Unciv and Mindustry, both which are also free, on fdroid, and open-source.
Patience balls
Peglin! It's an amazing peggle style rouge-lite
There is a Cultist Simulator there. I don't know about Android port much, but it's a good game on PC
Star Traders: Frontiers. Be a space trucker/pirate/merc. Singleplayer offline space turn-based RPG Pay once only but frequent free updates. No bullshit P2W, gacha, timers etc etc.
Bonus: kill xenos scum, customize your ship load out, satisfying crew combat.
Cons: annoying RNG card minigame for spying, blockading, salvaging. Enemies esp. xenos can get very unforgiving on high difficulty setting.
Sand:box, plague inc (i recommend buying premium for both) and all games on f-droid.
Witcheye is a good version of flappy bird, as its controlled with only one finger, with extremely difficult platforming.
Supermeat boy forever, great game all around but very difficult.
The Layton games - the DS games have been ported to Android and totally slap. As someone who never had a DS, I'm enjoying this era of the games coming to Android and being playable here.
OpenTTD! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.openttd.sdl&hl=en&gl=US
It's a FOSS version of Transport Tycoon.
Papers Please is what I mostly play on my phone on aeroplanes (if I haven't packed the steam deck). A classic that works well on mobile
Also, Mini Metro (and the rest of the series) is great.
Soul Knight is my go to
Vampire Survivors, 20 minutes till dawn, geometry dash. Space cadet for android - available on github, super meat boy forever.
Magic Research
It's an paid offline idle game without ads and a nice progression. Also has a demo.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mcolotto.magicresearchfull
Have you tried looking on itch.io? I recently got a few games from there (some are hosted on the play store but not all)
Only bad thing about browsing is that 80% of the games seem to be dating sims or visual novels (which is fine if you're looking for that, but annoying if you're not)
Edit: infidhells seems really fun, but haven't had time to play much, to use all the gameplay features it's worth playing with the sound on (though it has accessibility options for playing without audio).
Rusted Warfare is a great RTS. It has offline and online server hosting (never seen that on mobile before). It feels like I'm playing an RTS on GameRanger.
SuperTuxKart I guess? It lets you to play offline, although online mode and add-ons are required internet connection.
My go-to for like 5 years has been StudyGE. It's just a Geography game, but for the rare ocassions where I have nothing else to do and I don't have Internet in my phone I go to it.
There's also the trivia game Dilemo, though that is in Spanish and I think it might have some ads, it's just that it serves them so infrequently that I'm not even sure if I hallucinated them. Like I think it only serves ads when you have been playing it for long-ass sessions, and I usually only play for a few minutes, so.
The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xigmagames.thebonfireFL&hl=en&gl=US
This is one of the few (not including humble bundles from may moons ago) non-free to play games I have. Great game.
If you like managing games, like manage a fantasy town, or manage a gaming development software house, or an airport, or a restaurant, or a SPA, then I'd suggest Kairosoft. Their games are the last bastion of old school pixel graphics offline games with no DLC whatsoever.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=7710637777904825280&hl=it&gl=US
Templar Battleforce.
Shadowmatic is a great little puzzle game. It's paid but the graphics and attention to detail are incredible.
Hm, says it's incompatible with my Pixel 5. Do you know if there's a way to run it on modern Android devices?
Strange, I'm not sure why. Maybe it's just a bug? If you open the reviews section on the Play Store page for the game, and check the "Show reviews for: This device model" checkbox, do you see any reviews from other Pixel 5 users there?
coffeegolf
Angry Birds. I bought a ad free version for like 2 bucks and it's the original angry birds with no MTX.
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