Mobile Games that don't suck?

My son (5.5) has a kindle.  I know nothing about mobile games, but from my browsing, it looks like a lot of them are free with tons of ads, in app purchases, etc.  This is a world I can't comprehend.

Anyway, any recommendations for games that meet are:

A) not incredibly frustrating for a  beginner

B) DO NOT HAVE IN APP PURCHASES

C) No ads

D) Don't promote earing coins/credits/tokens/whatever to buy silly hats and underwear for a fake avatar.

I'm totally fine with paying money for a quality game up front.

You can get DOOM for an iPhone. I don't know about a Kindle.

Legitimately don't know of any mobile games that don't have some method of in-app purchases.  Some are worse than others.  Pokemon Go is pretty good about it, but at his age I'm not sure how good he would be about it.  Especially since you have to wander around to catch stuff.

Hill Climb Racing 2

Seriously, my 5 year old loves it. Super easy to play, no ads, no BS.

I play Uno everyday

If you're into racing, then there's a lot of mobile racing games. Btw, are you using an android or IOS phone?

Javelin (Forum Supporter) said:

Hill Climb Racing 2

Seriously, my 5 year old loves it. Super easy to play, no ads, no BS.

We're not on kindle, and our versions have ads and in-app purchases; but we've got purchases turned off in the settings of the sleepykids tablets.  Dunno if you can do that with a kindle. Still, though, it's enjoyable, and I even play it.  It has "coin collection" to improve the vehicles in it, and we're using that as way to talk through "budgeting" and "don't spend all your coins immediately".

- PBS Kids "Play Games" - no in-app purchases, and it's really an "App of Apps"
there's also some stand-along PBSKids based apps:  Ready Jet Go, and WildKratz Rescue Run

- Vectorpark apps:
Metamorphabet, Levers, Acrobots, Windowsill

you can sometimes get them all together in a "package"

- Monument Valley
iirc, the in-app purchases are "additional maps", after you've worked through the original.  it's not a "continual" micro-transactions thing.  It's an escher-puzzle adventure thing; and I think there's a couple of versions out there now.  has one a bunch of awards, and stuff.

- Pipe Lines : Hexa

I would also suggest AutoDesk Sketchbook, or maybe "Art Set"... as a way to encourage drawing/art; which yes... you should do on paper in "real life", but sometimes that's a useful activity when you're "out".

usually we'll go check "commonsensemedia" to look things over, and make an "informed" decision before allowing an app on their devices.

Keith Tanner said:

You can get DOOM for an iPhone. I don't know about a Kindle.

Heck, you can get DOOM for a printer, or a camera.

Not really a 5.5 year old friendly game, personally, but then again we consider killing turtles with the shells of their fallen comrades to be playful and not utterly horrifying, so why not?

I've been playing a game called days bygone. It's a tower defense shooter. Lots of neat upgrades, incremental progress, fairly kid friendly. Easy point of entry. 

As a creature of habit I've been playing Real Racing 3 for several years now.

Seconding sleepyhead's PBS Kids suggestion. The PBS games are great - and educational to boot, building word skills and math skills, and if he watches PBS Kids stuff already, features all the characters from the TV shows.

Javelin (Forum Supporter) said:

Hill Climb Racing 2

Seriously, my 5 year old loves it. Super easy to play, no ads, no BS.

I play that a lot, too, but it absolutely has ads and in-app purchases.

Keith Tanner said:

You can get DOOM for an iPhone. I don't know about a Kindle.

With a little modification you can Play doom on a pregnancy test

Freedoom, Dosbox, other emulators basically...lots of free emulators in the F-Droid store.

RevRico said:

Keith Tanner said:

You can get DOOM for an iPhone. I don't know about a Kindle.

With a little modification you can Play doom on a pregnancy test

Yeah, trying to get DOOM running on anything is a thing. But you can actually legitimately play it for fun on a phone :)  Only game on mine.

Monument Valley is a pretty good suggestion. It's not a twitch game, it's problem solving. And beautiful. I am assuming we're talking about a Kindle tablet here, not an e-reader.

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

Javelin (Forum Supporter) said:

Hill Climb Racing 2

Seriously, my 5 year old loves it. Super easy to play, no ads, no BS.

I play that a lot, too, but it absolutely has ads and in-app purchases.

We got it on my kid's Kindle that's a "kid edition". Maybe it's the software on that thing?

Anyway, monument valley is great too.

In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) 

if you're on there we should find a way to friend.  

Pretty sure it has ads since it was a free game, but no in-app purchases that I'm aware of...Holedown is one of my favorites. Very addicting. 

Grand mountain, it's an open world skiing and snowboarding game with surprisingly solid physics. 

I play a lot of Angry Birds 2.  I think I'm on level 575 or something ridiculous like that.  Super fun, nice graphics.  It has very few ads (like maybe one a day).  It does have in-app purchases, but that is a super easy setting on your phone/tablet/whatever.  Just set it to require a fingerprint.

Another one I love is Orbia.  You're this little avatar and you're trying to get to the center of these orbiting balls.  You have to time it to pop through the orbits of balls.  Lots of fun, ads can be closed instantly (no waiting for 24 seconds) and they haven't tried to sell me anything like "buy shields."  It's all based on crystals you collect which can be used to skip or change levels.

Doom on a pregnancy test is just using the test as a display.  Just like Doom on potatoes is just using the potatoes as a battery for TI calculator.

Emulators don't interest me.  Emulating a dos or console game on a tablet is a frustrating experience for an adult - it would be terrible for a young child.  On a related note, we have a Genesis Mini and while he loves Sonic, he is so, so, so, so, so terrible at it.

While I will never shy away from a Doom discussion (currently playing through Hell Revealed II), I'm talking about games for a 5 1/2 year old.  Even if Doom was not blood, gore, and guns... its still a skill level way beyond what he can handle.  

I'll check out some of these other options.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

I play a lot of Angry Birds 2.  I think I'm on level 575 or something ridiculous like that.  Super fun, nice graphics.  It has very few ads (like maybe one a day).  It does have in-app purchases, but that is a super easy setting on your phone/tablet/whatever.  Just set it to require a fingerprint.

RE:  Ads and in-app purchases...  yes, the purchases can be blocked.  Its not so much that.  Its that he is 5.  He is just learning to read.  So these pop-ups he doesn't always understand and that is a source of frustration for him.

I don't want to have to babysit him playing games.  Part of the allure of a game is once in a while to have 30 mins to myself to mentally decompress.  Pandemic life with a young child takes its toll on you.

Not sure if it's available on Kindle, but Broken Age is very good.  You pay for the full game up front, no ads.

It's a point and click adventure game with some puzzles and a very good story (even for grown-ups).

Edit- if the puzzles are too challenging there are age appropriate walk throughs on YouTube by Stampylonghead

Also, consider stepping outside of the box regarding what may be considered a game. There are some drawing and paint by number type apps, and more enjoyable to me, so music production apps that are pretty fun. 5 isn't too young to start showcasing tempo and creating beats and the end result is far more rewarding and better feeling than earning a reward within a game that just has you chasing the next target once completed in an endless cycle. 

captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:

Also, consider stepping outside of the box regarding what may be considered a game. There are some drawing and paint by number type apps, and more enjoyable to me, so music production apps that are pretty fun. 5 isn't too young to start showcasing tempo and creating beats and the end result is far more rewarding and better feeling than earning a reward within a game that just has you chasing the next target once completed in an endless cycle. 

Yes, I am totally open to these.  He has played Mahjong on my mom's ipad before and enjoyed it, but again that was a version with ads.  If anyone had a good recommendation for a paid app, I would be interested.  Same with a jigsaw puzzle app or paint by numbers, etc.