Good games to play with young children

[Ippolit]

Goof Troop on an emulator (or maybe a real SNES?) should be a lot of fun, especially in two-player mode.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

The Looney Tunes games from the PSX/N64 era were pretty good. You've got two collect-a-thon platformers in the form of Bugs Bunny: Lost in Time and Bugs & Taz: Time Busters, plus a very nice stealth/puzzle game in the form of Sheep, Dog 'n' Wolf/Sheep Raider. There is some text and dialog, but most of it isn't important.

 

[VGMG]

Rain World, on the easiest difficulty.
Supports multiple players too, with mods, if you have more than one device.

 

[Fedora Master]

Since the classic Sonic games were already recommended.

That's basically grooming the kid to become autistic.

 

[Semiurge]

Doctor.

 

[3 others]

I can swear by this shit:

We clocked +60 hrs on this and 100% it a few times. There's a bit of English text, but you can get by doing a quick and dirty translation.

Great, absurd humor, in the vein of Gobliiins, completely language independent.

You can also check if the vaccinations took hold and the kid developed the kind of autism necessary to learn programming with The Incredible Machine,
the recent remake is called Contraption Maker.

These are exactly the kind of recommendations I was hoping to get. Thanks.

World of Goo is another classic, language independent puzzle game to check out.


This is basically remade Lost Vikings with purdy 3D graphics. You can do coop and there are physics-based puzzles.
There's also a bit of fighting going on, so check if you're fine with this level of violence.

Huh, didn't think of these even though I have them. Worth a shot at some point. I should have a Kirby game for Wii somewhere still too. Great poast full of ideas. Didn't know there was a continuation of The Incredible Machine.

Either play educational games or puzzle games. Let the kid play games while forcing himself to think and develop the most important skill, more so in this society: think. This is a good game:

Do not let the kid-looking game fool you. It can have some interesting puzzles.

Yeah, Toki Tori is a FIERCE game. I think the difficulty curve might be too steep still but I'll keep this in mind.

Keep your kids away from video games, games are nothing but garbage.

In the end, this is the credited response tho.

 

[Kev Inkline]

Minecraft (Java edition) is awesome for anyone 6 and up. Also teaches them English on the side, as I won't allow to have language changed to their native Finnish. And typing server commands kinda makes them a bit more familiar with using the command line instead of just mousing around.

 

[YldrE]

Huh, didn't think of these even though I have them. Worth a shot at some point.

Not "at some point"; Trine is possibly the best series you can pick to play with newcomers:

• Stunning presentation both audio and visual
• Extremely forgiving, you can resurrect and heal almost any time you wish
• Harmless enough for kids, but meaningful enough to avoid the dreaded "kid's stuff" feeling where the parent plays a shit boring game to please a kid
• Lots of stuff to learn, but you will still get by if you're a clueless newcomer only using one or two moves
• 2P can drop in and out at any time: if a sequence is legitimately too hard, go alone and then have 2P respawn right on 1P's position

Other vaguely similar games with local coop on PC include Disney-Pixar Brave and Republic Heroes. The LEGO games are also very popular though I personally have no experience wth them.

I'd also like to add that barring that, I wholeheartedly support any attempt to force your 5yo daughter through old retro games and Codex classics. That way she'll become disgusted with videogames and become a respectable productive member of society.

 

[Jonathan "Zee Cat]

Minecraft (Java edition) is awesome for anyone 6 and up. Also teaches them English on the side, as I won't allow to have language changed to their native Finnish. And typing server commands kinda makes them a bit more familiar with using the command line instead of just mousing around.

that's child abuse and i'm calling spurdo police

 

[kangaxx]

I highly recommend Overcooked, those games are great fun sofa co-op multiplayer games. They add a light puzzle element into the mix as well.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Cave Story.


There is also a free version available for any platform.

 

[razvedchiki]

carmaggedon.

 

[El Presidente]

Goof Troop on an emulator (or maybe a real SNES?) should be a lot of fun, especially in two-player mode.

I absolutely love this game. Unbelievable how no one has ever made a spiritual successor.

 

[Viata]

iirc the Japanese version on hard had harder puzzles.

 

[Ivan]

had a good time with the nephew playing:

Thumper
Brothers: Tale of Two Sons
vvvvvvvvvvvvv

+1 Chuchel

 

[MurkrLurkr]

From personal experience I can wholeheartedly recommend these games as I played them with my four year old son and he, even after a year, still remembers them fondly and often talks about them...

1. Abzu

It's atmospheric exploration game about reviving ancient waterworld.. You control extraterrestrial diver swimming through primeval sea, gathering information about marine life and learning about submerged civilization whose remnants he encounters along the way... In subtle way, without extensive infodumps and through environmental gameplay, it relates itself with Sumerian and Babylonian creation myths. My son is fascinated by water creatures, prehistoric and contemporary, since he grew up watching Jeremy Wade's River monsters (I've been planning to take him fishing with my friends for a while now and to buy him Ultimate Fishing Simulator), so it was really nice to watch as he enthusiastically recognized different species... We took a lot of screenshots also, as the gameworld is gorgeous.

2. Gorogoa

It's a nice, short puzzler more in line with the capabilities of five-year-olds than your examples of The Witness and Talos principle (if I wasn't in a friendly mood I would say you're full of it, but I won't ).. Wholesome, contemplative experience with a picture book visuals, its gimmick is based on rearrangement and manipulation of parts of the images. Modest point and click affair but since it was his first in the genre, I sympathized with his infatuation with it. On several occasions we had to seek help from walkthroughs, but that's because I suck at these types of games...

3. Hidden folks

Hidden object game, with DIY aesthetics... I love the sounds which developers made by themselves. We spent a lot of time on it, and have it installed on my android phone. Even my wife who opposes the notion of raising a child to be a gamür enjoyed it... That's saying a lot, believe me

I can also recommend old Disney platformers, such as Aladdin, The Lion King, and The Jungle Book coupled with watching them off course.. Better than this grooming shit the studio produces today. Happy gaming dad who sacrifices free time to play with his children!

 

[Tehdagah]

Goof Troop on an emulator (or maybe a real SNES?) should be a lot of fun, especially in two-player mode.

I absolutely love this game. Unbelievable how no one has ever made a spiritual successor.

There are romhacks

 

[Viata]

Nice. Will give it a try.

 

[Zlaja]

Team Hospital

Sly Cooper games

Harvest Moon

 

[CoronerZg]

Brothers: Tale of Two Sons

+1, very underappreciated game

 

[Viata]

Please, at least post glorious SNES graphics Harvest Moon. Not that shit.

 

[3 others]

From personal experience I can wholeheartedly recommend these games as I played them with my four year old son and he, even after a year, still remembers them fondly and often talks about them...

1. Abzu
It's atmospheric exploration game about reviving ancient waterworld.. You control extraterrestrial diver swimming through primeval sea, gathering information about marine life and learning about submerged civilization whose remnants he encounters along the way... In subtle way, without extensive infodumps and through environmental gameplay, it relates itself with Sumerian and Babylonian creation myths. My son is fascinated by water creatures, prehistoric and contemporary, since he grew up watching Jeremy Wade's River monsters (I've been planning to take him fishing with my friends for a while now and to buy him Ultimate Fishing Simulator), so it was really nice to watch as he enthusiastically recognized different species... We took a lot of screenshots also, as the gameworld is gorgeous.

2. Gorogoa
It's a nice, short puzzler more in line with the capabilities of five-year-olds than your examples of The Witness and Talos principle (if I wasn't in a friendly mood I would say you're full of it, but I won't ).. Wholesome, contemplative experience with a picture book visuals, its gimmick is based on rearrangement and manipulation of parts of the images. Modest point and click affair but since it was his first in the genre, I sympathized with his infatuation with it. On several occasions we had to seek help from walkthroughs, but that's because I suck at these types of games...

3. Hidden folks
Hidden object game, with DIY aesthetics... I love the sounds which developers made by themselves. We spent a lot of time on it, and have it installed on my android phone. Even my wife who opposes the notion of raising a child to be a gamür enjoyed it... That's saying a lot, believe me

I can also recommend old Disney platformers, such as Aladdin, The Lion King, and The Jungle Book coupled with watching them off course.. Better than this grooming shit the studio produces today. Happy gaming dad who sacrifices free time to play with his children!

Thanks for the suggestions. The 5yo in question watched me play Gorogoa last year but she wasn't really drawn into it. I'm going to give it another shot. The other ones seem to be just what I'm looking for, too.

As for The Witness being suitable for kids: despite its reputation for being challenging, plenty of areas had loads of introductory puzzles. And it certainly depends on the child's affinities. For my daughter, the tetris blocks, light reflection puzzles, and castle areas that require mapping environmental cues to the grids were totally incomprehensible, but she managed to make plenty of progress elsewhere as long as I took the time to go through the puzzle rules with her via Socratic dialogue . And the game is beautiful in itself. Very suitable for Baby's First Walking Sim.

 

[3 others]

With my daughter - we both really enjoyed playing "Beyond Good and Evil" which never got too violent or such. And it had a lot of fun moments. A combination adventure, racing, and combat type game - with stealth thrown in as well as item collecting. There is a bit of communication, but there are a few languages to choose from.

Damn, this was a nice game. Can't think of it fitting for preschoolers but let's keep this in mind for the future. Unfortunately I have no optical drive and I must CD.

With my son, we played "A Boy and his Blob" on the Wii but they seem to have a more colorful version available for PC now. Nice puzzle game that gets more progressively complex as you go along. Very little communication, and not required to advance the story.

Oh man, I have this on WiiWare in my ancient console. Wonder if it still works after a decade of downtime. The game was quite frustrating though, wasn't it? Throw magic bean off-screen --> hope that Blob ate it and turned into a trampoline -> jump down -> fall to your death because Blob didn't, in fact, eat the bean and turn into a trampoline

Thanks.

 

[Lim-Dûl]

HoMM3 hotseat. Strategic gameplay, doesn't require quick reflexes, good looking graphics, replayability, no weird political stuff. Pirates are also cool if you install Horn of the Abyss mod.

 

[Ivan]

mentioning Chuchel made me listen to this earworm again. the yelling always makes me laugh