cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/40448411
Hi, I have a primary school girl who wants her share of gaming on the family android tablet.
While finding open source or commercial games with no ads that boys like is doable, I haven’t been able to find the kind of games a girl wants:
- with cute graphics
- where you care for dolls or pet
- no ads or subscriptions, no endless DLC.
Do you have any recommendations for android games that fit the bill?
The image is a screenshot of cry babies, a game that she’d like to play very much but constantly nags you to buy new content.
Has she specifically requested games with dolls and pets? If not, just get her good games - doesn’t matter who’s playing them, games are games.
Yeah, OP apparently just relayed the game description from her. She specifically wants dolls, pets, and all that.
Ah ok, fair enough.
You know what is a great android game for girls… Any good android game. And that’s because girls are people. They have a diverse set of interests and are not one single thing.
As I said before: I absolutely agree. I just typed the description she gave me of the game she wants.
No worries. Just phrase as “What are some android games that are good for kids, age X - X, with a traditionally feminine or “girly” aesthetic?”
That asks your same question, without implying (intentionally or not) that all girls are a “princess that likes pink”
She’s in primary school, she doesn’t have that nuance
Every primary school girl likes pink and princesses and is too dumb to enjoy fighting games of course
Nobody is saying that.
The person I’m replying to says that the way she phrases things has subtext that she should avoid, I’m saying that she is in primary school so fuck it
well done you! instead of meeting the OP half-way by trying to understand their requirements, you chose to shame them on the easiest of technicalities. Rest well tonight, good warrior, you’ve earned your propers.
Have you tried minecraft? My 12 year old niece loves minecraft.
Also, pokemon. My niece loved it when she was younger.
+1. My youngest sister plays some weird fake Minecraft clone that’s free. I have no idea what the game is about, but she loves it and gets to socialize with her friends over there
probably minetest
yeah I’ve tried it, it’s great :D
Minecraft is already free on mobile, via Pojav Launcher, lol. And VoxelLibre is a pretty good FOSS clone on all platforms.
Which Pokémon game would you recommend? She’s tried house, go, and quest, but only liked the first.
Does she have a Nintendo Switch?
Not right now. Maybe in the future.
I personally grew up on red/blue, but I’m sure those will be too primitive for her.
Does she have a DS?
Neither, we have a Wii, but there is no good Pokémon game for that, afaik.
I think you meant minetest with a Minecraft mod.
Here you go! Never met a girl who didn’t like the game
I showed it to her, she didn’t like it.
They haven’t met her, so the statement still stands.
The deamons you mean? They are lucky they haven’t met her.
Here you go! Never met a girl
who didn’t like the gamesorry
dude, read the room
You can also install an emulator for various consoles too.
Yeah I’ve tried that, but the controls are sometimes less-than-optimal.
I wonder whether maybe you could attach some hardware controller to the android device.
Something like the Gamesir G8 or Backbone One are great when the emulator lets you map controls.
My daughters love “Battle for Polytopia”. Some DLC but not infinite.
Love that game. The dlc stuff is basically just to support the creators. I paid for all the add-on civilizations but still almost always pick Bardur.
I’ve played this a lot with my friends in high school. I can definitely recommend it.
Try finding games on fdroid.
She might find some she likes in gcompris https://www.gcompris.net/index-en.html
No ads or subscriptions, no endless DLC.
Unfortunately, if you’re looking for a free download, the game you’re describing doesn’t exist.
The closest I can think of is Postknight 2. There’s unobtrusive (optional) ads, and the full game is playable—start to finish—without spending any money.
It’s very cute, and you can get pets… but it’ll take some dedicated playtime to unlock them for free.
No, I’m happy with buying games. Just no subscriptions or micro transactions.
Oooooh I have some ideas! Some of these are paid/premium (but NOT micro transactions) and some have mild ads. But I share the distaste for data-mining, money grubbing, brain-melting-ad-ridden games, so I’m certain they are on the least intrusive end of the spectrum.
I really love biology (I’m a biologist…) so these are both pet games and usually breeding/evolution games!
- Fish Tycoon – This one specifically. A classic! Breed and care for cute fish!
- Niche breed and evolve – so neat and pretty educational about evolution/genetics. There’s a slightly more complicated/difficult pc game if she decides she likes the nichelings/universe.
- Pocket Frogs – Simple, low stress collecting game. it would take years to collect all the frogs, and there’s a relatively active community of people who trade sets of frogs to other people to help them complete collections. Would be fun to play with her friends at school!
- Reigns Her Majesty – a game about running a kingdom as a queen. When you die, you become your heir and retain some progress from your last lives. It doesn’t fit the exact criteria you mentioned, but I think she might like it anyway!
What about Cat Quest?
She didn’t like the other RPGs she tried, but maybe in a few years…
I don’t know if there’s ads in there, but I think a bigger part of your description matches with “Pou”.
Try KittyToy (itch.io).
Guild of Dungeoneering is always a solid choice.
Yes she has, I tried to clarify that.
