And now for something completely different: discussion about video games.
Life circumstances have made it very difficult for me to game these days. An hour to myself to play a proper video game is something I get maybe once a week. I do, however, have one thing going for me, and that's my phone. It's always on me so I can just whip it out and play something for five minutes here and there, which is like offering an alcoholic a light beer once a day but it's good enough to fight off the shakes.
I really hate using virtual buttons on a touchscreen, which is why the DS has been my saving grace lately. I've been playing Phoenix Wright, Advance Wars, and some JRPGs like the Dragon Quest DS remakes. All of them work pretty well with minimal button use and thanks to save states I can play them in short sessions.
Any other suggestions? Suggestions for actually good mobile games that would be playable this way are also welcome, but I have a feeling I've already played all of the incredibly small number of mobile games that meet those criteria.
For what its worth, the 8bitdo controllers are fairly cheap and durable and come with a clip to just instantly toss your phone into to use them. Which is what I did when I had long trips of playing on my phone. I just threw it in my bag with the rest of my work stuff. This is relevant because I had the same issue you did and bought it just to alleviate that.
Without it though, the two games I've played that worked fine enough without was the Fire Emblem games (I'm partial to the GBA ones though) and the Yugioh games. Etrian Odyssey might work as well if you have smaller fingers than I do and can draw the maps.
I actually have a controller that snaps onto my phone, but I don't really have time for that either. I have literally zero downtime at work, I drive to commute, and when I get home it's go go go until bedtime. Like I said, five minute intervals, tops.
I liked Fire Emblem Awakening when it first came out and never tried Fates. I really didn't like how Three Houses was basically a dating sim with the rare bit of combat thrown in now and then. Think I'd like Fates?
I played a good deal of the 3DS Etrian Odyssey 1 remake and enjoyed it, but I don't know about playing those without a stylus. Advance Wars works okay but it's still a bit hit or miss. Not a bad idea though. If I can get Nexus to work that's about 5 billion hours I can look forward to.
That's why I prefer the GBA Fire Emblems. Awakening is basically the turning point where the games went from strategy games to dating sims.
Fates is probably the worst game in the franchise if you don't count for the ones that are merely outdated. Its literally "ignore every unit who isn't a Royal, have them solo the map for you." Birthright is basically "Easy Mode" being sold as a full price game, Revelations will outright insult your intelligence with its writing and Conquest is the only one that resembles a game that might be worth playing. But its still written by actual retards and Royals are still the only units worth using, with everyone else just being trained as meat walls so they don't get One-Turn Attrition'd to death. I could go on and on about its insultingly bad designs and issues, but its worth skipping in every category unless you liked those dating elements.
Personally, I think Three Houses is the best of the post-Awakening games. It removes the retarded child mechanic (which in turn actually removes most of the dating sim elements) and most of its hub world actively stops mattering if you are good at the game. Even on fresh saves I've found that I can ignore half of it and spend only a few minutes warping for the parts I need. But that's a debate for another time.
If you are out for more FE, just swap over to a GBA emulator (I assume that wouldn't be much issue) and play 7-8-6 in that order. Unless you enjoy suffering then bump 6 up. Either way, all of them are perfect for 5 minute interval times because they have zero down time and constant autosaves.