Six hours to fill and no socket
A phone playing a 3D game with a video advertisement every two minutes will not survive a long journey. A phone playing a turn-based game in aeroplane mode at low brightness will, and the difference between those two situations is much larger than the difference between any two phones. The games below are the second kind: mostly two-dimensional, mostly turn-based, playable with no connection, and undemanding enough that the screen becomes the main cost rather than the game.
What is actually using the power
| What | How much it matters | What to do about it |
|---|---|---|
| The screen | Usually the single largest cost | Lower brightness, and a dark game on an OLED panel |
| High refresh rate | Noticeable over hours | Lock to sixty in the display settings |
| 3D rendering | Large, and it also makes the phone hot | Prefer 2D, or turn the quality down |
| Searching for a signal | Large on a train through hills | Aeroplane mode, deliberately |
| Video advertisements | Network, decoding and screen at once | Games that do not have them |
| Location and step counting | Small per app, constant | Not a problem for anything on this list |
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The games
A transit network puzzle that is mostly still lines on a pale background, and it can be played with long pauses. Paid, offline, and one of the best things on the platform.
A sliding number puzzle with real depth, no timer and no animation to speak of. A game you can play for four hours or four minutes.
A plain, complete sudoku with proper difficulty levels and no advertising interruptions. The reference version of the genre on Android.
The polished alternative with daily puzzles, free and advertising supported, which is worth knowing because the advertisements do not appear offline.
From a developer whose whole catalogue is lightweight board and puzzle games with a competent offline opponent. Small, undemanding, reliable.
Connect coloured dots without crossing lines. Thousands of puzzles, a static screen, and nothing happening that needs a processor.
A kingdom run entirely by swiping cards left or right. Turn-based, offline, and it fills a long journey with a series of short runs.
A stealth puzzle built from a grid of cards, played in single considered moves. Paid, offline, and it thinks more than it renders.
The same developer's dungeon built from a deck. Short runs, no timers, and it does not need a connection at all.
An open source roguelike with years of development behind it: turn-based, pixel art, entirely offline, free with no advertising. Probably the most game-per-watt on Android.
The original that the previous one grew out of, still playable and even lighter.
Chess against an engine with adjustable strength, offline. A game that draws power only when it is your move and you are thinking.
Free, open source online chess that uses a trivial amount of data. A correspondence game answered once an hour costs almost nothing and lasts the whole trip.
The solitaire everybody actually means, with no forced animations and a free tier that works offline. Unfashionable and perfect for this.
Crosswords with downloadable packs, so the puzzles are on the phone rather than fetched one at a time.
A pixel-art management simulation that runs in short turns rather than real time. Paid, offline, and it will outlast the journey rather than the battery.
Ten minutes before you leave
- Download everything now, on WiFi Levels, puzzle packs, updates. A game that fetches a level per stage is a game that stops working when the radios go off.
- Open each game once, connected Several free games check a licence or fetch configuration on first run. Do that at home rather than discovering it at thirty thousand feet.
- Turn on aeroplane mode, then WiFi off as well On a train, the constant handover between towers is the expensive part, and this removes it.
- Drop the brightness and turn off adaptive brightness Adaptive brightness on a bright train window keeps the screen at maximum. Set it by hand, low, and leave it.
- Lock the refresh rate to sixty In the display settings, not in the game. None of these games benefit from more and all of them cost less at sixty.
- Turn off haptics and use headphones rather than the speaker Both the vibration motor and the loudspeaker are worth more than people assume over six hours.
- Put the phone in the lowest power mode you can still play in Battery saver throttles background work rather than the game in the foreground, and on a 2D turn-based game you will not notice it.
What to leave at home
- Turn-based and 2D
- Static screens between moves
- Downloaded content, offline play
- Paid, or free with no video advertisements
- Dark art on an OLED screen
- Real-time 3D of any kind
- Anything requiring a live connection
- Free games with rewarded video
- Location-based games, obviously
- High frame rate competitive shooters
One honest caveat: none of this is a measurement of any particular game, and drain depends on your phone, your screen and how bright the carriage is. The mechanism is what carries across: a game that renders a still picture and waits for you costs a fraction of one that redraws a three-dimensional world sixty times a second, and a game that plays video advertisements costs more than the game.
Download everything, turn the radios off, set the brightness by hand, and pick games that draw a still picture and wait for you.
Frequently asked questions
Does a dark theme actually save power?
On an OLED or AMOLED screen, yes, because dark pixels are dimmer or off. On an LCD the backlight is on regardless, so it makes essentially no difference.
Do these games work in aeroplane mode?
All of them do, except online chess, which needs a connection to make moves. The free ones lose their advertisements offline, which is a side effect worth having.
Is battery saver mode going to ruin the game?
Not for anything on this list. It mainly restricts background activity and may cap the refresh rate, neither of which a turn-based 2D game notices.
What about a power bank instead?
The better answer if you have one, and the two are not exclusive. Even with a power bank, aeroplane mode and lower brightness mean one charge instead of two.
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