Great mobile games that don't need a connection

There's a specific kind of frustration when a game freezes because you lost signal for two seconds. So we keep a running list of games that don't care whether you're online, and it's grown into a genuinely solid collection.

Turn-based RPGs are the obvious winners here. Emberfall Saga runs entirely offline and its slow, thoughtful battles are perfect for a long train ride where you've got nothing but time and a party to level up.

Puzzle and adventure games tend to work well too, since they don't rely on live servers. Anything with a self-contained story is usually safe. The trick is checking whether a game phones home for things like leaderboards or daily rewards, because those can gate features when you're offline.

Our tip: before a trip, actually open each game once in airplane mode at home. Some claim to be offline but still hang on a login screen. Better to find that out on your couch than at 30,000 feet.