Quiet iPhone games that do not need you

Most phone games want attention the way a small child does: now, again, and with a penalty if it is withheld. A timer that has to be watched. A tree that dies if the app is closed. A streak counter, and a notification at nine in the evening to say the streak is about to end.

This is a list of the other kind. The test for each one is simple: put the phone down for a week, come back, and see whether the game is glad to see you or annoyed. The ones below are glad, or at least indifferent, which is its own kind of peace.

Where an app is mentioned that fails the test, it is named because it is what people usually compare these to. That is not a complaint about it. Some people want to be held to something. This list is for the people who do not.

The ones that keep going without you

• Neko Atsume. Cats visit a garden while the phone is away and leave gifts. Nothing is lost by not looking. The game has been the same since 2014, and that is a feature. Free, with optional purchases that are genuinely optional.
• Tsuki's Odyssey. A rabbit lives in a village on real time. He gets up, wanders, fishes, and goes to bed whether or not anyone is watching, and the point is to drop in on his day rather than to run it. Free with a few purchases; the story does not require them.
• Egg, Inc. An idle game in the older sense: a farm that produces while the app is closed and pays out when it is opened. It has more numbers than it needs and a fair amount of advertising in the free version, but the core loop respects absence. Free, ads, purchases.
• Melvor Idle. A large, slow game of skills that train in the background, capped at a day of offline progress so there is no reason to check in more often than that. It rewards patience and nothing else. Paid, once, and complete.
• Voyage. A small ship leaves Earth, travels for a while, arrives somewhere real, and waits. It waits as long as it has to. There is one notification when it arrives and nothing when it does not, no streak, and no way to make it go faster by watching. Coming back after a month is the same as coming back after an hour. Free to start, with one purchase for the whole of it. It is the app this site is for, so weigh that as you read it.

The ones people compare them to

• Forest. A focus timer in which a tree grows for as long as the app stays open and withers if it is left. It is well made and it works for a lot of people, and it is the clearest example of the opposite design: the game only exists while the phone is being held. Paid on iPhone, with purchases.
• Flora. The same idea with stakes: friends, shared sessions, and an option to put real money behind the timer. It is a commitment device, and it is honest about that. Free with purchases.
• Tide. Sounds, breathing exercises and a work timer, with a daily habit graph. Calm in tone, and still built around showing up every day. Free with a subscription.
• Finch. A small bird that grows as daily self-care tasks are ticked off. Gentle, kind, and daily by design; the bird is a reason to come back tomorrow. Free with a subscription.

What the difference actually is

The apps in the second list are built on a true observation: people do what they are reminded to do. The apps in the first list are built on a different one: a thing that is still there after being ignored feels more like a place than a task.

Neither is wrong. But a phone already holds a great many things that need it, and one that does not is rarer than it should be.