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Comment by andersrs | Hacker News Reader

> The idea was to build something fun that never shows adverts to them or tricks them into sneaky purchases by “accident”.

This part really resonated with me. Google promotes the absolute worst spammy shit these days. I have to browse tech forums to find clean simple games.

Last week I was trying to find a simple memory cards game and the search results were complete dog shit so I started building my own memory cards game. In a couple hours I made https://memorycardsgame.com/. Then browsing a svelte forum I found https://toddler-games.com which is much further ahead of mine but I'd never be able to find stuff like this by searching for it. Of course none of the good games are filled with a bunch of SEO spam which is kind of the point. Since Steve Jobs didn't let his kid use an iPad we've decided the game isn't needed now.

Nice app.

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An unsuspected (to me!) place for good kid friendly games, free of ads and in-app purchases or other predatory patterns, is Apple Arcade on iPad.

My 5 y/o is having great fun with the Crayola app and Cooking Mama, and, honestly, between each round, I'm waiting for an ad to pop, a nag screen to pay for stuff or review, a countdown or some other crap we're accustomed to on mobile games and no. Nothing. Just the full game and nothing else. It's a refreshing experience.

Not sure I would take parenting advice from Steve Jobs!

Thanks - that toddler-games.com is really nice. It’s so simply done that even a two year old could enjoy it for hours. My kids are 5 and 7 now so want something a bit more advanced, but I wish I’d found that a few years ago

Its a great read. It bothered me a little that there was an ad at the bottom of the page when it started with a passage about avoiding ads. But i share the sentiment and am especially triggered when those ads are in front of my kids. I'm adult and got over that feeling quickly and it is a terrific post.

If you're referring to my blog, sorry yeah I use the free Wordpress plan and they stick those ads there for themselves :-(. The app has no ads though, which is important when it's for kids

Very nice! A bit of feedback: when you quickly click many cards, they are open at the same time, which makes it trivial to see pairs. So maybe you want to wait opening any cards until the last pair is closed.

I can also recommend https://tuxpaint.org/. I see they also have an app for Android nowadays, but no iOS it seems.

> In a couple hours I made https://memorycardsgame.com/.

Nice! Small bit of feedback: when you click “restart” after winning, the emojis are replaced with new ones right before the flip animation plays, which briefly reveals the solution. I’m assuming that’s a bug and not an intentional hint, as it doesn’t happen the first time.

I moved to Vivaldi browser on mobile which has a built in ads/trackers blocker (how is that not a built in feature in any browser? Oh wait) and said goodbye to ads forever (ublock on PC ofc). A few weeks before I made the move I started getting goatse style shock sites in google ads, some kind of leg disease, horrible stuff.

Dns adblocker like nextdns also helps

Would be nice to have some collection of no ad or non-spammy games and websites in general.

I was looking for colouring app two days ago but couldn't find a decent one. https://toddler-games.com seems to be something my niece's would love. Thanks.

> I have to browse tech forums to find clean simple games.

There's always DOSBox!

you made the game for Steve Jobs kid?

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