What are some fun lightweight mobile games?

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
Fantastic game, but it's got major issues with the controls on mobile. It's extremely easy to accidentally tap a spot you did not mean to and ruin the entire run or just outright die from the single simple mistake. The dev does not seem to care much about implementing better controls for mobile, because it's a desktop game first and foremost. Nor does the dev care to implement anything that would allow a person to undo an action or make it easy to copy/edit a save file and manually fix the mistake because something like those things could be used to cheat.

So, as long as you're okay with those frustrations, it's an amazing game.
- Respectfully, my experience has been very different. I've been playing exclusively on mobile for years and have not had more control issues than any other mobile app/game. Worst case, you start a new run; that's the beauty of roguelikes.
- Disagree. This was a mobile first game and calling Evan a dev "that does not care" is a huge understatement. Playing a rogue-like and asking for a way to edit a save the game or undo an action doesn't sound to me like you've played rogue-likes much.
  
  I have been playing this since over a decade on a multitude of phones and tablets, yes, you can mistap. Not denying that, but its not so bad that this game would become in any way unplayable. You just got to be careful.

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)

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…

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.

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.

Seconding Simon Tatham's Puzzle Collection. Quite a number of different puzzles, very lightweight.

Get Lemuroid and go crazy on 16-bit era and GBA RPGs.

These were listed yesterday

https://lemmy.world/post/23416167

Also, Andor's Trail is a huge RPG. Plenty of grind.

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.

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.

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.

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

2048, 10000000000

eOthello

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.

Balatro

I wouldn't consider this particularly lightweight - it's a bit of a battery monster, even with the moving background turned off

Flappy Bird

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

ANUTO TD, SUPER METRO MEGA WARS (fdroid)

Anuto has so much character.

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.

https://f-droid.org/packages/dev.lonami.klooni/

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.

Theres also Peglin!!

80 Days is a neat game with a cool setting. Not free though.

Polytopia
Simon Tatham’s Puzzles
Tiny Town
Downright

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)

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.

Kakuro
- sudoku like puzzle game about adding up rows/columns
Slice and dice
- dice based rpg, may be a bit much on a slow phone, but timing doesn't matter so it could work
Melvor Idle
- Runescape idle, basically an rpg idle game

There's an idle game called "smashing simulator idol" and in it, all you do is break pots and pans that fall from the sky by tapping/clicking on them. It's simple and extremely addictive.

I’m gonna throw in for Zachtronics Solitaire Collection.

Most of Zach’s games are about engineering assorted things to meet demands like speed or efficiency, but he would always bundle a fun and thematic solitaire variant in with his games.

This is all the solitaire games collected, with all the engineering cut out. I’ve probably put a couple thousand hours into it, and since it’s just in my pocket, I can pick it up and play while waiting on food and such, playing before I sleep, and just random games of solitaire folded throughout my day.

(My favorite in the collection is Fortune’s Foundation, a Fortress variant that puts away a whole tarot deck, major arcana included.)

I have 0h h1 and flow free. Pretty small and graphically simple but good fun

Dungeons of Dreadrock was a nice puzzle game. I spent a good amount of time on that.

I suggest downloading roblox, sure it has a lot of garbage games but it has some hidden gems

Not lightweight, always online, full of children
Not lightweight though