Loop hero

Vampire Survivors base game is free and has the option of watching and ad for a free revive (which you don't get at all on other platforms)

Slay the spire

Balatro

Plenty of great games without ads

GooglePlay search favors popular trash, but there and on F-Droid you can still find some fun ones without ads. Searching from outside, like on a regular web search engine or lemmy\reddit subs for free games may help. I don't mind piracy but I was glad to obtain Antimine and Mindustry. Also, there are ways to block internet or patch apps, but they usually imply you have root and may break things if not careful.

Idk about iPhone apps, but I'm sure the first solution would work too and the second means jailbreaking thus cutting off most of their praised ecosystem.

On my phone, I have two games:

• PySolFC - FOSS collection of a bunch of solitaire-like games, with varying levels of attention required
• Lichess - FOSS chess game, with puzzles, bots, and MP

The first is available on F-Droid, not sure about other stores, and the second is probably available everywhere (I got it on Google Play).

I, too, got tired of sifting through ad-riddled BS and just didn't play games on my phone for years.

Yeah, there is a tiny amount of good mobile games, like oceanhorn or world of goo. You're better off just sticking to emulating console games on mobile, than playing native mobile games

Yeah it's really hard to find the few normal ones.

I don't like promoting Netflix but I was surprised how many good phone games you can get with your subscription, like Hades, Civilization 6 or Rise of the golden idol. Doesn't seem to me like phone games are a good match for Netflix but hey these good games are free now for me.

Also Balatro is great on the phone

Mobile game subscriptions (like apple) is good. Every once in a while I’ll find a great game with no ads. Just dlc. I usually try to support them. I’ve been playing unnamed space idle for months, and it’s a great example of a game of a developer that respects its players.