Your Kindle has a web browser where you can play board games like chess. It makes for a fun, distraction-free experience, so I wanted to see how far I could take it. With my jailbroken Kindle, I can actually install new apps on my Kindle and play games offline.
Wordle
I wish Kindles had it by default
You can play Wordle offline on your Kindle. However, you'll need to jailbreak it first if you want to play it locally on the device. I've already jailbroken mine and put KindleForge on it .
KindleForge is a free app store for Kindle devices where you can install apps with a single tap. Usually, these apps have to be installed manually by downloading the right files from GitHub on your computer and placing them in the right directory on your Kindle. KindleForge saves you that trouble.
You don't have to jailbreak it just to play Wordle. There is an e-ink optimized web version of Wordle, which you can play in the Kindle web browser.
KWordle (the Kindle version of Wordle) is available on KindleForge, where you can install it with a single tap. Once installed, it'll show up as a book cover in your library.
If you can't use KindleForge, the installation files for KWordle are available on this official GitHub repo , and you can find the instructions on this page to manually install it.
You can start playing right away. Tap the KWordle book cover to launch the game and type using the on-screen keyboard. There's a delete key for erasing letters and a checkmark key for submitting your guess.
A solid square means the letter is in the word and it's in the right place. A blank square means that the letter is in the word but not in the right place. A cross means the letter isn't in the word. The on-screen keyboard will change as you play to reflect these indicators.
TicTacToe
No pen and paper? No problem
You can also play TicTacToe face-to-face with another person. I haven't needed this yet, but I can imagine a scenario where you want to play TicTacToe with your friend, but you don't have a pen and paper handy.
It's not available on KindleForge, so I had to sideload it using something called KUAL (or the Kindle Unified App Launcher). I downloaded the game from GitHub moved the game files into the KUAL directory, and I was able to launch the game directly from the KUAL interface.
Chess
It's polished and optimized for e-ink
I also found this beautiful chess game called GNOME chess . Originally, it was built for the GNOME desktop environment, but the Kindle open-source community ported it to Kindle.
You can play against a human face-to-face. Or you can choose from two computer engines as the opposing players. One engine is called GNU Chess, which is a retro engine, and the other is Stockfish, which is a more sophisticated chess engine. You can set limits, if you like, or set a difficulty level. You can play as White or Black.
There's also a running text commentary under the chess board. You can also save games and load games you have already saved.
Mines
Does anyone know how to play it?
Also included in the GNOME games package is GNOME Mines. It's a Minesweeper clone. I've seen Minesweeper on Windows machines since I was a kid, but I still don't know how to play it.
I only tapped two tiles in a row, and it was game over. If you know how to play it, you can now do so on your Kindle. GNOME Chess and GNOME Mines are both available on KindleForge.
GameBoy
Kindles can do more than just board games
You'll also find a GameBoy emulator called Gambatte-K2 on the KindleForge store. It doesn't have any games by default because it's just an emulator for the Game Boy. You'll need to dump the data from your GameBoy carts , and move those files (usually in GB format) to the Kindle storage. Then you can load the .gb files into the emulator and play.
The first game I tried was Tamagotchi . Games of this sort (simple, low frame-rate) lend themselves really well to e-ink screens. I also tried a couple of platformers. Super Mario was kind of playable, but the screen refresh lag kept me from enjoying the game. Donkey Kong Land was surprisingly enjoyable, and I might return to it.
My absolute favorite is Snow Bros . I used to play this game a lot, so I might be biased, but it still holds up all these years later, even on an e-reader.
I'm not a huge fan of board games. So outside of Wordle, "gaming" on Kindle was just a novelty until I tried the emulator. Some of these retro games still have that same addictive quality that they had when I was a kid. I found myself slipping right back into the same childhood headspace when playing them on Kindle.
Gambatte-K2 should be able to load most Game Boy titles, but some just crash. Pokémon , Paperboy , Space Invaders , and Tetris 2 didn't load for me. The original Game Boy Tetris worked just fine, however.
Jailbroken Kindles are severely underrated
Your Kindle can do so much more than e-books, but Amazon's software hamstrings it. Lucky for us, the open-source community has developed a lot of wonderful projects for Kindle, provided you jailbreak it first .
