No-Bullshit Games | Hacker News Reader

No-Bullshit Games

nobsgames.stavros.io

440 pointsdoener171 comments

Fun fact: The single biggest problem this service has faced in accepting contributions is people submitting bullshit games with "I know you can pay to win, but it's really not so bad if you grind". I apparently have failed to be explicit enough on "no bullshit" :P

People who like f2p looter shooters are just a different breed.

There's an incoming generation who was raised on them, I'm not happy about it, but I think that's probably the way the industry's headed.

Also, for those of you who add/report apps and add extensive notes about IAP/ad status: I love you, you make this much easier, thank you!

If instead of "bullshit/no-bullshit" games were tagged with one of many predefined attributes like "pay to avoid grind" or "unremovable ads" it might benefit twofold. First because it becomes that much clearer when a person enters the game it should have that tag and that tag can be filtered by default and enables them to see why a certain game was already entered but not in the list without trying to resubmit. Second because people who don't mind a certain attribute are able to disable one of the default criteria if they want while still leveraging the others i.e. more flexibility in use.

Hmm, I don't know if I want to add "pay to win" games to the list, even with a tag, as then that will just be every game on the play store. I will think about it, though, thank you!

You don't have to display ones with the tag. But you can make it a checkbox on whatever intake form you use. It's a bucketing mechanism. At a minimum, it makes it faster for you to reject some submissions outright. But it also forces the unscrupulous to lie by falsely checking the box, so there's less debate to be had whether you want their games listed at all.

Ahh a checkbox at submission is an excellent idea, thanks!

Fun fact: The US government uses this same tactic on a bunch of immigration forms including the application for US citizenship. It asks questions like

    Have you EVER been a member of, or in any way associated (either directly or indirectly) with a terrorist organization?
    Have you EVER persecuted (either directly or indirectly) any person because of race, religion, national origin, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion?
    Between March 23, 1933 and May 8, 1945, did you work for or associate in any way (either directly or indirectly) with the Nazi government of Germany?

Answering "YES" to some of these questions is often an easy path to rejection but if you lie about it, it gives the government an easy way to kick you out later without having to prove that you committed a crime.

The last one puts a funny spin on Operation Paperclip.

“Oh, so you _didn’t_ help us develop our chemical weapons and space programs in a cynical ploy to avoid hanging at Nuremberg? DENIED.”

I agree with you, keep it free of bullshit. All the labels they mention fully qualify as bullshit and the website isn’t called “somewhat bullshit games” and we shouldn’t support anyone making this bullshit.

If anything, have a nice list of checkboxes on the Add Game page indicating which things qualify as bullshit and use it to default deny the game.

I'll do that now, thanks! I might open-source the codebase, too, so people can help.

As an example of what I mean: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Call_of_Duty:_Modern_Warfa...

Here I can see which stores a game is on, what kind of DRM it uses, if internet access is required, if another launcher is used, what the monetization/microtransactions/dlc is, and more. Now obviously not all of that is mappable to mobile stores but the concepts still apply. Even though that game is "free-to-grind" bullshit I can see that it is right away instead of a "not found" message. They also have categories (e.g. click "free-to-grind"), andin true Wiki style, not necessarily the best interface... but it enables them to effectively crowd source data without having to rely on one guy vetting everything and shoving the bad data into a black hole.

I'm not saying you should then display all games with any tag when the user goes to the site though. Just that it probably makes sense to keep the data on all submissions and allow visitors a path to see them rather than discard data on bullshit wholesale, as that's half the value - seeing what was bullshit. Both for the originally stated reasons, basically "allow the user to do a more advanced bullshit filter than the actual app store supports", and because the absence of a game currently means conflicting things at the same time right now: 1) Nobody has submitted it 2) Someone submitted it but it was rejected for something it did at the time or was misreported and needs to be resubmitted with the correct info 3) Someone submitted it correctly with the current version but it does actually have bullshit.

Hmm, you're right. I do actually have that data, I should give a better message on submission (like "this game was submitted but rejected"), but I count resubmissions as additional "votes" usually, so they still do something.

Thank you for your work and dedication to this. This was sorely needed.

Thanks, I'm glad you like it!

Hello ssag2! I am trying to create the next Reddit. Can you reach me via fsuaterdogan@icloud.com? Many thanks!

I respect having firm criteria, but I'd say that games like Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering Arena are in a totally different category from the typical F2P bullshit. Mostly because they're real games that are designed to be games first rather than a money-extraction machine.

But also like, I played MTGA for a very long time and only ever spent money on cosmetics.

Thanks for the site, fantastic.

Can you add more filters? Also it'd be nice for clicking the sort column a secod time to reverse the order.

That's downright poetic: people using bullshit logic to justify bullshit games.

I wonder if I could create a game that has two buttons: One is "Play" and all that happens is it increases a number. The other is "Pay" and it increases the number to 1 trillion if you pay $5 then flashes something like "You win!"

Would people actually pay me $5 to see the number go up?

KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, and Icewind Dale are not Strategy RPGs. They are Tactical, turn-based RPGs.

You should also be able to apply multiple filters. So, I would want to turn on those three filters -- RPGs, Tactical, and Turn-based. Because I'm not interested in turn-based strategic games where I'm trying to manage a whole army, I just want to manage my small party of maybe five to eight PCs/NPCs.

Otherwise, this looks like a pretty good list. Could you also do one for macOS?

Thanks!

Oh, and it would also be good if the list of tags that you can filter by is sorted, preferably alphanumerically.

It annoys me on the iOS App Store you can't search for 'paid' apps. The choices are either 'free' or 'any'. The paid apps generally involve much less bullshit than the free ones but they are always lost in the search. The only way to find paid apps is to look at the charts.

What really annoys me is freemium games for kids that insist you start a subscription (for no good reason) to get rid of the ads, instead of a one-off payment. They are literally banking on parents forgetting about subscriptions.

I just stick to Apple Arcade games as a rule.

I'd rather do nothing at all than partake in the cartel.

I pay Apple a fixed amount each month for all devices in my family to have access to a range of features, including a wide range of ad-free games I don't need to pay for. That doesn't feel to me like a cartel, that's just a bundled subscription, similar to the one that Netflix is trying to move to. Can you explain why you think that they're trying to group games studios together to maintain high pricing, when I actually end up paying much, much less than I would if I were to buy the games individually, or pay individual subscriptions to get rid of ads, or worse give up all my data and get bombarded with advertising when I just want to play a game for a few hours?

They created the problem and now they’re selling you the solution. They don’t allow you to search for paid apps. That’s an intentional design choice on their part. They also frequently change and deprecate APIs, forcing devs to constantly update their apps, necessitating the use of subscriptions. I won’t give them the credit for fixing a problem they created, and I really don’t like the idea of paying them for the privilege.

For the record, I’m happy to pay for good apps and games and services.

App Store > Games > Top Paid Games > See All

You at least get 200 of the top paid games in each genre.

Personally, I prefer to use a real game system over a phone to play games. It’s not Apple’s fault that smartphones aren’t a good place to play games. A game developer targeting phones can only hope to capture a sliver of spare attention of someone who is already doing something else (like waiting in a lobby or taking a 10 minute bus ride).

That’s why iOS games rarely cost anything to buy while Nintendo has been selling $40 games on mobile devices for decades.

Without sticks and buttons phones can only hope to emulate a real game system. A developer on a more dedicated game system can expect to find players who want to spend multiple hours on a game.

> They don’t allow you to search for paid apps.

It's more complicated (and arguably worse) than that. Because Apple provides no way to do a trial of a game (without subscription pricing) some games will have a free tier with ads and an IAP to remove ads. These wouldn't show up under "paid apps" even though they technically qualify.

If you look at what App Store business models Apple makes easy and which ones require jumping through hoops it's pretty clear that they want you to fill your app with IAP or use a subscription model. One time purchase software is possible, but is treated as a second class citizen (no paid upgrades, no demos/trials).

Oddly, their offer is ridiculously small outside of the US. There are good games, but for example, every single one featured in Arcade's launch trailer is unavailable in Canada.

I'd have expected that with their experience (Music, TV, App Store), they would have done better there.

Dont want to let my kids loose on Apple Arcade though. I like to curate exactly what they get to play - educational games with no advertising or bullshit.

Any recommendations?

Now that I think about it, not many paid apps. There are some subscription ones that don't suck - Numberblocks and Alphablocks. The Duplo games are pretty good. Reading Eggs is old school but good.

My kid's school got him to isntall Numbots which is pretty good. Not sure how it works if you install it direclty rather than getting a login via the school.

Minecraft Education is avaiable on a 'clubs and societies' license to anyone (you dont have to be a school anymore) but they dont publicise that much. Start your own club, install Minecraft Education. You have to set up an Office365 tenant though to manage the logins and subscriptions which is a faff.

Toca Kitchen 2 is a simple paid app where you prepare food and feed it to characters, fun for little ones and really well designed.

Apple Arcade is just a subsection of the App Store with a subscription fee for a curated list of games with no ads or in-app purchases. The Screen Time limits you place on the device around allowed apps or capabilities work just fine with Arcade. If anything, it would make your life easier because the games you allow can’t change course later and add in ads or IAP.

"Apple Arcade" apps don't show any ads and have tight restrictions on what data can be gathered.

> It annoys me on the iOS App Store you can't search for 'paid' apps. The choices are either 'free' or 'any'.

Because Apple are really a big back of dicks. In a few months in the EU we’ll be able to install third party app stores and I welcome some actual competition.

Wait, what? On iOS? That's fantastic news, how did I miss that? Do you have an article or reference perhaps?

EDIT: Found one, very interesting: https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/13/23507766/apple-app-store...

Honestly, even non-game apps. I was looking for a white noise generator to use with a Bluetooth speaker recently and was appalled at several of the top picks in that category having subscriptions— and not just any subscription, but like $5-10/mo. For some looping sound files.

I ended up going with Noisli; it may not have all the features, but it's at least simple and straightforward and had a modest one time fee to unlock all functionality.

Depending on what you need, iOS does have a background noise generator.

Settings -> accessibility -> audio / visual -> background sounds

You can even add them to the quick control panel or whatever it's called.

I did try that out and it's better than nothing, but I like Noisli's selection of sounds, and that you can create little blends of them— like bonfire + running water + crickets for a camping scene, or train tracks + rain + cafe for a journey scene.

It also being on my homepage vs buried in a settings menu was worth a few dollars to me.

This is a great tip! On vacation I just went through the hell of looking for white noise apps that were all subscription. I ended up using a spotify track on loop. I sure wish I knew this existed already on my phone. Thank you.

While unpopular, I do understand the rationale for the subscription model. Even if it's "just some looping sound files," an app project like that is never really "done" because of Apple's ever evolving operating system demanding revision on the developer's part, or the software will stop working. And that's not even going into the cost of running a server, which the majority of apps, even simple ones, require for cross-device functionality.

I understand the bitterness on the part of users, especially with so many subscriptions (including this one, IMO) being quite egregiously priced. But at the same time, the app market on both platforms is extremely competitive and it's difficult to get an app to a level of popularity where advertising or lower charges can fund the effort involved to keep maintaining it.

I don't really have an answer here, unfortunately. I think the availability of free apps for phones for decades based on the hand-wavy ad-tech "we'll monetize user data later" has created the impression among phone users that just because software runs on their phone and not their PC, that it has basically no worth. It's not as if the code is easier to write for a smaller screen.

Part of the issue here is Apple doesn't support the "old school" model of paid apps with discounted upgrade pricing for existing owners.

They basically point developers at subscriptions to replace this model.

Yeah, I get that, and definitely once they're operating a backend for me I'm 100% on board with paying a few dollars a month to keep that service alive.

Obviously these devs have done the math and it works better for them to charge 1000 users $10/month each than to find 20000 users who will pay $6/year.

Part of me just reacted against the slimy, mattress-store level marketing copy trying to shame me into spending $10 a month because "can you really put a price on a good night's sleep?"

I refuse patently to support or purchase anything using manipulative marketing like that. Hard pass. If you want to sell me something, show me the benefits/let me try it, and sell me that product like I'm a human being you have an ounce of respect for.

If an app is a front end to a service that by its nature must be a service, a subscription model makes sense. Outside of that, though, a subscription model is a showstopper for me. I may subscribe to a service if it's important enough to me, but I will never rent software.

I understand that view, but it's just not that simple. Firstly you don't "own" any of the apps you've bought: you've not bought the executable, you've bought a license to use the executable, a license which may be terminated for any number of reasons: some by the developer, some by Apple. Second, due to Apple making changes to their OS, that app you've bought will require updates and I've chosen my word very carefully there, it will require them. Those updates take work; believe me I've held a few apps in maintenance mode in my time, it is not idle work. It involves a lot of testing of new iOS builds and updating projects/implementations of Apple's code, on and on. It is not a nothing job.

So you has my theoretical customer who've bought an app for a fixed one-time purchase would presumably have something to say to me in the form of an email if Apple drops a new iOS update, and the app no longer works, right? Because you paid your money and you want to use this software. And I totally agree! I want to update it and keep it working for you. But the one-time purchase model is not conducive to this relationship, because it's effectively infinite time investment for me, and a one-time payment for you. And the amount of money I can make to justify that time investment has a natural ceiling: people only need to buy my app once to use it on all their devices, and no matter how good it is, there's a natural ceiling in terms of sales I can achieve, because only so many people are going to want it.

Again, I don't really have a solution to this. The economics of app development are tricky.

> but it's just not that simple.

It is for me, and when it comes to what I'm going to spend my money on, that's all that matters.

> you don't "own" any of the apps you've bought

I'm sure that you know what I mean here. I "own" it meaning that I am in possession of an installable that isn't dependent on an outside service, and that can't be modified or removed without my permission.

> due to Apple making changes to their OS, that app you've bought will require updates

I don't use Apple devices, and if Apple platforms are that unstable, then that's a good reason not to!

> I want to update it and keep it working for you

So you charge for the update. You don't charge an ongoing monthly fee.

This stuff isn't actually that complicated. The industry worked it out pretty well a long time ago -- it's just that all of that knowledge has been disregarded in favor of a subscription model that allows a deeper soaking of customers.

I like Noizio for this. $10, no BS.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/noizio-calm-meditate-sleep/id9...

Likewise, the Google Play store shows you which apps have ads and which have in-game purchases, but doesn't let you filter by those criteria.

I installed an app recently that had a 7 day free trial. Cool, I'll do that, I'm excited for the app. I immediately cancelled the autopayment on the trial after signing up because I wanted to explicitly evaluate at the end of the trial instead of have it assumed i want to continue. The app then immediately cut off my trial access. It's frustrating that Apple even tells the app developer that it was cancelled.

This is one of the anti-consumer things about the Apple App store and it applies to Apple's own apps too..

I subscribed to Apple Music with their 3 month trial and shortly after redeeming, I hit cancel on the subscription to prevent auto-rebill.

It immediately revoked my access to Apple Music and my 90 day trial disappeared. Same with Apple TV trials, etc.

Now I'm forced to set a Calendar reminder when I activate any kind of trial to remind me to cancel before the automatic rebill.

There was a site just like this about a decade ago called "Honest Android Games". The criteria were almost exactly the same.

It closed down as the author didn't have the time for it anymore: https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidGaming/comments/2ggaqp/i_had...

It does take a bit of time, but hopefully with a bit of crowdsourcing, it can be ok.

Crowdsourcing invites a fox into the henhouse. The list will get polluted with masqueraded fake recommendations by multiple "people"

This may be a winnable battle, or at least winnable for reasonable investment of effort.

What kills things like spam filtering is that A: we have no oracle of spamminess; if we did, there wouldn't be a problem in the first place and B: effort mismatch; fighting spam often takes more effort than sending it.

If I rate an app 1 or 5 stars, there's no objective way to say it's wrong. There are objective facts here, though; anyone who says Raid Shadow Legends is a "no bullshit" game is objectively wrong, by the definition given for what that sort of game is. This can be leveraged to build defenses.

I would build a system where I can pin a game as being either NoBS or BS in my database, attached to a time range. (Time ranges account for the fact that the situation can change, and also allows me to retroactively change determinations without having to instantly catch BS-level changes.) Any account that incorrectly labels a game within the given time range is shadow banned. Full stop. No mercy. (Any mercy becomes an exploit, so, sadly, there can be none, or at least, it would take a lot of human interaction.) Since we don't really care why an account is rating Raid Shadow Legends as NoBS, whether it's a spammer or a sincerely incorrect human, this approach purges either source of problems.

This flips the usual content moderation process cost/benefits on its head. Someone who wants to systematically review bomb Raid Shadow Legends as a NoBS game has to build out a lot of accounts and send in lots of reviews. Maybe you change things up a little bit to keep them on their toes like by changing out the CAPTCHA every so often or something. They burn non-trivial effort; you simply set a flag in the DB that anyone who rates it as NoBS is shadow banned. You wake up in the morning and check out the most controversial ratings and/or the games with the biggest surge in ratings, spot check them in the App Store (where it is usually obvious whether the game is NoBS pretty quickly), and set the relevant flags on that game. Not only do you prevent them from getting the satisfaction of an incorrect rating, you end up automatically purging out any other corruption they may have added while trying to create fake good looking accounts.

Since there is simply nothing the spammers can do to get Raid Shadow Legends marked as NoBS, this isn't the usual arms race. There's no exploit they find, then you have to close, then they find a new one... indeed, most of their "exploit finding" would work to your advantage as they still end up with accounts that simply get ignored.

A bit more gaming out, like, don't show literal uncooked numbers for ratings and a few other things like that, and I think you can set up a system where for just a bit of effort (not zero, yes, I'm aware of that, there is some ongoing effort going on here) you can defeat them, and they'll fairly quickly stop trying because their successes will be shortlived and ultimately self-defeating.

Spammers won't target every single game; they'll be paid to try to get specific ones mislabeled. By anchoring the DB on a relatively small set of objective truths, you can really take a bite out of their efforts to fake the data by basically setting the system up with a large number of high-powered landmines that have an extremely good chance of flushing these out, plus if you do the time-based locking, time is basically on your side rather than theirs... even if they did push something through last month, once you spot check their game their accounts get retroactively nuked once the objective truth is added to the DB again.

The really neat thing is, if you build a high-quality information source that can't be polluted through something like this, you could start building an audience, and if your audience becomes large enough, there would eventually come a tipping point where the mere existence of this app starts encouraging NoBS games to be built again.

The rule is that the game makes the list immediately if it has no ads or IAP, and requires manual review if it does. Games with unclear IAP/way to remove ads usually get a cursory dismissal, I err on the side of removal a lot.

Probably because the list needed constant maintenance. A game that was micro transaction free in January could have changed their business model by June. You genuinely have to keep playing every game constantly to make sure it continued to satisfy the original conditions

Wow, this is cool! It has never made sense to me that a platform with thousands of times more compute and capabilities than Gameboys from two decades ago is worse in every regard for gaming. Hopefully resources like these can be used to both find and promote good works!

Younger generations really have it bad with how the market treats them as customers. I highly doubt they experience same level of joy as previous generations using gameboys and similar devices did.

I honestly feel majority of the games at that time were made by people genuinely in love with games and stories, whereas now, it's mostly opportunistic cash grabbing incentive. Not saying nice and well done games don't exist, but it is hard for casual young player to come in touch with them

The rewards system for many games has been horribly screwed up. Constant small rewards are common on most mobile games, rather than the segmented rewards of old games where often the more effort was required the bigger the reward. The kids have little to no concept of payoff and expect a constant flow of action to reward. Suika Game, which was recently popular, is a prime example. Nearly every time you drop a fruit a reaction happens and you get a small reward. This also seems to be creating a general impatience I'm seeing in children where if there's downtime or slow segment they start looking for other forms of stimulation. It honestly makes me very worried because that behaviour might be extending to their everyday life rather than just with videogames.

The Gameboy didn't have access to the internet which meant you couldn't do most of the modern business models on it. The only way to make money off of a Gameboy game was to sell it in a store. It was impossible to patch it after it was released so you had to make sure all of the bugs were fixed instead of just shipping it unfinished and patching it later. There was no way to play a game off of a server and no way to track "hours of gameplay" or "player count" to optimize for addictiveness. Without an internet connected platform, these things were impossible.

I yearn for an app permission of the form "can never access the network, period", and I don't just mean that it can't initiate or receive network requests, but also that it can't receive updates. In other words, once you install it, both you and (more importantly) the developer understand that the game is done. It's apparently unimaginable to people today, but this is how games worked for decades (and yes, every game that was worth its salt Just Worked, without major bugs).

> but also that it can't receive updates

Manually blocking connections for computer apps or disallowing automatic updates on phones often leads to "you must update the software to continue using this" block. It happened constantly when I had an Android and didn't allow updates because I was effing tired of developers messing up something that worked perfectly as-is.

The huge intrinsic problem with phone games is that your only real I/O device is a tiny touchscreen. This is a massive, often underrated limitation. You can't just port over games which are designed for a controller, and you can't make entire categories of games, at least not well.

It's not an easily solvable problem, and it's why platforms like the Steam Deck and the Switch will continue to be extremely popular.

"The Room" is my favorite series of no-bullshit games. Buy it, get n hours of enjoyment from solving the puzzles, move on. Then replay a few years later after you've forgotten more than half of it.

Also try Disc Brick. It's what I play on airplanes while listening to podcasts.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/disc-brick/id1476442754

Thank you for the Disc Brick recommendation. A no bullshit brick-breaker type game was literally what I was looking for.

Paying it forward :) Pretty sure I heard about Disc Brick here on HN years ago (the original pre flashy highlights/colors version was my preference).

Hey everyone, thanks for upvoting this so highly! I made it a while ago, and it takes some reviewing time to keep it up to date, so I mostly haven't. If anyone would like to help curate the games, please shout!

What an amusing coincidence; yesterday I decided to buy some games after almost 2 years since my last purchase. The games were the Room collection and Agent A, which appear in the first two pages of your list!

I will pay GOOD MONEY, one time for games that entertain me without the aforementioned bullshit, but it appears I am not the target audience for most App store devs.

Thank you for this!

You're very welcome!

Sadly App Store devs have been driven to this by the race to the bottom (in price).

Charge even $0.99 for an App in the App Store and you'll get no downloads. We've apparently trained users that apps are free and devs have to fall in line and figure out how to squeeze a living out of "freemium".

Sucks.

I've spent a good amount of time (and money!) trying to replicate in me the joy that other people seem to have playing games on phones. Then I discovered novels (stupid, I know) and I never looked back if I'm too fidgety to read another chapter, honestly I'm probably not going to enjoy doing anything else at that moment.

So this is my recommendation for people that haven't quite enjoyed playing games on phones in the past and wonder if no-bullshit games are the solution. Maybe give a different medium a try!

Lately I've been getting into retro gaming. Handheld android devices that run retropie are fairly cheap - a decent one can be $250 USD or less. There's thousands of games that can be played with no ads, no updates, and no microtransactions. Instructions guides make this all very easy [1].

I really wish Nintendo and other game industries would make a legal channel of how to play old games. Nintendo switch online is a great start, but it does not have every game [2].

[1]: https://retrogamecorps.com/2022/03/13/android-emulation-star...

[2]: https://www.nintendolife.com/guides/nintendo-switch-online-e...

Some games that I feel like have honest monetisation and that actually make sense on a mobile device:

  PinOut! (few hours of futuristic pinball obstacle course, banger soundtrack!!)
  Smash Hit (futuristic glass-breaking obstacle course, great on iPad, nice soundtrack)
  Human Resource Machine and 7 Billion Humans (human-powered assembler with a story)
  Little Inferno (burning stuff with a story, great on iPad)
  Machinarium (cute hand-drawn adventure with robots)
  Alto's Adventure (surprisingly relaxing one-button game, nice in the winter)
  World of Goo (bit like those bridge-building games, but cute and with a story)

Three of those are from the same team. Don’t forget “7 Billion Humans” from the same team, either.

It's a good list, but I feel "Mario Run", a single player game that refuses to run if not connected to the internet (and will also fail to run in a few years when Nintendo gets bored and turns its servers of) is a prime example of a game that does indeed contain bullshit, and should not be included in this list.

You can use the red flag button to flag that, along with your rationale.

I agree with the above rationale, so I just flagged Super Mario Run for Android and iOS with an explanation along those lines.

Thank you!

With 2 games added in 2023, and 1 game in 2022 this is either very out-of-date or there are very few bullshit-free games being created for iOS

A lot of them got added to Apple Arcade and Netflix Games (aside from Minecraft my kids are only allowed games from these 2 services, as I know they don’t contain ads and IAPs).

Yeah, Apple Arcade seems to have been generally good, but some of the games were clearly designed as IAP games before being licensed to apple. For example, the star-trek game still has the mechanics for pay progression, but with no store. So you still experience the free-play "delays" preventing progress without waiting real-world time.

Please add any games you know (they are automatically added if they contain no ads and IAP).

I'm happy to see the push for this kind of anti-features.

My personal suggestion: Netflix Games[1] have higher quality than usual and no ads, no in-app purchases, and no predatory tactics (in the games I tried). Bonus points for being all free if you already have a Netflix account.

I can vouch for Poinpy[2], Laya's Horizon[3], Lucky Luna[4], and Skies of Chaos[5]. I haven't tried the mobile ports, but the desktop versions were very good: Into the Breach[6], World of Good[7], and Kentucky Route Zero[8].

The downside is that some Netflix'ied games seem to be buggy, and it requires an online connection on startup to check your account status.

[1]: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/121442

[2]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netflix.NG...

[3]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netflix.NG...

[4]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netflix.NG...

[5]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netflix.NG...

[6]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netflix.NG...

[7]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netflix.NG...

[8]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netflix.NG...

The mobile version of Into the Breach is really good. I played it even longer than the desktop version.

They are not free when they need a monthly subscription.

Just an FYI, all of those google play links are 404s. Seems HN cut off the query parameter after "netflix.NG" :)

Thanks, it's fixed! It was my own fault, I edited part of my comment by copying it back into the text box.

Into the breach is great. Sort of like sudoku with giant killer robots with wierdly specific combinations of abilities. It's not only available on netflix for people who want to try it. I bought it on Steam.

Please submit all these games, I've tried some of them too and agree that they're great.

Wonderful! I would like to see an indication for "no data collected."

Looking for a game just yesterday, was shocked to see it declared to collect FINANCIAL data, plus location and identifying info. WTF? How and why should any app even have access to financial data? Nope.

Subscribing to Apple Arcade is another solution to the same problem. You probably end up paying for games anyway if you want to avoid microtransactions, ads and dark patterns.

I have Apple Arcade as part of Apple One, but My Talking Angela 2? Delicious: Miracle of Life? Kingdoms: Merge & Build? They may not have microtransactions, but most of Apple Arcade games are still bullshit low effort games clearly aimed at kids.

but... subscriptions ARE a dark pattern?

Nobody said they are dark patterns, but are tied real closely. Not only in games.

https://www.schneiderwallace.com/media/dark-patterns-making-...

For some things subscriptions were introduced to gain control over their product remotely, or to remove your ownership of a product.

I've got Apple One, it does have some good games, but I HATE the AD Notifications that pop-up. Ads for other games.

Anything from wadjet eye games is worth playing.

That said I feel the conflation of “demo+upgrade to full game” and “‘free’ game with unending pay to play” in the iOS App Store at least is miserable.

If I see an app that says “in app purchases” I ignore it as scamware unless there’s been some review I saw elsewhere. This is of course a problem AppStores could fix if they cared.

Yeah, I agree that “in app purchases” needs to be contextualised better. Even with non-game apps, it’s hard to tell what to expect. For example:

- does it just mean you can manage a subscription service via the app (if you hadn’t paid for it elsewhere)?

- is it to remove ads?

- is it to download extra 3rd party content like songs or TV / films?

- do you get a full basic app but you can buy “features”?

- are you paying for a demo that lasts a month or is severely crippled to the point that it’s basically unusable for the advertised function?

Some of those usages are perfectly reasonable reasons to want in app purchases. Others are signs that the app is bullshit. But there’s no way to tell just by looking at the term “in app purchases”

exactly. There's a world of difference between "demo with paid upgrade", "full app with additional features you can pay for", "game you can only really win if you buy add ons", "glorified gambling" :-/

Many people complain about the quality of search at corporations. Amazon, Google play store, youtube etc.

If their search is indeed not good, then I see a great opportunity in creating custom search filters, as a community.

I'm assuming once that site got even remotely popular, it would be smacked with a cease & desist

But that's just the pessimist in me complaining about bigCo.

Sites exist like "CanIStreamIt?" for years and haven't been shut down by Netflix/Amazon, so maybe there's a legal way to go about it?

Why would they get hit with a C&D? What are they doing wrong?

Bare facts have no protection. Netflix owns Squid Game's media content, but they have no ownership over "Netflix has a program called Squid Game that is currently available." or "As of blahblah date Netflix will no longer have Squid Game available in CountryX."

Are we reinventing web rings and directories? I don't mind, those were fun!

> If their search is indeed not good, then I see a great opportunity in creating custom search filters, as a community.

It's not, but creating good custom search filters is a lot of effort, and not easy to monetize.

Either it hasn't been updating or all games after 2020 were bullshit.

Please submit the games you know!

If you take installable Progressive Web Applications: https://FreeSolitaire.win

If you’re on iOS Apple Arcade is basically this

It’s like all high quality games with no ads/microtransactions

Although the dumb thing is you can’t buy the games separately without subscribing

I usually just get 1 month of it when travelling and play a bunch of them

> Although the dumb thing is you can’t buy the games separately without subscribing

Sounds like BS to me.

Most of the games on Apple Arcade are 'high quality' regarding production values, but that doesn't mean the games are 'great'. I found a lot of games I already played before and while there are some gems there most of it is a bit bland.

I also wonder what the subscription model will do to games. There's a big incentive mismatch regarding competition if gamers are paying anyway which will probably lead to more of the same old from established publishers.

Totally agree with your first paragraph. I tested Apple Arcane some time after is release and every game I tested (about 10) was some kind of experimental appleish indie game caricature: very stylish and beautiful but with minimal gameplay. None of them got me hooked, none felt like real games, all were very bland.

My more minimal take – user friendly browser games, working on desktop and mobile: https://merely.xyz/games

Nice little collection!

I suggested adding https://freesolitaire.win (minimal Klondike Solitaire game, self-plug) to the list, via the Google Form ;-)

Is great have a resource like this to find quality games.

Recently I purchased the game Limbo for Android, the game is awesome and has no in-app purchases and stuff like that. It is listed on this site [1].

But I find really annoying that each time the game launch, I get asked to create a "Google Play Games Profile" [2], and is no "Don't as again" option, or disable that dialog on Settings. I will dispute a bit the "no bullshit" label.

[1] https://nobsgames.stavros.io/android/?name=limbo&genre=&rati...

[2] https://imgur.com/a/lInE4zn

why install anything at all? i started to create my own "not getting hooked more than 1min games - no ads - no tracking" together with chatgpt

ie https://updownredgreenetc.franzai.com/

https://spinner.franzai.com/

https://flapimoji.franzai.com/

and the old (pre AI coding support) once viral http://lalo.li/lsd/

hilarious. +1 any blog where you explain the process?

Candy Fucker https://varstudio.net/CandyFucker/ Developed mostly bored on a bus.

[/ShamelessPlug]

I like when domains have some sort of order.

https://franzai.com domain shows only a face. There are no links to subdomains pinner. http://lalo.li/ shows voice message, the ball game is hidden within the domain.

The domain structure is a mess.

What's the logic behind the spinner one? I've got to lvl 49 but still no idea what I'm actually trying to do.

The tab title is "let the worm finally catch its tail" so uh... tappy make go fast, get points, dopamine?

This is a great resource!

I can't believe Universal Paperclips [0] [1] had not been added yet, so I submitted it. It's the game that first comes to mind when I think of "no bullshit" games.

No ads or IAP. A "number goes up" game with a definitive ending -- so it's addictive, but finite. Humorous and entertaining for what it is. Well worth $2.

There is a free web version too. [2]

[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.everybodyh...

[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/universal-paperclips/id1300634...

[2] https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html

I've also been collecting great iOS games, here's some:

https://space55.xyz/files/iosgames.jpg (a lot are great desktop / console games that also released on iOS)

Michael Brough is my favorite game designer that regularly release games on iOS. Please recommend me more if we have similar taste!

Will definitely use this in the future! The 3-4 games I enjoyed playing on Android are all there and for sure they are no-bullshit certified (the Room series, Threes!, Monument Valley 2). I'm missing Alto's Adventure but it might had some nag/play4win thing added? I remember it was pretty no-bullshit (otherwise I wouldn't have played it).

Kudos to stavros for this!

Does anyone know of a site like this for all apps?

Thanks, I just submitted Qubes, my game.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.victorribe...

I didn’t know this game, but one or two days ago I remembered and was pleasantly surprised to find old school bulldozer game ported to iOS, I’m having nostalgic fun :) would recommend specially for those who played it way back when, and for those who didn’t the puzzles are fun, but the controls could use some improvement, still fun tho.

Good to see Transport Tycoon there, even if it's got a 3.8 rating on iOS. I played this game a lot when it came out in 2014, and I played the original TT back in the a lot as well. It's a good one.

Unciv is absolutely amazing as well, for all the civilization fans out there!

Filtering the app store for paid apps is a pretty good way to get a list that looks a lot like this. A lot of goods cross platform games are also on mobile.

The rating field allows negative ratings, could you limit it to a lower bound of zero.

Really want to browse the games but it's astonishingly slow.

Yeah, it's being HNed right now. It's usually very snappy.

I noticed that https://nobsapps.stavros.io/ is not responding.

Please fix!

IAP = In App Purchase

I've been looking for a list like this for months.

I have like 8 apps on my home screen and slice and dice is one of them. Best 8 bucks I've ever spent on a video game period.

Fundamentally most video games are bullshit. They won't improve you, they won't build you any capability. A lot of them are designed to be as addictive as poker machines and they will waste your finite time. They won't do you much good.

The exceptions are high quality educational games (or utilities, if you like) that actually teach a skill like piano playing or touch typing or spelling or arithmetic, etc.

Fundamentally, games are about understanding reality and pushing personal limits. Most mobile games focus on a combination of creativity, probability, timing, statistics and logic as a form of entertainment.

Not appreciating what they offer, is not the same as having nothing to offer. The world rewards those with higher skill ceilings in many of these verticals, when leveraged outside of games.

> The world rewards those with higher skill ceilings in many of these verticals, when leveraged outside of games.

It really doesn't. Even e-sports are not profitable for most of the participants:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/20/technology/e-sports-reven...

Self deception is not a useful quality.

> It really doesn't

It has and does for many. I am a successful, old, developer because of gaming. I still play. ofc I have moved on from pacman.

> Even e-sports are not profitable

esports is a niche media creation and has nothing to do with the core of gaming prevalence across time.

Tag, Snakes in the grass, pickle, etc are not esports. Video games are an extension of these ideas that you dont appreciate because reasons...like profitability? eyeroll

> Self deception is not a useful quality

ironic. Pretending that it is useless because you dont find or reason value, is not definitive.

> I am a successful, old, developer because of gaming.

A dealer, are you. Casinos like gambling too. Casinos want you to keep gaming:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwIYg1XaWAg

> esports is a niche media creation and has nothing to do with the core of gaming prevalence across time.

Ah, of course. It's not the real stuff. No true Scotsman would think it's the real stuff.

> Pretending that it is useless because you dont find or reason value, is not definitive.

Oh no, it's not pretend. It's the fact of the matter.

> No true Scotsman would think it's the real stuff.

You started on the esports tangent from a sweeping generalization.

I'm sure you can convince someone else of your edgy opinions as you move the goalpost. Good luck with that.

Correctly recognizing the go nowhere, pointless nature of video games is not "edgy".

Video games have narrowed you. It's time to stop letting them do that to you.

Break free of it.

Not everything in life is about being as productive as possible. Play is healthy, as is joy.

You'll get more health, joy, and life satisfaction out of the capability you develop from an actual skill set than you'll ever get from mashing buttons to make some lights blink.

You’re so confident here that it’s reasonable to assume you’re a telepath.

Telepathy is not required. All that's required is objectivity and a broader perspective.

Video games won't help you develop either one of those.

> objectivity and a broader perspective

Which is clearly what you’re bringing to the conversation here.

Exactly so.

> than you'll ever get from mashing buttons to make some lights blink.

Well, good thing that video games aren't limited to what existed in a 1970s arcade, then.

No, they are precisely limited to what existed in a 1970s arcade. They are no different. The addiction cycle is the same, the pointlessness is the same, the lack of benefit is the same.

> No, they are precisely limited to what existed in a 1970s arcade. They are no different

Ah, I see.

No, you don't.

What's it like to be dead inside, where every action simply must have a productive outcome? We don't get out of this world alive: have fun while you can, and bring that same joy to others. :P

> What's it like to be dead inside

That's genuinely the quality of argument you want to mount? What, video games have left you unable to make a better account of yourself?

It's funny that you equate learning to do something better than button mashing as somehow being focused on "productivity". The hours you've wasted on blinking lights could have gone to learning a musical instrument or learning woodworking or learning painting, any number of practical skills that have absolutely nothing to do with "productivity" but build you greater capability than pointless, slot machine-like ephemera of no consequence ever will.

Don't try to rationalize the nature of video games as being something more than it is. Recognize it for what it is: a dead-end, go nowhere waste of your time.

Sounds like a similar move to what 37signals is trying to do with once.com, but with a games focus.

Seems like a regression. Just make peace with the fact that any phone-based games are generally going to be awful. Do some exceptions exist? Sure, but there’s no point in looking for them. Just play games on a real computer or a game console. Emulating on a phone is probably the only potential solution which makes sense.

Fortunately there's no need to look for them, this list solves that. Lots of people would like to casually game on their phone without running the gauntlet of the app stores.

I'm a big fan of Antiyoy and all of the other Yiotro games.

Been looking for this website for many, many years. THANK YOU!

I love how functional this site is, even without JS enabled!

> Hint: If the game has its own currency (coins, diamonds, etc) which you can buy for real money, it's bullshit and you shouldn't submit it.

But there are games where you can use real money to buy golds and diamonds and spend them purely on cosmetics like costumes, pets etc.

They don't give you any advantage in game play or progression.

An example is Adventure Quest 3D. From their Google Play description:

NOT PAY-TO-WIN

- Finally, an MMO that's not going to wreck your wallet

- Earn power & cool items through gameplay. Wow, what a concept!

- Optional cosmetics if you’d like to support us… and our anime obsession ^_^

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.battleon.a...

“It's Just Cosmetic”:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce5CDrq4dGg>

I get the argument you're presenting, but sometimes it's important to put your foot on the ground and say a hard no to even the cosmetic microtransactions.

Generally speaking these lists in part exist as buyers guides to those who don't have great impulse control to not buy microtransactions and that's something relevant to consider. "One buy and done" seems to be the hard criteria here (with some lenience if the "one buy" is an ad removal).

As sibling commenters said, I'm OK with those kinds of games in theory, but in practice coins are a very reliable indicator of bullshit. Since it's just me checking the games once in a while, I'd rather categorize all games with coins as bullshit, rather than have to wade through the shit 99% to find the good 1%.

Maybe if this gets more popular and people want to help out, it'll be worth it more. I agree with you in principle.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com