Some of My Favorite Games on F-Droid
Well, my F-Droid post has been the most viewed post I’ve done so far, so I decided to do another post pointing out some more goodies from F-Droid. This time, the focus is on games. Admittedly, I don’t much care for mobile games and generally only have a couple of offline puzzle games on my device to kill time in waiting rooms, etc. That said, you may find the nature of these games a little dull for your tastes, but these are my recommendations so far.
Also, for the uninitiated, F-Droid is a free and open-source software (FOSS) store for Android devices. The beauty of F-Droid is that most of the apps are created by regular Joe's such as myself and respect your privacy MUCH more than apps created by big companies. Also, since the apps are open-source, this means other developers would be able to read the code on a repository somewhere and would quickly call out the developer if they were doing anything shady. FOSS = privacy (most of the time).
F-Droid Games
Lexica - This is by far the game I play the most on my phone. The premise is simple; you have a square grid of letters and 2 minutes to create words from tiles that touch to score points. It saves your high score and you are basically always just trying to beat that. There are other modes I haven’t explored, but the fundamental premise is the same.
Frozen Bubble - This is an old game that I first discovered on Linux many years ago. The developers created it for an older version of Android, but it still runs on my phone just fine. This is a bubble shooting game where you are trying to eliminate all the bubbles before the ceiling closes in on you.
Antimine - This is a Minesweeper clone. There’s not a lot else to say about it. If you enjoyed Minesweeper, you’ll enjoy this.
Mill - I had a buddy introduce me to this game on a wooden board with some marbles. When I saw a variant of it here, I downloaded it as it is addictive! I think the basis for this game is called Nine Man’s Morris, and the idea is to take turns placing or moving marbles on the board to make a line of 3. Once you get a line, you get to take one of your opponent’s marbles. The last player with marbles on the board wins. There’s a surprising amount of strategy and tricks involved once you learn the game!
Forkyz - Forkyz is an unofficial port of the Shortyz crossword game. It allows you to download crossword puzzles from various sources and complete them. If you like crosswords, this game might be for you!
Mindustry - Mindustry is a sandbox tower defense game. That might sound strange, but it is an interesting game. The gist is you have to defend your structures from waves of enemies, but you have to build a system of conveyor belts to supply ammo to your turrets as well. This game was on several lists as one of the best games available on F-Droid!
FreeShisen - FreeShisen is a game that uses Mahjong tiles and is very similar to Mahjong.
2048 - 2048 was all the rage a few years back. If you enjoyed it then, here’s a good FOSS version of it. If you don’t know what it is, the idea is simple. You have to combine tiles with the same number on them to keep doubling the amount on the tile. You swipe the screen in 1 of 4 directions to move all of the tiles that way while more keep appearing with lower numbers. You don’t want the screen to get full of tiles and you want to try and make the tile with the biggest number possible.
Vector Pinball - Vector Pinball is a pinball game with simple vector graphics and pretty good physics. If you enjoy pinball then this might be a good time killer for you!
Tower Jumper - This is a clone of a popular android game in which you move a jumping ball and try to reach the end of a tower avoiding the obstacles. The levels are randomly generated, making it a fresh experience every time you play. This game was in many lists of games worth checking out when I was researching the best games on F-Droid.
Simple Solitaire Collection - If you enjoy Solitaire, this game is a nice selection of different Solitaire games. The developer has not updated it in a couple of years or so, but it still works fine on my phone and looks pretty good.
Get Yourself Some Free, Open-Source Games
Well, there’s the list of games I’ve found and played that are available on F-Droid. They might not be the most action-packed, but they are great at killing some time. If you are asking youself why a site about privacy is doing a post about mobile games, it is because these are games from F-Droid which not only has great open-source Android apps, but it is also a great way to get apps on de-Googled devices that don't have Google Play Services.
Have a favorite game you’ve found? Leave a comment below and let me know about it! I plan on doing another post like this as well as another post about some of the best apps on F-Droid in the near future and could always use suggestions!