that requires a beefy phone.
I have those emulators, was just wondering if anything native is good
There are comparatively few worthwhile native games. Emulation is the ticket. I would focus on portable consoles - from GameBoy (mostly GBA) to PSP - since the design of titles for these systems is better suited to smaller screens and shorter play sessions.
Pathos NetHack (The OG Roguelike's very newbie friendly fork and UI)
Rogue Saga (A simple, bare bones Roguelike, nice for a casual run)
Orna (If old school Final Fantasy were Pokemon Go, and didn't have predatory monetization schemes) Heroes of Aethric is its non-GPS sibling.
Most of my free android games came from when Amazon did its Amazon Underground thing years ago, so you're kinda SoL on that, sorry.
Vampire Survivors.
The android version is free with optional benefits for watching ads. If you buy any of the paid DLC (~$2 per DLC?) you are given a menu option to disable the “watch an ad for free shit?” prompts, but they’re hardly in the way if you don’t want to pay a cent. Playable offline, controller supported and is tbh a massive game.
These all sound like emulator-ideal criteria to me!
There’s a lot of non-free versions of that which are super reasonable and meet all of your other criteria nicely. Stardew Valley, Slay the Spire. Games that are full games for a one time low cost.
Simon Tatham’s Puzzles is a fantastic set of FOSS puzzle games. They look ugly, but they have easy intuitive controls with good instructions for many different puzzle games. (40, I guess?)
That next to last link does not work for me. Not sure if it is a regional thing, though
Dead for me, too.
Free: Geometry Dash. Hill Climb Racing. Cookie Clicker. Minetest. Pojav Launcher. (Paid, but worth it: Stardew Valley)
How’s modding support of Stardew Valley on Android these days? Haven’t tried it on this platform in a while.
Never tried mods. The base game is enough for me!
I want to add OpenTTD and Battle for Polytopia to the list.
OpenTTD is a free as free can be transport simulation. You have to get used to the controls, but I had some fun with it on my android tablet. Although I prefer to play it on PC.
Battle for Polytopia is a Civilization style game with awesome Voxel graphic for mobile devices. One game in standard mode lasts about an hour. It is free2play in a way that you get the game and the first 3 civilizations for free and can buy additional ones for free. Offline playing is possible and I've never seen any ads in it.
Chip Defense
A tower defense game with a microprocessor theme.
You can play a few maps of each level of Auralux 2 without buying it. I recently recommended it and got confirmation that it’s available on Android. Better than nothing.
tal@lemmy.today 7 months ago
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a roguelike, well suited to the touch interface and small screen. Free, open source, and on F-Droid.
sadbehr@lemmy.nz 7 months ago
Dude just casually dropping a whole essay. What a boss.
I had no interest in Android gaming ever until I read this reply, now I’m going to try some of these.
BirdEnjoyer@kbin.social 7 months ago
Very robust post, covered most of what I'd say in a far more verbose manner than I have the gumption for right now.
Kudos
tal@lemmy.today 7 months ago
[continued from parent comment]
If you really want a timesink and have a keyboard and you don’t mind online play except insofar as you don’t want some commercial company trying to data-mine your activity, there are a bunch of MUDs out there; these are run by volunteers who wanted to create and run their own worlds, and they’re always looking for more players. It looks like there are Android clients. I can’t specifically recommend any of the clients, as I haven’t tried them. Many combat-oriented MUDs allow one to configure a character to essentially fight on its own, so if your concern is being constrained to needing to be glued to a screen in a multi-user world, it does provide some ability to get up and leave.
old.reddit.com/r/MUD/
I’m going to place the big caveat there that I haven’t played these in ages, and I don’t know if the gameplay has advanced much over the years – they tend to be grindy. But they are free, and there’s a lot of stuff out there, if you’re looking to spend time exploring. MUD clients tend to have features to help alleviate latency, like having a local buffer for editing the current line one is typing, but I don’t know how annoying a cell like with poor reception might be. They don’t send all that much data, but it is a real-time world, not turn-based.
skulblaka@startrek.website 7 months ago
Re: The MUD situation, I know from personal experience that Iron Realms has still been cranking out a few of them in the last few years. I was a big fan of Starmourn but that one just got demoted to Legacy recently, I guess because of lack of players. Shame because it was really neat and polished. But they’ve got a triumvirate of Lusternia, Achaea (my personal favorite) and Aetolia as active MUD worlds.
They’ve also got an Android client called Nexus that you can download from their website.
Now granted Iron Realms is a whole ass company, not just some nerd hosting a game off his basement server rack strictly out of love for the game, and open source self-hosting enthusiasts may not be super jazzed about that. But as far as I can tell they’re about as harmless as a company can be and do seem to still be in business more as a labor of love than anything else. At least as far as I’ve ever been able to find out. They mostly exist on donations so far as I know, I’ve never had to buy anything from them or been served an ad. And I do really, really like their Nexus client, the interface is really slick and it adds a lot of features and conveniences that I found lacking in other older MUD clients (though, granted, the only non-Iron Realms MUD I ever put any significant amount of time into was Aardwolf and I think I had to use a third party client for that).
All that said, MUD is a dying genre and any influx of new users would help revitalize many of these worlds. If it sounds interesting to you don’t hesitate to go check it out. Veteran users have always been universally helpful in my experience, unless they have an actual lore appropriate reason to be hostile to you - then, watch out! Although even most of those guys won’t stomp on a brand new noob without warning. Players who enjoy social roleplay will find themselves at home in a MUD. Players who enjoy social roleplay and have, or gain, a little bit of scripting knowledge will find themselves especially at home in a MUD. Give one a shot, they’re free and fun and it’ll raise your typing speed a lot.