Android phones, iPhones and other mobile devices do not actually provide what a serious gamer would call an ideal gaming environment. They have minimal processing power and small screens, making them incapable of hosting multiplayer environments with convoluted graphical requirements – for example detailed scenery, a large playing space and fast action.
So why are they so popular among children and adult gamers? Children, after all, are some of the most accomplished ad critical gamers in the world, having grown up with the rapid advancement of gaming technology. Easily bored and highly sceptical, they nonetheless seem to lap up the free kids games available for their Android phones.
The answer lies in the question: why do kids love games that don’t have the same graphical complexities as the ones they’re used to on their consoles? Search the words in that query and you’ve got it. Kids love the free kids games they get on their Android phones not in spite of their simplicity, but because of it.
All the best games in history have been simple. That’s all gaming history, mind you – from the cup and ball through to Tetris and beyond!
Think about the games that stick in the memory – and more importantly in the annals of gaming history. The ones that get voted as best game ever over and over again. Tetris; Super Mario Bros; Pac Man. All simple titles where everything is focused on the gameplay. Even the more complex titles, like Mario, have that word wandering through every review ever written of them: gameplay, gameplay, gameplay.
The plain fact of the matter is that when you strip away the screen size and processing power needed to put together a graphically arresting title, all you have left is the requirement to create absorbing and addictive gameplay. Free kids games aren’t stripped down versions of more complex titles, nor yet are they stopgap alternatives, only for downloading and playing on the move. They’re challenging purist’s versions of classic gaming styles, and some of them are so good they’re getting famous – just like Pac Man did all those years ago.
Be aware that all free kids games are only free when they are downloaded, or when they are streamed within a data package that has no limitations. If your child is playing free kids games in any environment where you will get charged for going over a data limit, then be sure he or she finds another way to access them.
The simplest way to get free kids games onto a mobile device is to download them and pay for the single chunk of data you use; or to download to a PC and then transfer to the phone. If, on the other hand, your child plays on a laptop or PC – just make sure he or she does so using your home internet connection, which should have unlimited data usage as part of the price promise.
Free kids games are arresting, enduring and brilliantly made – future classics based on the idea of pure gameplay.
Olivia is a freelance writer based in Prestatyn. She is a keen reader and swimmer. She also loves to play free kids games on the Cartoon Network website, but that is her personal preference.
