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Bloons TD 6
Price: $ 4.99 with in-app purchases
Bloons TD 6 is one of the best tower defense games on the phone. It runs for a one-time payment of $ 4.99, and you can purchase power-ups with in-app purchases if you want, but it’s completely unnecessary. The game includes 37 levels, each with several levels of difficulty, as well as several challenge modes. You will be given a series of monkey towers, each with three improvement paths. Some other features include offline support, cloud storage on Google Play Games, achievements, and loads of challenges. Ironhide Studios makes the Kingdom Rush series and those are decent tower defense games that aren’t freemium and have individual price tags too. You can buy additional stuff in the game, but it’s completely optional and you can easily beat the game without any of it.
Cytus II
Price: Free / Up to $ 9.99
Cytus II is one of the few good rhythm games on the phone. It has colorful graphics, an anime theme, and smooth gameplay. The controls consist of a series of taps and swipes to the beat of the music. You get a campaign mode with a story, albeit a short one. There are a good number of songs in the free version. You can purchase additional songs as in-app purchases. They are permanent DLC. Rayark, the developer, has a number of decent rhythm games with similar payment structures. Cytus II is just their biggest title right now and one of the best Android games without a freemium. It’s also free if you use Google Play Pass.
Escapists 1 and 2
Price: $ 6.49 – $ 6.99 each
The Escapists is a puzzle escape game with simulation elements. You play as a prisoner in a prison. You do your prison duties, live the prison life, but also secretly break out. Players have a variety of options to break out at any prison level and there is also a decent crafting system for making tools to help themselves out. The second game in the series is bigger with more levels and more escape methods, but both games are pretty good. Both games are also available through Google Play Pass if you have Google Play Pass.
Evoland 1 and 2
Price: $ 0.99 / $ 7.99
The Evoland series is a unique pair of games. They don’t have a specific genre. Each game has a variety of gameplay elements and mechanics including RPG, Trading Card Game, Fighter, Adventure, Puzzle, and many others. It also has a variety of graphics that go from modern to retro and back again. They are odes to the video games we grew up with. They also play wonderfully without the occasional rare beetle. The first is $ 0.99 and the second is $ 7.99. Both have no in-app purchases. The same developer also created OK Golf, an above-average arcade golf game that is also a non-freemium mobile game.
Levelhead is easily one of the top two or three best mobile platformers out there. It offers exceptionally smooth gameplay, dozens of campaign levels, features for speed runners and an outstanding level creator. In addition, it offers cross-platform support so that you can sync your game between multiple platforms if necessary. Basically, you play through levels to teach a robot how to deliver packages and then create levels for other people to play. You can also download levels. This game should be way more popular than it is. It’s one of the really great mobile games in the last few years. It’s also free on Google Play Pass if you use it. The same developer is also making Crashlands, another standout non-freemium mobile game for RPG and open world fans out there.
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Minecraft
Price: $ 6.99 with in-app purchases
Minecraft: Pocket Edition is the mobile version of one of the most popular games of all time. The game is completely open and you can do pretty much anything you want. There are things that can kill you if you put it in survival mode or you can just do whatever you want in creative mode. It’s not quite as robust as the console or PC version, but updates have flown in to bring it closer. You can also use this to play on servers that aren’t mobile (as of E3 2016) which is great. Technically, this one has in-app purchases. However, they are for skins and do not affect the game.
Mini Metro is a fun little puzzle game. The players have to build a transit system for a city. You connect the dots and make the best possible decisions. The game includes 18 real cities to play with, daily challenges, simple controls and more. You also get three game modes including an endless mode, a quick game mode, and an extreme mode. It’s a nice little puzzle sim game for a reasonable price. The graphics are a bit minimal. Some like it, some don’t. It also comes with a color blind mode and a night mode for nighttime sessions. This game is also free in the Google Play Pass.
Monument Valley 1 and 2
Price: $ 3.99- $ 4.99 (with optional DLC)
Monument Valley is one of the most iconic puzzle games on mobile. His puzzles in the style of MC Escher delighted the audience and were fun. There is a storyline and it’s pretty easy, but most people play for the beautiful puzzles. Both games are pretty short, but that’s really the only complaint anyone has ever had about them. You turn over level pieces in order to create new paths out of apparently nothing. The first game is $ 3.99 with some optional DLC. You can get the second game for $ 4.99, and we can envision additional content coming for this one too at some point. Yes, this is also available in the Google Play Pass.
Oddmar
Price: Free / $ 4.99
Oddmar is one of the newest non-freemium Android games on the list. It’s a platformer from the same developer as Leo’s Fortune and plays quite well. Players take on the role of Oddmar, a disgraced Viking looking for his bones. The game includes 24 levels, each with challenges. There’s also a narrative, Google Play Games cloud saves, hardware controller support, and more. It’s a wonderful little experience and it’s relatively inexpensive. There is also a free demo to try out the game before you buy it.
Pocket city
Price: Free / $ 4.99
Pocket City is a newer simulation game. It’s very similar to Sim City. You are building a city on a large piece of land. This includes infrastructure like roads, utilities, apartment buildings and other such things. You know the exercise. Create a city that generates profits and makes your citizens happy. The free version of the game includes most of the game’s features and gameplay elements. The premium version includes everything without additional in-app purchases. It’s one of the few good simulation games with single price tags. It is also playable in landscape and portrait format and we thought that was neat. This is also on Google Play Pass if you want.
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ROM: Total War
Price: $ 9.99 + $ 4.99
ROM: Total War is one of the few strategy games without freemium for mobile devices. It’s a port of the popular PC game from the early 2000s. It was introduced on Android and iOS in 2018. The players choose one of 19 playable factions and fight for different parts of the world. The game includes massive battles, many other strategy elements and loads of in-depth mechanics. It’s one of the best premium strategy games for sure, and there are two standalone expansions for $ 4.99 each if you want to keep playing.
The Room series (four games)
Price: $ 0.99 to $ 4.99 each
The Room is a quadrology of puzzle games. They’re also possibly the best non-freemium puzzle games out there. They are technically escape games. The idea is to find the clues that will help you get out of the room you are in. It also features some of the best mobile game graphics we’ve ever seen. The third version also comes with multiple endings that add longevity to the game. Old Sins, the fourth title, is set in an enchanted doll’s house and that was fun. Most of them also have cloud storage, achievements, and a notification system in case you need help.
SEGA Forever Games
Price: Free / $ 1.99 each (usually)
SEGA ports many of its SEGA Genesis games to mobile devices. Ports include Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2, Sonic CD, Streets of Rage, Gunstar Heroes, Phantasy Star II, Crazy Taxi, and over a dozen others. The games have their different mechanics like shooter or platformer. However, they all come at the same price. Each game is free with ads, and you can remove the ads for $ 1.99 each. This is an excellent collection of old classics and arcade games.
Killing camp
Price: $ 2.99 + $ 1.99
Slayaway Camp is a horror thriller, an ode to the old slasher films. You play a psycho named Skullface. Your job is to slaughter tons of people without getting caught. It features a range of levels, loads of violence, and great game mechanics. The retro-style graphics take some of the gore away. That makes it a little easier to work with than a real horror movie, for example. Plus, it’s relatively cheap. People really seem to like this, and we liked it too.
Stardew Valley
Price: $ 7.99
Stardew Valley is an excellent farming simulator mixed with a role-playing game. You fall on an old farm that needs to be rebuilt. They rebuild, grow crops, raise animals, go fishing and get involved with the locals in the nearby village. There are a ton of things that you can do in the game, and the developers boast about 50 hours of gameplay in total. It is functionally identical to the PC version, except with mobile phone control instead of keyboard control. This one is also free in the Google Play Pass, but the $ 7.99 price tag isn’t bad either.
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