Gaming

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.

https://f-droid.org/categories/games/

get them an offline console

Install an emulator for her alongside with some roms. Unfortunately, that's pretty much the only option we have nowadays.

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

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.

Ahh... I remember simpler times when we had proper handheld devices... and not having to deal with ads bullshit (shovelware was a thing though).

Perhaps the Nintendo Switch might be a good option down the road?

If not I agree about Chinese handhelds, there are so many out there and they keep improving over time.

One thing you might need to pay attention to is your daughter would want to play the same game as their friends do.

You may want to reject games base on your criteria, but if your daughter feels isolated because she can't play with her friends, that could be a bigger problem.

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

There's an app called mini review that has reviews for games you can browse through there but not sure if there is a kids section but it's helpful to filter out as heavy games.

I'll never forget my friends kid being upset on our camping trip while we waited in the car in a store run saying how he has no wifi out there so he can't watch his ads for coins

Private DNS server. Blocks most ads even in games.

Here's what I posted in another thread:

Private DNS FTW!

dns.adguard.com

On Android:

1. Swipe down and select settings (the gear)
2. Search for: DNS
3. Select Private DNS.
4. Select Private DNS again.
5. Select Private DNS provider hostname.
6. Enter: dns.adguard.com
7. Select Save
8. Enjoy most ads being blocked in apps.
9. Might work poorly on public wifi (Walmart wifi for example doesn't work with a private DNS set).

On Apple:

1. Fuck if I know.

Emulation, geometry dash, Minecraft.

Spelltower is a classic. Still might have ads but they're less intrusive, and it's educational but it probably won't be boring

"Shattered pixel dungeon" is a rouge-like top down rpg with no ads and is quite fun. You can only pay if you choose to support the dev.

Play pass is a fantastic idea, made me discover a lot of awesome small little experiences

Netflix offers free Android games with no ads too. If you have ad subscription it might work

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

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.

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.