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I tried to list everything I have played that can be emulated on an android platform, excluding very hard games or games with scary/adult elements.
You can get most of the roms from Vimm's Lair or CDRomance
vimms lair has been cracked down by nintendo and other companies so you can't get much. cdromance too i think. i don't remember.
i highly recommend using myrient.erista.me (or an easier to use search-type tool via https://myrient.mahou.one/). for some advanced systems like the wii or ps3 you sadly need to convert the isos or roms into usable mediums.
more cool shit at fmhy.net
If you download an app store like f-driod you can get good apps from there.
My kids like this Libre Memory game which is Memory and nothing else. You can also download apps for them to draw and other games
Shattered Pixel Dungeon - open source, ad-free - turn-based rogue-like dungeon-crawler
but that's addicting person name dead :(
i spent many hours on pixel dungeon and shattered pixel dungeon. it's genuinely a solid roguelike but god damn it'll become crack cocaine for some
Lego games
I probably started playing those when I was 5
Balatro 
I guess it’s kinda addictive, but only because it’s really good. It doesn’t feel like it was cynically designed to be addictive, if that makes sense. No ads or microtransactions!
balatro's a very high quality roguelike game but don't make any kid get addicted to gambling please
would uno be good? there's this which is just souped up uno known as "hot death uno" based on an ibm pc game. updated in 2022
It’s not gambling!
i know... but parents might not like it.
my inlaws are very religious and if they saw balatro they may call it satanic especially cause of tarot cards
that's why i acted like this, some parents may not want their kid to play that game. it depends
Morrowind android port
no but on a real there's a lot of android ports of old games that aren't addictive, and all you have to do usually is click install on an apk file.
Here's one that requires a bit more setup than that if you're techy - https://www.reddit.com/r/TrackMania/s/QDNYzg499o
If that seems too tricky, I still highly recommend the original Trackmania Forever game if you've got ANY laptop. Super simple arcadey racing game - completely free - smooth as butter, lots of replayability, runs on anything, you can play against each other, has a track creator mode that's easy to use, customisable cars - and on, and on. I used to play it when I was about 8-9 years old, then recently when I was babysitting I taught my cousin to play it - he was only 6 years old and loved it. Absolutely brilliant - I used to spend hours playing against my dad back in the day.
my toddlers can barely play minecraft or supertux, they're used to those weird dress up games with ads and stuff. i can't imagine them play morrowind.
i know what i said about them playing minetest. they can't build properly there
have you tried rvgl? re-volt in general. cool game tbh
I remember playing revolt that as a kid (split screen with my brother) and being somewhat amazed at the graphics. It was fun, I would recommend that for a kid. Kids easily get drawn to racing games and it never feels that addictive.
also good clean fun, they're just rc toy cars, not considered violence
and genuinely fun tbh
Hehehe, I was only joking about morrowind. Yeah, idk if they're toddlers just put them in the garden.
i was blinded by my attempt at playing the game where i freed slaves and got stuck fighting a banshee ghost or whatever and couldnt play anymore. oh and my inlaw and sister just made them watch tiktoks on their phones and i can't get them off of the youtube shorts so i sadly can't get them in the garden much. they DO do stuff in the garden but i can't do shit about the slop
ngl trackmania's cool as fuck, but winlator requires the beefiest of hardware. i don't know if the op has like super strong android tablets or like me, degoogled android 5 e-waste that i tried very hard to revive.
rvgl is a goofy physics based racing game with toy cars, tar, bowling balls and firecrackers and has a native android port. check it out!
Yeah I think the best way to play Trackmania is just to get an old laptop/desktop. It's such low software requirements you could probably get one for £40
Revolt is also a classic yeah, I remember lots of RC car type games around that time. There was a great one the Lego technic racers webpage of all places.
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Also cave story on retroarch. Its a masterpiece so why not.
https://github.com/doukutsu-rs/doukutsu-rs
native android version of cave story!
really good game, little me tried beating it many times
I tried to use this version first, but it's not compatible with controllers. The Retroarch version is
understandable, the devs mentioned it. the pc versions of doukutusu-rs have controller support and local co-op (no skins. would've been funny if it ended up going the double dragon final boss route in the sand zone if one of the players was curly)
https://doukutsu-rs.gitbook.io/docs/faq#is-controller-supported-on-android
i love foss stuff. i can play cave story on ps3 thanks to retroarch's nxengine port
Oooh didn't know this. I wanna play all over again. I was only familiar with the retroarch one.
Yeah I have lost count of how many times I played it. But yeah I always end up giving up fighting the doctor.
the closest i got to beating the game was when i was messing around on flashpoint and found the flash port of the freeware game
i got to the core fight at the time lol
Oh yeah. I've been meaning to dig into flashpoint. I tried old kewlbox games in it. Core fight is easy with machine gun but I would say not as hard as later fights. The aftermath of the core fight is sad af.
only had polar star, i let curly keep the machine gun
would be cool if i mod the game for some reason but idk what i'd add lmao
That's fine too albeit harder. I have never seen mods but yeah it would be nice. To my knowledge there is only a save editor which can edit the stats and items.
some very talented person made a tower defense game out of cave story
https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=54AmWymaJdU
like you need assembly hacking to do shit like this. really cool
also the foss engines like nxengine and doukutsu-rs are modder friendly due to them being open source ofc
Holy shit that looks awesome
Mindustry (factory management with tower defense and rts) is also available for android and is on fdroid too so no ads. It might be a bit addicting I guess.
it's a very solid game, one of the two games that made me actually interested in foss software, but it might be really complicated for an average kid
My bad, I should have thought about that. 
Emulators are probably the way to go.
anuto td (github link for some images) might be up one kid's alley for a foss android tower defense experience then. it doesn't have many towers and is still fun to rack up points and beat yourself in the high scores
god i love fdroid
Bloon tower defense 6, so worth the price
don't forget luanti. kids love that minecraft stuff. so many options there. spin up a server if you're into that and know how to port forward and stuff, champloo
supertux too. my nieces play supertux sometimes along with luanti but on some dogshit android 5 tablets that can't even get "new games". they pester me but hey they play that foss stuff lol
(now please help me disable youtube shorts on tvs i am getting sick and tired help)
((edit: i got so used to the old name of luanti sorry))
if your tv runs android i think this alternative youtube app can hide shorts
a smart lg tv. can't jailbreak
i vouch for smarttube on my dinky android 5 tv box thing due to its layout but i still have to use newpipe for privacy
Unciv is open source 2D Civilization V but I guess you said not addictive
i like unciv, very good foss game. a kid may get confused by it, so i have found this simpler alternative that's also foss. idk if it's simple enough for a kid to play but it has less mechanics compared to unciv
Idk I was a weird kid who got into civ when I was ~10, but you're right that it might be too complicated for some children. There's another old game (like 30 years old) called Slay that looks a lot like this Feudal Tactics game, but I don't think it's foss. I'm actually kinda wondering if this is a foss version of it
If you want just a game that's realistically super fun and kids can sink time into and engage with you can try the PvZ2 Altervz mod.
It has daily challenges but there are no microtransactions, ads, or any other malicious feature. Setup is a little tricky depending on which OEM you have (involves moving a file into a directory that might be hidden by default), but this is probably one of the best options.
plants vs zombies was peak, i should honestly try that mod cause i never got into pvz2
bloons td6
And the Kingdom Rush series (in the Tower Defense genre)
I got to check this out. I have btd6 on pc but on my phone I got it for free from epic. Infinitoide is another one which was good when I played it albeit very minimal.
Monument valley? The problem is it actually ends, eventually.
Or idk, old GBA games on an emulator? I spent way too much time on Pokémon blue growing up.
Oh definitely have them play old Zelda games. A link to the past is my fav.
Yeah, if I had kids, I'd give them emulated Gameboy games and lock the internet to avoid them getting ads or microtransactions or anything like that.
Kids would still enjoy those Mario, Pokémon, and Mega Man games, right?
Also, they'd be free and you could probably add hundreds.
At that point it's just better to invest on one of those dedicated emulator consoles... They're not terribly expensive and they're natively offline. Plus, clicky buttons, which I think really enhances the experience.
downwell