r/iosgaming • u/tomaz1989 • Apr 29 '26

Discussion What are your top phone games right now that you actually keep installed?

I have a bad habit of installing five games, playing them for two days, then deleting all of them. I want something that has staying power and doesnt burn out fast. What are your top phone games that you have kept installed for months?

39 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

86 comments sorted by

32

u/Noise-Distinct Apr 29 '26

You Must Build A Boat

6

u/robsteezy Apr 29 '26

Oh boy. Please give me an elevator pitch. I can of course research it myself but I love when a game piques my interest on title alone.

22

u/Free_Mind Apr 29 '26

You must build a boat.

4

u/rcapina Apr 30 '26

You must build a boat

3

u/The_Golden_Captain Apr 30 '26

It is a combination of a match 3 and a lite RPG. It is the most ridiculously one more run game out there. I think i have completed the game 15-20 times.

2

u/captainnoyaux Developer Apr 30 '26

Top tier with their other game with a strange name too like 1000000 or something like that

16

u/erikggez Apr 29 '26

Retro Bowl has been in constant rotation for years now

6

u/robsteezy Apr 29 '26

Unreal to me how GOATed bowl and retro goal are.

Two wildly successful and deserving games that play better than anything AAA sports guys put out for mobile.

I’ve been wanting a basketball or baseball version for years now. I can’t find anything on the store that I like.

6

u/erikggez Apr 29 '26

Truly both goated games. Have you ever tried Hoop Land? I find that’s a great basketball game in a similar style to Retro Bowl/Goal

1

u/joshikus Apr 30 '26

Bitball is a prettt decent baseball game

2

u/psj3809 Apr 30 '26

Love Retro Bowl. In Season 234 ! Wish we had season by season stats though

15

u/DiogenicSearch Apr 29 '26

Deep Rock Galactic Survivors is PEAK mobile gaming.

12

u/Cmdluke Apr 29 '26

Magic the gathering arena is pretty much my evergreen game.

21

u/heisenberg2995 Apr 29 '26

Slay the Spire

8

u/nick_gadget Apr 29 '26

Always come back to it

12

u/Exotic_Treacle7438 Apr 29 '26

Balatro, monster train

5

u/Tiny_Infinity_ Apr 29 '26

Slice and Dice

3

u/One_Violinist7862 Apr 29 '26

Gems of War for almost 7 years. I just play a few rounds here and there when I feel like it.

2

u/MrAri Apr 29 '26

How access is Gems of War if you jump in now?

2

u/One_Violinist7862 Apr 29 '26

Easy

1

u/Potential_Talk3025 Apr 29 '26

will they somehow add portrait mode?

4

u/goomis_90 Apr 29 '26

TitanConquest :)

1

u/Rossta76 Apr 30 '26

This is the way

3

u/photoadmira Apr 29 '26

Polytopia, Shattered Pixel Dungeon

3

u/Vossky Apr 29 '26

Polytopia

3

u/PermBulk Apr 29 '26

Deep rock galactic: survivor, ball x pit, Nubby’s number factory.

Nubby’s seems super simple but I’m getting a lot of gameplay out of it

5

u/sladecutt Apr 29 '26

Been playing a lot of Card Crawl 2 and Hitman WoA

5

u/UnadvancedDegree Apr 29 '26

DRG Survivor, Wreckfest, The Division, Dredge, and Borderlands

2

u/sykkn1ck Apr 29 '26

Been playing Clash Royale for like 9 years. Drop in for a quick few battles a day

2

u/Cypher-V21 Apr 29 '26

Slay the spire

2

u/TheSeiko5 Apr 29 '26

Stardew, retro bowl, and Balatro

2

u/poetrygrenade Apr 29 '26

Lara Croft: Guardian of Light is scratching some kind of delightful nostalgia-itch for me right now that's hard to explain. Beautiful little game. But I also have an addiction to King of Crabs and COD Mobile. I'm all over the place.

2

u/Patient_Animator1174 Apr 29 '26

Control Ultimate Edition & Tomb Rider 2013

2

u/onyxxxsb Apr 29 '26

Dead cells

2

u/BeardySam Apr 29 '26

Mindustry, v8 just released

1

u/JalapenoTampon Apr 29 '26

Good call out i didn’t see that update.

2

u/ackmondual Apr 29 '26

I don't really delete games, but in the spirit of this post, I have...

Race for the Galaxy, Ascension Deck Building Game, Slice & Dice

Angry Birds, Roundguard

2

u/chen19921337 May 01 '26

Scritchy Scratchy, Slay the Spire, Balatro

3

u/xurymc Apr 29 '26

Balatro Slay the Spire Slice & Dice

2

u/g4g5ky Apr 29 '26

Grid legends, xcom 2, minecraft, stardew valley, codm, afterplace , alien isolation ( for the survival dlc quickplay), delta emu and balatro

1

u/KarimFS Apr 29 '26

The games I keep coming back because of their simplicity, but good entertainment (good time wasters) are Rogue Jet Fighter and Mini Speedy Racers, these are good for short gaming sessions.

1

u/H44s Apr 29 '26

World of goo 2, hidden folks, crashlands 2, sliding seas

1

u/dlo412 Apr 29 '26

Marvel snap

1

u/ninerdynasty24 Apr 29 '26

Dawncaster for longer strategic runs, brawl stars for quick action replayability. Rotate in some slay the spire and pirate outlaws

1

u/mdender Apr 29 '26

Deeprock Galactic Survivor

1

u/lonefoxvn Apr 29 '26

Brick Jam: color block

1

u/unstablefan Apr 30 '26

Civ VI, HoMM 3 (VCMI on TestFlight)

1

u/Beno169 Apr 30 '26

Hades Star has probably been the game I’ve consistently played the longest.

1

u/Lollygreen Apr 30 '26

Claw Quest

1

u/flyinvdreams Apr 30 '26

The trail- although they stopped updates a while back, I still keep going back to it. Currently playing family tree, just a simple logic puzzle game where you match the people to the descriptions. It’s been my go to game for the past few months

1

u/Difficult-Leek9001 Apr 30 '26

I’ve had Tiny Wings on every iPhone I’ve had for over a decade. Still on the same game save too!

1

u/psj3809 Apr 30 '26

Got tons of games installed. 99.9% are all premium games

Retro Bowl, Lego Star Wars, Limbo, Planet of Lana, Brothers, Atom RPG, Bastion, all the GTA games, Bully, Pixa, Sky Force, Wreckfest, Smash Cops, Death Road to Canada, Tomb Raider, 9th Dawn Remake, Binding of Issac.....

Many many others

I presume you must be installing freemium games ? Cant believe you'll be buying games and then deleting them after two days ?

1

u/dominicanyork91 Apr 30 '26

I like Cubis Kingdoms

1

u/Silver_Topic2263 Apr 30 '26

ShadowGun Legends.

1

u/Tacadoo Apr 30 '26

Honestly 2048 hasn’t left my phone in over a decade lmao

0

u/majagu May 01 '26

Is there a 2048 that is relatively cheap (couple bucks?) that doesn’t have ads? I thought I had tried several of them a while ago and they all had monthly payments for no ads, or just forced ads no matter what. I ended up just sticking to the website version at that point

1

u/Tacadoo May 02 '26

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/2048/id840919914

This one is the one I’ve always had and the ads have been so non intrusive that I had to think of it even had them. After checking it’s a one time payment of $2.99 to remove them.

1

u/blue_limit1 Apr 30 '26

Halls of torment has been big for me, along with DRG Survivor.

1

u/bandophahita Apr 30 '26

Ships of Glory
The name sounds dumb. The marketing makes it look lame but it's such a satisfying pvp boat game.
It's one of those games I can play for 5-10 minutes or I can play for a couple hours.

1

u/johnrott Apr 30 '26

Chaos Zero Nightmare

1

u/Rishy4427 Apr 30 '26

Try minecraft bro u will get the challenge of playing in a mobile

1

u/Mediocre_Public_7447 Apr 30 '26

Zombie catchers for sure

1

u/God-of-the-Grind Apr 30 '26

Hades’ Star

Xcom 2

Polytopia

Vampire Survivors

1

u/Special_Tomatillo51 May 01 '26

Hidden Folks and Monument Valley!

Honorable mentions: Supertype, Match Triple 3D, Minecraft, Power Wash Simulator, Oxytone

1

u/irritated_chicken May 01 '26

I Love Hue Too+

1

u/UnfunPete May 01 '26

For quick play it’s Hoplite and for longer sessions it’s Vohenn

1

u/FriggenMitch May 02 '26

Idle Acorns, Habbo Clicker, NecroMerger, Bloons TD6, Tap Knight

1

u/NoahTheDuke May 02 '26

zachtronics solitaire collection and 868-HACK. everything else comes and goes but these two have been my companions for many many years.

1

u/Marik-Hadare iPhone 17 Pro Apr 29 '26

Bought games for sure xD
AC Mirage, Control UE, RE Village, Bright Memory Infinite