My 9yo daughter has a tablet with family link, so I can monitor what apps she wants to install. As the garbage games are mostly at the top free, she keeps asking for games that I reject, in most cases because it’s riddled with ads.
The Play Store has a section for kids, which seems to have better quality apps and games. Also thinking to subscribe to Play Pass so she can try out paid games.
Any other tips? Especially how to find good free / paid games. I don’t mind paying for good games.
Also I’m aware I can block ads using eg Pi Hole (already doing that) or sometimes putting it on airplane mode, but that’s not my point. I want to find and support quality games.
This guy (Nimble Thor) developed an app called Mini Review, I’ve used it frequently.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=minireview.best.android.games.reviews
Check him out on YT as well.
That’s cool. Downloaded! Thanks.
You could try installing gamesnacks.com as a pwa on their phone. They have a bunch of little games that I assume children would like.
Emulation full stop Anything else is a waste of time or a risk to get your kids addicted
Spelltower is a classic. Still might have ads but they’re less intrusive, and it’s educational but it probably won’t be boring
Emulation, geometry dash, Minecraft.
I’m doing some scraping on the playstore, there is few stuff that has no ads nor in app purchases
I posted a few here on https://lemmy.fbmac.net/c/free_android_games
Love it! Subscribed
I’ve made it a link that works from all instances : /c/[email protected] thanks!
I think the category you’re looking for is premium games. On mobile it appears to mean that the game is complete and not sold in pieces.
Play pass is really good for games but my kids still constantly want shitty ad filled ones tbh.
Setting up adguard DNS worked really well but it can break games if they’re dependent on ads. Which isn’t a bad thing in my opinion.
Yeah agreed, my kids have accepted that stuff doesn’t work if they rely on ads, and they are fine with it (after some initial batyles).
When my kid was younger he had a “garbage games on tablet” phase as well. As others have said, paid games are the way to go (Play Pass sounds cool). Looking for indie games for Android, or PC games ported to Android gives some good results. Stardew Valley’s an obvious one. I haven’t played Ordia, but it looks gorgeous.
What worked really well for us was to teach him about some dark patterns in simple terms and spot them with him in the freemiums he was playing. “Fear of Missing Out” events/notifications and “Progression Paywalls” are typical ones. It made him realize the game wasn’t built to give him a good time as much as to frustrate him into endlessly spending real money in exchange for some phony currency. In the end he was happy to switch to saner games. It’s a good opportunity to work on their critical judgment basically.
Thanks for your insights. My goal as well is to teach them instead of just refusing those games. She already starts to understand better.
SV was a favourite but we’ve played it a lot already and we have lost interest. Will look into Ordia!
https://www.darkpattern.games/
I have not extensively used this site but it seems to have some good pointers
So maybe check with them there first, then install
Thanks, interesting site! Bookmarked.
I loved that this one explain each of these dark patterns too
I am on the exact same boat as you. 9yo daughter keeps asking to download a bunch of crap with in app purchases or ads. The problem is that there’s so much crap for mobile. I almost never play anything on my phone, but her at her age and the current times of short attention span being bored for longer than a second seems.like a taboo, she needs to have stuff on her phone, even though we have a Switch at home with loads of good quality games.
It’s just the way it is.
I agree there’s a lot of crap, and it takes some time and conversation. Lots of tips in this topic as well. Eg Play Pass looks pretty cool so far, and I’m going to look at F Droid and installing an emulator.
I’m also explaining to her why I reject some apps. She seems to understand it better and better.
I’m also going to look at using Tasker to set it to airplane mode on all apps except Play Store and Chrome.
In case nobody’s said it already, it’s awesome you’re taking an active role in teaching your daughter media literacy. 🙂
Thank you!
Usually, I find ports of PC Games best. I don’t know if they are suited for 9 year olds, but broken sword, baba is you or papers please are really good on mobile devices. Point and click in general is a very portable genre for mobiles.
Play pass is a fantastic idea, made me discover a lot of awesome small little experiences
Yeah I like it so far. We also have xb gamepass which made me appreciate indie games much more.
How do you find apps included in play Pass though, do you know? Can only find lists on random websites, not on play store itself.
Once you’re a member it shows you a section in the app store. Unfortunately I’m not sure where to find a list before subscribing.
I’ve subscribed, and that section shows up. However it only shows games, not apps. Eg Tasker is included.
My 9yo daughter has a tablet with family link, so I can monitor what apps she wants to install. As the garbage games are mostly at the top free, she keeps asking for games that I reject, in most cases because it’s riddled with ads.
Did you ever consider using this as opportunity to educate your daughter about ads in general, how some games try to push adds to get you to do something, and also how some games have game mechanics trying to push you to do specific things, and then just let her figure out if those games are worth playing, or not?
She’s definitely old enough - I had that discussion with my daughter when she was 5, we have an agreement that we limit the number of games installed on her phone - and the kind of shitty game you’re talking about typically gets uninstalled again pretty quickly.
In a few years she’ll be able to install stuff by herself - if you never explained to her what and why games/apps are doing she’ll not be ready to deal with that, and it’ll be out of your control.
Thanks for the insights. Totally agree with you. Yep, I’m having those conversations and she understands it more and more.
get them an offline console
Yeah, perhaps a better idea. Will do that once the tablet reaches end of life.
There are these little handheld console things you can get online for like $20-50 if you think she’d like older games like classic Nintendo, one of the cheap ones is called data frog SF2000 and it looks like an old SNES controller or this one for something higher quality that can run more consoles https://powkiddy.com/products/powkiddy-q90-3-inch-ips-screen-handheld-console-dual-open-system-game-console-16-simulators-retro-ps1-kids-gift-3d-new-games
They’re a little janky but they get the job done, they’re basically just a tiny weak laptop with emulators built in that you can only play the games on
That looks cool! I think though it will be a hard sell for them as it will be a step back. However I will be looking into emulators as I think those games are better for them.
