This app was mentioned in 63 comments, with an average of 7.49 upvotes
Reminds me of when I came up with Mekorama (10 - 50M downloads) a year before it existed. Wrote a full design document but my boss turned it down to focus on shovelware (which wasn't even remotely profitable).
Honestly even if we did make it I doubt it would've been as successful.
The easiest route would be to use the platform specific billing services (like google play payments for android) ... but then you're just providing an IAP that does nothing.
Apparently this does exist and is allowed ... here's a game that used it : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinmagni.mekorama - with 5-10m downloads the dev has very likely made a decent return on his time, gonna call that an outlier rather than validation of the business model though!
Kinda unrelated to your request as I don't know any games like the ones you stated buttt I do know a puzzle game that matches your other criterias (cute, clever, share/create levels)
Mekorama- free, has simple controls, nice art style, puzzles get pretty clever later on in the game there's not a huge amount of puzzles though so you can create your own levels and play ones created by others, but it's not like a custom level library you kinda gotta get a custom level code to be able to play it (kinda stupid but guess they don't wanna pay to keep online servers up) anyways great puzzler
Link- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinmagni.mekorama
If you like physical puzzles, there is nice youtube channel Mr.Puzzle. Amazing collection of puzzles and solutions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp-PENvptu0
I recently played a nice free puzzle game called Mekorama Available both on Android and iOS.
I was working on hollow cubic tetrahedra, with much better graphics done on Blender, but then I had a BitLocker encryption thing happen so I'd probably need to be asked to redo all of that if it would be interesting to anyone.
Help a tiny robot stumble home through 50 puzzling mechanical dioramas.
Nice looking game, free too.
Mekorama , I use it to build kind of "interactive illustrations" for a roleplay group I'm in. We use this to better visualize what the buildings and places look like. It is awesome!
IAP are abused by cashgrab games.
However, there are "good" ways to have IAP. In case of Cake Duel, you can buy "taunt" animations. They are completely optional, and do not affect the gameplay.
Likewise, Mekorama has an special "pay what you want" section of IAP. They again do not affect the gameplay, and the user is free to pick whatever amount they feel reasonable.
So, give these games a try.
(Footnote: It's been a while since I last played those two games and I'm writing from memory, so forgive me for any inaccuracy.)
Some helpful links for anyone who wants to check it out:
Shoutout to mekorama, a small game about a robot trying to get home.
Got me hooked.
Get the original instead of the knockoff.
Puzzle and free(no iap or ads).
Linkme: Mekorama
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinmagni.mekorama
The Room Series
Mekorama - 4.4 rating - Free with IAP - Search manually
Epic Conquest - 4.7 rating - Free with IAP - Search manually
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Also let me help with your recommendation link here, the game he is talking about can be found here
Looks like the game mekorama
Mekorama | 4.4 rating | Free with IAP | 10,000,000+ downloads | Search manually
> Help a tiny robot stumble home through 50 puzzling mechanical dioramas. - Relaxing gameplay - Charming robots - Collectible level cards - Diorama maker - Small install size Play Mekorama for free for as long as you like. Then pay what ...
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Mekorama - Free with IAP
Again and again.
Linkme: Mekorama
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinmagni.mekorama
You should totally check out Mekorama Pretty cool puzzle game reminiscent to Captain Toad.
Mekorama is fun.