This is a great multiplayer game.
Also I agree with Goose and Stardew, both seem like they’d be good for kids. I dunno I don’t have kids though
Ooh, that looks like a good call. That’s going on my list, thanks.
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Agree, but, during this lockdown, the school have been recommending games for her to play on the tablet so there’s no way she’s not going to be exposed to some level of gaming. I figure it’s so ingrained in the culture now that, as you say, it’d be similar to trying to stop her watching tv.
I might as well take advantage of the situation and have some fun with her. I mean, teach her how to play video games in a sensible, responsible, manner.
Yeah, I feel the same way. And over the course of COVID I’ve given her a lot of games, and if anything wish I had given her some more and different games. She’s going back to school in March and I keep thinking things like, “man, I wish I had ordered pokemon art studio sooner!”
Here are a few quasi-educational game suggestions, that my 4 y.o. kid liked…
(She’s going back to school now, so this is all sort of moot for us now…)
Scribblenauts Unlimited (every platform)
You solve people’s problems by typing things into existence. For example, you see a kitten stuck in a tree, you might solve the problem by writing “ladder” or “wings” or “chainsaw”. The game doesn’t exactly have set answers, but a huge dictionary of objects that are each coded with properties. When she was younger, I would play and just tell her the problems (“This person is sick”… “get a doctor!” or “I need to fix a car”… “use a tool!”). Now she can read but not spell or type, so I’m constantly having to spell out “w-e-d-d-i-n-g” and “p-r-i-n-c-e-s-s” over and over again.
Magnus’ Kingdom of Chess (app)
Wonderful little App that teaches the rules of chess by moving around individual pieces across the world. She played through it a bunch when she was 3 and played with me a bunch and now knows how to play chess, basically.
Note she’s not good at chess. And I don’t care if she ever gets good at chess. What I like is that it it encourages a sort of thinking. And I like having a board game that’s not candy-land or chutes and ladders.
Disney Art School (Nintendo DS/2ds/3ds/Wii U?)
My kid ****ing loves drawing girls wearing dresses… Like really ****ing loves it. So I got her this game that teaches you how to draw Disney characters using a simplified adobe-illustrator.
Of course, really my kid just traces princesses over and over again, and mostly ignores the educational content. But I like it anyway, because somewhere in the grind she really does get interested in thinking about pictures, and composition, and techniques. So every once in a while she tells me something about shadows or highlights. Or plays with drafting. Or layers. She also tries drawing things that aren’t princesses every once in a while, like Genie or Simba, which is all more than she does when left to her own devices.
Game 2: Phogs!
That’s pretty much 2 weeks on, a bit more, and we finished this today. It’s been lockdown, and Gargette has loved it, so we’ve probably got 20-25 hours out of this. Your mileage will depend on the attractiveness of falling off ledges and buying hats compared to progression…
The game itself, you play as a phog - a meat tube with a dog head at either end. Your body stretches, your mouth bites/grabs/barks. That’s about it. Gameplay is pretty standard puzzle/platformer.
The 2 playerness comes from, as you’ve probably guessed, each controlling one of the 2 heads. 3 levels - food, sleep, play - and a final session, 6 levels and a boss in each.
The thing that works really well with a kid is that most of the time one head is doing the hard work. When one head grabs a water pipe, or a light, or a wind blower, it comes out the other one’s mouth to be aimed at something. Or plain old swinging to grab something. Either way, it means that Gargette could look at the puzzle and decide if she wanted to do the tricky bit, or just hold on.
My initial concern was the learning curve, and whether the difficulty ramped up too much. It didn’t. There was one bit that we couldn’t do co-op, and I had to look up a walkthrough. And it was stupidly, if not difficult, certainly out of line with the rest of the game. But it was one puzzle, near the end of the game.
The game logic is all clear, you pour water on a plant it grows, you shine light on dark clouds and they disappear.
Big plus, as always, was the lack of punishment for f***ing up. You fall off the edge, most of the time you’re right back where you were. Gargette loved falling off then telling me “I think we need to fall” while I tried to drag her back up. It never meant we lost a load of hard earned progress.
Highlights: the play levels, which have you playing variations of mini golf, air hockey, pinball and the like, adding some variety (more appreciated by the grown up to be honest!).
Negatives: a little glitchy. A couple of times we had to quit and go back the next day. Again, of more concern to the grown up…
I’m in danger of going full “Homer as a food critic” here, but this was brilliant. As a single player, I imagine the controls would be a pain in the hole. With 2 grown ups, it’d be fun, but of minimal challenge.
The way we played it? Superb. Gargette wants to start it again. So do I.
I think it might be Overcooked next. But the schools are back tomorrow, so I have a few days to decide.
I tried Untitled Goose Gaming with a bit with Little-Vashtar. She still very much struggles with reaching buttons (I tried getting her an 8bitdo minicontroller, but it lacked buttons :/)
Anyway, she loves running around honking and stealing shit and causing mayhem. Which is the point of the game.
I admit, I was a little worried about getting her a game that teaches you to be an asshole… But, actually, one thing I really like about it is that the joke is the same for both of us. Usually, watching Pixar or Netflix or whatever, there’s some jokes (and themes and ideas and characters) that are for me and some jokes that are for her, and a lot of things that operate on two levels simultaneously.
But… with the goose game… there’s no grownup level. It appeals to the 4 year old inside all of us. It just takes her a lot fewer drinks to start laughing.
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I play Grand Theft Auto with my 6 yr old.
He likes when I beat up the prostitutes.
I like puzzle games.
Portal, etc.
Games like mario just frustrates me when I can’t beat a level
I used to play pokemon sword with my kids, but now all they want to do is play mario kart. We are stuck on the 4th gym. I would continue the game without them on my own, but then I would feel bad for when they decide to come back to it in six months.
It’s annoying that Pokemon only allows one save version.
Whatever the Pokemon game is that’s on the Switch right now is… not what I remember Pokemon being. You don’t even get to fight wild Pokemon?!
Of course you do. Pokemon Sword is great.
I think your thinking of the Let’s go games which don’t allow fighting wild pokemon. Pokemon Sword/Shield is a traditional game.
Okay then we definitely need one of those better games.
Pokemon sword is controversial. I like it. I haven’t played a Pokemon game since Blue +20 years ago.
It’s like everything that game was supposed to be reimagined in 3d. The pokemon just walk out of the wild area.
Maybe watch a few youtube video reviews before you buy it.
Apparently people who have been buying Pokemon for the past 25 years aren’t impressed with the iterative small change approach the developer (Game Freak) has taken.
If you haven’t played it yet, get baba is you. Also, gorogoa is a trippy puzzle game that i think you’d like, if you haven’t played it already.
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I love trippy and I love puzzles!
Then i really think this game is for you. It’s not a long game. I probably completed it in a weekend. But i had a lot of fun, and still enjoy thinking about it.
I bought it on my switch, but if you have a tablet (or maybe a touch screen laptop) I think that would be the best interface.
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I found gorgoa pretty and mehhhh like myst. Baba is you is great though. My daughter also likes it when I “disguise myself as the winner”.
not sure if trolling. beating up prostitutes in a child’s video game is a real thing?