Indie games worth paying for on your phone
Three premium games with no ads and no in-app purchases that justify the price many times over.
Free-to-play games are designed to interrupt you. Paid games are designed to be finished. These three are the best argument for paying once.
Monument Valley 2
A puzzle game about impossible architecture, told through a mother and child. Every level is an artwork, every rotation of the world feels like magic, and the whole story fits in two evenings.
Alto's Odyssey
A one-touch endless sandboarding game with a calm soundtrack and a day-night cycle. Zen mode strips out scores entirely, which makes it the best game to play when you cannot sleep.
Balatro
Poker hands bent into a roguelike with jokers and multipliers. It is the kind of game that makes a two-hour train ride feel like twenty minutes. No ads, no purchases, no timers.
Buy one of these instead of the next free puzzle game and notice how different it feels when the game is not fighting you.