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10 Fun Girl Games That Don’t Involve Clothes or Makeup

We happen to have it on good authority that girls want games—and not necessarily the kind that involve clothes, makeup, or "mystery dates."

minecraft
via minecraft.net

Minecraft

Released in 2009, Minecraft has become a favorite of parents, as well as kids, because it is so steeped in creativity. “Users can recreate an existing fantasy world or build a new one from scratch,” explains Parent Info). “They can fight villains and seek adventure, and they can play alone or with friends. It can also be played at any level.”

Parent Info notes that these qualities add up to an experience that is so much fun for kids that they don’t even realize they’re honing their problem-solving, planning, and organization skills, and for those who play with friends, it enhances their teamwork skills. There is also a specifically educational Minecraft product line, which is available for educators and non-educators alike.

It’s available on multiple platforms, including computer, smartphone, tablet, X Box, and Playstation. There are various fees for Minecraft, including a download fee.

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Tynker

Tynker is an iPad app that “helps kids get into coding and other education activities by wrapping them in games that are genuinely fun,” according to a representative for the company. Tynker also contains its own set of free games and courses that can inspire creativity—girls have used it to create everything from greeting cards to music videos to comic cartoons to quiz games, and more.

Downloading costs nothing, and membership includes a free Minecraft-related coding course plus free tools to modify the Minecraft world (including creating new characters). There is a monthly subscription needed, however, for more in-depth Minecraft lessons and modifications. Full pricing info can be found here.

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lego
via education.lego.com

Tynker + LEGO + drones!

In addition to its partnership with Minecraft, Tynker has partnered with several other major games that are popular with girls. These include:

  • LEGO WeDo, which is intended to introduce kids to robotics, engineering, and programming, such as building a small truck for a lesson on recycling, and using LEGO bricks to teach kids about plants and pollination—a life science project you wouldn’t immediately associate with LEGO bricks, according to TechCrunch’s review of the stand-alone product.
  • Parrot Mambo Code, which is a code-able drone by Parrot, which when paired with a 6-month Tynker subscription, enables kids as young as age seven to learn to code while reaping the benefits of traditional outdoor play.
monsterhigh
via monsterhigh.wikia.com

Tynker + Monster High

If you’ve heard of Mattel’s Monster High, an American fashion-doll franchise inspired by horror and sci-fi/thriller flicks, you may be wondering why it’s on this list. Well, the fact is, Tynker tinkered with it and created a positive online gaming experience that girls who already have a penchant for fashion-dolls can easily slide into—in fact, the draw used on Tynker’s website is: Learn to Code with Monster High. Using the Tynker tools, a girl could create her own dance party or scavenger hunt—as long as she codes it.

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Psych
via Psych app

Psych

The brainchild of Ellen DeGeneres, Psych is an online game that blends trivia with a social experience. The idea behind it is to get together with a bunch of friends and answer ridiculous trivia questions—the catch being that the other players will be trying to “psych” you out with wrong answers. It’s available for free on iOs, although there are numerous in-app purchase opportunities.

Here’s some facts about, well, trivia, and other games.

akinator
via en.akinator.com

Akinator

Based on good ole “20 Questions,” Akinator, a downloadable mobile game, features a “genie” with actual artificial intelligence who can “read your mind” by asking you a series of questions. Play begins by asking the genie a question along the lines of “Which character from a movie am I thinking of?” The genie then asks more and more focused questions until you’ve either stumped the genie, or the genie has “pwned” you.

starstable
via starstable.com

Star Stable

Yes, the love girls have for horses might be a bit of a clichĂ©, but it did start somewhere, and for the most part, it’s chock-full of healthy values. Now, put that together with an online experience where players ride, take care of their own horses, embark on quests, participate in competitions, and become part of an epic story, and you’ve got the makings of a winner of a girl game. It’s called Star Stable.

The Star Stable website claims that the game offers many benefits, including:

  • Learning social skills and building solid relationships by chatting with friends, and taking part in player-created riding clubs.
  • Problem solving by facing challenges in a world that is constantly changing and expanding.
  • Developing a sense of responsibility from the financial management of virtual currency Star Coins to caring for their own horses.
  • Star Stable encourages reading and engagement with fiction.
smartgurlz
via smartgurlz.com

SmartGurlz

You might have heard about SmartGurlz if you’re a fan of NBC’s Shark Tank, but if you haven’t, then we’re here to tell you it’s a revolutionary toy brand whose line of self-balancing robots and action dolls are encouraging girls to become tomorrow’s programmers. Appropriate for girls ages 6 and up, SmartGurlz blends dolls with robots with math and engineering for a STEM-enhancing experience that parents and “techxperts” alike are buzzing about. It doesn’t hurt that SmartGurlz was invented by a mom frustrated by the lack of educational but fun toys for her own daughter. What started as a labor of love has since evolved into a company that empowers girls everywhere with skills to become confident, inspiring women.

elvenar
via via innogames.com

Elvenar

The people behind the online game Elvenar understand that females make up a significant part of the gaming industry, playing a variety of games that don’t necessarily fit a girl-game stereotype. In fact, girls represent over half the total players of Elvenar, which lets players strategically build up cities, manage their resources, research hundreds of technologies, and either trade or conquer different regions in the world. “In this way the game lets any type of player explore basic concepts of economics, build up communication skills through fellowships (teams within the game) and practice strategic thinking,” Villegas explains.

candy crush
via king.com/game/candycrush

Honorable mention: Candy Crush

When it comes to free online games for girls, Candy Crush remains virtually unparalleled. And it’s actually good for your brain, at least for the first 30 minutes (should your kids really be playing any game longer than that?). Please note, however, that Candy Crush is highly addictive. So please make sure your girls enjoy it in moderation!

Lauren Cahn
Lauren has covered knowledge, history, the British royal family, true crime and riddles for Reader's Digest since 2017. Having honed her research and writing skills as an attorney in the 1990s, she became one of HuffPost's first bloggers in the early 2000s, graduated to reporting hyperlocal news in the 2010s and has been researching and writing news and features for a wide variety of publications ever since. Aside from Reader's Digest, her work has appeared in Mashed, Tasting Table, Eat This, Not That!, Grown and Flown, MSN, Yahoo, AOL, Insider, Business Insider and many others.