10 indie mobile games that belong in your pocket

I have to admit, I’m not a huge fan of mobile gaming, or any type of gaming that doesn’t involve an external controller of some sort. Still, now and then, something becomes available on the Google Play Store that gets me excited, and I find myself suddenly even more surgically attached to my phone than usual, running the battery into the ground for the sake of a gaming session. 

So when I saw Friedemann, the creator of Slots & Daggers (and Summerhouse, which is still one of my all-time favorites), mention on X that the slot machine roguelike was coming to mobile, I immediately knew that I was in trouble. Still, his post inspired me to see what other indie games are available on mobile. 

It’s a gaming niche that I’ve never really looked into, but I wasn’t disappointed by what I found on the Play Store. If you’re looking for some games you can take with you in your pocket, you might be surprised to know that some brilliant indie games you may already know from PC and console are also available on smaller, more touch-oriented screens. 

Disclaimer: Even though many of these games are marked as “Free” in app stores, that’s usually an introductory offer. You may make some progress, find yourself addicted to the gameplay, and then grumble while putting in your card details to unlock the rest of the game. You’ve been warned!

Slots & Daggers

Okay, listen… I know I’ve already mentioned that Slots & Daggers is coming to mobile, but I genuinely love this game, and it definitely deserves a spot on a list of epic games that are (or will be, in this case) available on mobile. I lost hours to this delightfully gritty slot-machine roguelike in the desktop demo alone, and I don’t want to admit to how many hours I have in the full game. 

Slots & Daggers has everything: gambling, countless weapons and other war-effort upgrades, absolutely stunning pixel art - as is standard for Friedemann at this point - and the dangerous ability to have you constantly stuck in a loop of “just one more spin” while you ignore your real-life responsibilities. And now you can take it with you everywhere you go! The possibilities, and the dangers, are endless. 

The mobile version of Slots & Daggers is coming to a small screen near you on August 17, 2026. If you want to play before then, or just prefer a desktop experience and want to check it out, you can get it through Steam. 

Peglin

Ah, pachinko. The gamified practice of throwing a ball down a peg-filled board and hoping for the best with your bounces. Well, if that’s your kind of thing (and why wouldn’t it be? It’s a delightful experience), then Peglin is the game for you, and it plays just as beautifully on a touchscreen as it does on a desktop.

Peglin takes pachinko and turns it into a roguelike experience by adding enemies to defeat with weapons and powers that you upgrade via your strategic (or accidental) bounces while your ball drops down through the pegs. You defeat enemies by dropping your balls and hoping for the best, work your way down through the levels, and if you die? You end up right back at the beginning again. We all know how roguelikes work by now.

Peglin is available on iOS and Android right now, and if you want to play it on a bigger screen using a mouse to help with your ball guidance (hehe), you can also get it via Steam.

The Way Home: Pixel Roguelike

While we’re on the subject of roguelikes, let me introduce you to the delightfully addictive and dangerously moreish experience that is The Way Home. You’re a cat called Cheese, inexplicably stuck on an island with your buddy, and you throw yourself into dungeon diving to find resources and items to help you get home. Every time you leave the dungeon, you lose all your found gear but get to keep your resources, which you use to build up your base of operations in… well, who knows where. 

I discovered this game on mobile and found myself immediately enthralled by the smooth gameplay, the addictive “oh I can just do one more run before I need to sleep” at 2 am moments, and the story that leaves you wanting to know more. Not to mention how cute Cheese is and how badass you feel running around the dungeon obliterating enemies, provided you’ve found some good gear during your run. 

The Way Home came to iOS and Android way back in December 2021, and it’s been downloaded over a million times since then. You get to play the entire first island for free before you need to pay. It’s also available through Steam, where it arrived the next year, if you want a more widescreen perspective and mouse control. 

Superliminal

If you’re a fan of mind-bending, perspective-shifting weirdness, then Superliminal is absolutely a game I would always recommend as a must-play. I first played this on PC, and it is a gameplay experience I’m not sure I’ll ever forget. I had no idea it was available on mobile until I started looking into the platform to write this article, but I’m glad I found this one, despite some initial trouble adapting to touchscreen controls. 

When you’ve played a game for hours on a PC, it can be hard to forget the muscle-memory movements that you picked up while playing, so making the switch to a smaller touchscreen felt a bit alien to me. However, once my brain figured out which way was up (and which thumb made that happen), Superliminal was just as delightful on mobile as it was on PC. 

Again, this is one that lets you get a feel for things before blocking you with a paywall, which is honestly pretty on-point for Superliminal. It’s available on iOS and Android, plus through Steam if you’re that way inclined. 

Alto’s Adventure

Like The Way Home, Alto’s Adventure belongs to that rare breed of games that start life on mobile and then make the leap (ha, if you’ve played this one you’ll see what I did there) to PC and Nintendo Switch. It’s all about leaping (do you get the joke now?) through landscapes in an attempt to gather up llamas. 

Yeah, I don’t really understand it either, but my goodness it is an addictively simple and joyous experience regardless of platform. On mobile, you only have to tap to jump over obstacles or up onto wires. Alto’s Adventure is the type of game that you can play late at night and let your mind shut down before sleep, while still scratching that “oh I can do better than that” itch that comes with being a gamer. 

Alto’s Adventure is available on iOS and Android right now, but pricing differs depending on which platform you’re playing on. On iOS, you’ll need to pay outright, but Google Play has it for free with ads and in-app purchases, though I didn’t see either of the two when I was playing. If you want this one on PC or Switch, you’ll need to look for “The Alto Collection.” 

Pilgrims

Pilgrims is a game by one of my favorite developers of all time, Amanita Designs, and it’s a point and click (should that be poke and click when we’re talking about a touchscreen platform?) filled with puzzles to solve, people to meet, and some absolutely gorgeous hand-drawn art that’s as charming as it is unsettling. That’s practically Amanita Design’s MO at this point, and I’d expect nothing less from any game they bring to the table. 

Pilgrims looks and feels like it was designed specifically for mobile. Even when playing on a PC, most of the action is in the center of the screen, which lends itself perfectly to playing on a mobile and even makes it possible to do most things one-handed if your thumb is stretchy and flexible enough. 

When playing on mobile, you can meet a couple of people and get through the first major puzzle (cooking a man some potatoes) before you come up against a paywall, but the price is pretty low once you get there. If you feel weird about playing a point and click on a touchscreen, which you shouldn’t, but I do get it, then you can also get Pilgrims on Steam. 

Getting Over It

Gaming on mobile does come with some frustrations by default. People ringing you in the middle of a level and blowing your progress, notifications blocking half the screen, or walking into lampposts if you’re trying to walk and play at the same time (Pokémon GO proved that last one would never not be a problem). But nothing is more frustrating than playing Getting Over It on mobile… Or anywhere else, really. 

I say all of this fondly, because Bennett Foddy is a special kind of genius for being able to create things that are so infuriating and yet keep us coming back for more. Getting Over It on a mobile or tablet is no different; you’re still a man inexplicably stuck in a cauldron and using a sledgehammer of all things to fling yourself up increasingly impossible-to-navigate terrain, except now you have the issue of accidental thumb swipes sending your progress straight to hell. It’s also infinitely easier to throw your phone in rage than it is to throw a desktop PC, so there’s that. 

Getting Over It is available on iOS and Android, and this is one that you’ll have to pay for outright wherever you want to get it from. It’s $4.99, so not unreasonable, and you get plenty of horrible, infuriating, yet somehow addictive gameplay for the cost. 

A Little to the Left

If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I’ve got a soft spot for any game that lets me organize anything and satisfy my OCD urges without moving from the spot where I’ve made my nest. A Little to the Left was once my go-to game when relaxing on the sofa with my laptop, but it has since come to mobile, and now it doesn’t matter where I am; I can slot things into their rightful places wherever I happen to be. 

A Little to the Left is an absolute classic of the organisation genre, and it’s gone on to inspire many copies within app stores everywhere. However, while those games may be fun, they’re also stuffed full of ads that play after every level, or monetized to hell and back if you need hints. A Little to the Left doesn’t do those annoying things; it perfectly retains its cozy, laid-back vibe regardless of screen size.

The mobile version lets you play through nine gloriously undisturbed levels of organizing bliss before it politely requests that you pay around $10 for the pleasure of more, but by that point, you’ll be so chilled out from the cozy vibes that you probably won’t mind. It’s available on both iOS and Android, and the original PC version is always available through Steam. 

The Abandoned Planet

The Abandoned Planet is a lovely pixel point and click game set on an apparently deserted island where the main character has found herself stranded after her ship crash-landed. It is enormously fun regardless of platform, fully voice-acted in English with localized text in various languages, and overflowing with puzzles.

It’s everything you’ve come to expect from the point and click genre, somehow condensed into a game that’s as enjoyable on a big screen as it is on one that can be held in one hand. Being reduced to a relatively small size doesn’t reduce the intuitiveness of the controls, with every corner serving a purpose to gameplay or navigation. That’s impressive enough, but throw in the main character having voiced lines, and you’ve got something truly special. 

The mobile version of The Abandoned Planet is available on iOS and Android, and lets you try the first chapter completely free, which is more than enough to figure out if you enjoy the feel of it in your hand. If you decide you want to continue, there’s a cost of around $6 to unlock the full game. If you get hooked on the story but miss those PC controls, the Steam version is also available. 

Moonlight Peaks

Okay, so when I started making this list, I didn’t know that Moonlight Peaks was available on mobile, and I’ve poured over 100 hours into the game on desktop, so that’s probably something I should have been aware of. Still, when I saw it available on the Google Play Store, I just knew that I was in trouble. This adorable vampiric farming sim has had me hooked from the moment I first played the demo, and now I’m looking at having it on three different platforms - because yes, I have it on Switch as well, for my daughter. 

You can download a taster of Moonlight Peaks and play for 90 minutes before you're asked to pay for the full game (around $30). Be warned, though: that timer doesn't stop just because you close the app. I speak from experience when I say you can get a LOT done in Moonlight Peaks in 90 minutes if you know what you're doing, so the sunk-cost fallacy might just grab you by the throat when the timer runs out. 

I wasn’t expecting Moonlight Peaks on mobile to be quite as good as Moonlight Peaks on its other platforms, but now I’ve experienced every version, the mobile version honestly feels damn good once you figure out the touch controls. It is a BIG download, though, so bear that in mind.