The Game Recommendation For Your Kids thread

I randomly stumbled upon Disneyland Adventures on Game Pass, which seems like they gave the Planet Coaster people some money to re-create Disneyland in their engine. From what I've seen so far, game mechanics are pretty simple, which is perfect for my daughter. And, given that she loves Disneyland, it's a great way for her to pick up 3D movement controls.

My only complaint watching this (so far ... she's only been playing for an hour or so) is that they do mini-games for the rides, which is fine, but I wish they'd re-create some of the rides in the Planet Coaster first-person view.

Anyway, if you've got kids who like Disney, I'm sure they can get a few hours of enjoyment out of roaming around Disneyland.

My kids are liking that too. It's not amazing, but it's fine. The navigation and hit boxes on a lot of the interaction points are super finicky. It's also really obviously intended for kinect, and it sucks that they didn't do more to improve the not-kinect experience. Like, in the bits where you take a photo, it gives you several seconds to pose, except without the camera, you can't do anything except stand there while the timer runs out.

The Pixar Rush game is a similar thing.

billt721 wrote:

I randomly stumbled upon Disneyland Adventures on Game Pass, which seems like they gave the Planet Coaster people some money to re-create Disneyland in their engine. From what I've seen so far, game mechanics are pretty simple, which is perfect for my daughter. And, given that she loves Disneyland, it's a great way for her to pick up 3D movement controls.

My only complaint watching this (so far ... she's only been playing for an hour or so) is that they do mini-games for the rides, which is fine, but I wish they'd re-create some of the rides in the Planet Coaster first-person view.

Anyway, if you've got kids who like Disney, I'm sure they can get a few hours of enjoyment out of roaming around Disneyland.

It’s a fun zen-ish game to just not think and walk around the park and decompress in times of high stress.

My kids played a lot of Disneyland Adventures and Pixar Rush and go back once in a while these days.

Now that I've had about a week of playing Minecraft Dungeons with my kids I feel comfortable recommending it but be aware it isn't yet a polished game and has some rough edges when playing couch co-op with kids. Discussion has been happening here:
https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/...

Minecraft Dungeons is on Game Pass for Xbox and PC so It's pretty easy to try.

Here are some great games for kids that are currently included in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality by itch.io

If you haven't seen that bundle yet, it's a collection of over 1,500 indie games and tools for $5 - An amazing deal!

Three games that have recently been added to the bundle from the developer Vectorpark

Pre-school

Sandcastles
Conjure castles from the sand, watch the sea consume them.​

Windosill
The classic point-and-click puzzle-toy.

Metamorphabet
A playful, interactive alphabet.

(his games are also available to buy on mobile)

School

Hidden Folks
Search for hidden folks in hand-drawn, interactive, miniature landscapes. Unfurl tent flaps, cut through bushes, slam doors, and poke some crocodiles!

A Short Hike
Hike, climb, and soar through the peaceful mountainside landscapes of Hawk Peak Provincial Park.

Note: If you buy the bundle you will get a seperate page for downloading the games.

Edit: Here are a couple more that I've found in the bundle.

GNOG is a playful puzzle game about exploring monstrous virtual toys. Press, pull, slide, grab, click, and rotate every GNOG head to uncover its secrets! - I played this one with my then 8 yr old niece and it got the thumbs up.

Pikuniku is an absurdly wonderful puzzle-exploration game that takes place in a strange but playful world where not everything is as happy as it seems. - I haven't played this one but it has good reviews.

A Short Hike is definitely the best 'first platformer', I love that game. Just requires some reading ability, the rest is 4+ territory (probably not completable under 5 or 6 though? Not that it matters, fun exploring)

Playing through Donut County with my 6 year old, it's great.

I enjoyed playing A Short Hike and plan to play through it again with my 9 yr old niece very soon.

I've found a couple more good kid friendly games in the bundle I hi-lighted in my post above, I'll edit them in there.

Looking for Switch games my 3 year old could enjoy.
Any driving games for that age?
Or any other suggestions. She's seen me playing the switch e.g. when she wakes up from a nap and was fascinated.
Or co-op requiring minimal input from the second player?

Thanks.

Just finished Super Mario Odyssey with my 3yo....meaning I played 98% of it in assist mode with him giving orders and occasionally taking the controller from me to grab a moon or be a dinosaur.

There is a co-op mode where the second player can control the hat, but we only tried that once.

Zwickle wrote:

Looking for Switch games my 3 year old could enjoy.
Any driving games for that age?
Or any other suggestions. She's seen me playing the switch e.g. when she wakes up from a nap and was fascinated.
Or co-op requiring minimal input from the second player?

Thanks.

I'll second Super Mario Odyssey and say that Mario Kart was the first game I got my kids playing. After that, Minecraft. Now we're playing Minecraft Dungeons as a party of four several times a week - my initial criticisms of the game in its thread, while, I think, legitimate, have been overcome by the fun we're having.

Mario Kart with the helper modes enabled is easily playable by a 3yo and scales nicely with them as they age

Any recommendations for coding games for a 5yo?

Recently picked up Human Resource Machine and 7 Billion Humans, from the creators of World of Goo and Little Inferno. They are fantastic and cute games for learning some basic coding, but too much reading right now for someone who is still learning to read.

Strewth wrote:

Any recommendations for coding games for a 5yo?

Recently picked up Human Resource Machine and 7 Billion Humans, from the creators of World of Goo and Little Inferno. They are fantastic and cute games for learning some basic coding, but too much reading right now for someone who is still learning to read.

Robot Turtles - it's a board game, but it's age appropriate.

Strewth wrote:

Any recommendations for coding games for a 5yo?

Recently picked up Human Resource Machine and 7 Billion Humans, from the creators of World of Goo and Little Inferno. They are fantastic and cute games for learning some basic coding, but too much reading right now for someone who is still learning to read.

Scratch Jr

It’s not exactly a game. It’s more like a simple visual programming toolkit that lets them make games and stories and so on. The elementary schools here use it to teach programming. I think my daughter first tried it when she was 6. She likes making stories where the characters move around and talk to each other (recorded audio in the app).

While I do love Human Resource Machine and similar games myself I’ve had no luck getting my young kids to play them.

Osiran wrote:

Does anyone have recent experience with Roblox?

The best advice I can give is don't even get started. My 7 year old started playing it because he had a scheduled Zoom session with some of his friends from class, and that's what he wanted to play. So I made it happen

They were happily happily playing a train simulator on it. Then went to a pizza delivery game. I go step away for a few minutes and hear "Get the SMG!" Come back and discover they had moved on to a D-Day game.

There are no ratings on any of the games, there is no parental or content controls on anything that is there. Any child can launch any game that anyone has made.

All the computer's hosts files now block Roblox

Yup, I'll second the kybosh on Roblox, it can go from kid-safe to explicit in a single line of text, and there is a noticeable segment of players who delight in seeding servers, putting on their porn skins and filling chat with awful stuff.

My son is desperate to play since 'all the kids at school' (actually two kids in his class) are allowed to play, but my brief sojourn was fraught with awfulness and corroborrations with other savvy parents have turned up strikingly similar stories.

Jonman wrote:
Strewth wrote:

Any recommendations for coding games for a 5yo?

Recently picked up Human Resource Machine and 7 Billion Humans, from the creators of World of Goo and Little Inferno. They are fantastic and cute games for learning some basic coding, but too much reading right now for someone who is still learning to read.

Robot Turtles - it's a board game, but it's age appropriate.

I have that and my kid likes it... but man I don't get the 'fun' part of it. Could probably use some youtube searching to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Anyone got recommendations for a steamlink compatible controller that also is good for 4 year old hands? With Rocket League coming out FTP, I might actually get into it with him, and the steamlink seems to be my best option.

manta173 wrote:

Anyone got recommendations for a steamlink compatible controller that also is good for 4 year old hands? With Rocket League coming out FTP, I might actually get into it with him, and the steamlink seems to be my best option.

According to this wiki, most of the ones you would want to work should, but I haven't personally tried them. (I do use a Steam Link, but with mouse + keyboard.)

I've used DS4s with a Steam Link, and a wired 360 controller.

I’ve used a Switch pro controller and the 8bitdo Pro plus I think. Though it’s been a while, and not very frequently. Seemed to work fine.

The problem with controllers for a 4yo is hand-size. My daughter couldn't handle anything bigger than an original NES or SNES sized controller at that age.

billt721 wrote:

The problem with controllers for a 4yo is hand-size. My daughter couldn't handle anything bigger than an original NES or SNES sized controller at that age.

This is my main concern... I was hoping someone found an oddball that was smaller.

manta173 wrote:
billt721 wrote:

The problem with controllers for a 4yo is hand-size. My daughter couldn't handle anything bigger than an original NES or SNES sized controller at that age.

This is my main concern... I was hoping someone found an oddball that was smaller.

Joycons. If you've got a Switch knocking about, get Rocket League on that.

Jonman wrote:
manta173 wrote:
billt721 wrote:

The problem with controllers for a 4yo is hand-size. My daughter couldn't handle anything bigger than an original NES or SNES sized controller at that age.

This is my main concern... I was hoping someone found an oddball that was smaller.

Joycons. If you've got a Switch knocking about, get Rocket League on that.

Always been a PC gamer. Not against having a switch per se... Just don't know that I want to invest in it now when he is too young to play alone. 2 new controllers for the steam link with my massive library on PC are probably what I'm going to stay with until he is a little older. I'm mostly looking to get him on the Lego games and rocket league... as those seem to be popular for younger kids and I will enjoy them as well.

Fair enough. Have you tried your kid on it at the computer? I only ask because Rocket League sounds like a lot for a 4 year old. My 6 year old wouldn't be able to manage it.

Nintendo and kids is an incredible match. I thought I bought the Switch for myself, but it's perfect for my 6 year old son. He started with Lego Marvel but I quickly learned that the Mario games are what he prefers. Odyssey, Rabbids, and Kart 8 are his favorites by far.

Jonman wrote:

Fair enough. Have you tried your kid on it at the computer? I only ask because Rocket League sounds like a lot for a 4 year old. My 6 year old wouldn't be able to manage it.

I'm honestly basing it off of Giantbomb kid rearing...lol It might be too much, but he's starting to build stuff on his own in minecraft... abstract would be a kind word... but still walls and a roof. His capability with movement controls is increasing because he has a desire to do so. Rocket League is just something we can try now and then drop if he has no interest.

His current favorite thing is to watch me play slime rancher for him... but keyboard and mouse is too much for him to control. And I haven't tried figuring out how to get the steam link to work with the only compatible controller in the house... my old barely touched PS3 controller. I figured I could try some more modern ones assuming I could find something his size.

peanut3141 wrote:

Nintendo and kids is an incredible match. I thought I bought the Switch for myself, but it's perfect for my 6 year old son. He started with Lego Marvel but I quickly learned that the Mario games are what he prefers. Odyssey, Rabbids, and Kart 8 are his favorites by far.

I assume we will migrate over to the Nintendo here in the next year or 2... but he's 4 right now and I want to work on playing with him a bit more before letting him bang his head against a wall in a solo game. I know there are co-op games for switch, but I have giant hands and am apprehensive about the tiny little joycons. Maybe I can get a second normal sized controller I can use to play with him... But I still think it might be better to wait a bit.

manta173 wrote:

I assume we will migrate over to the Nintendo here in the next year or 2... but he's 4 right now and I want to work on playing with him a bit more before letting him bang his head against a wall in a solo game. I know there are co-op games for switch, but I have giant hands and am apprehensive about the tiny little joycons. Maybe I can get a second normal sized controller I can use to play with him... But I still think it might be better to wait a bit.

The switch pro controller is a very nice controller for adult sized hands. These were good for his hands while he was in that 3-4 age range, though now at 6 the pro controller works well for him too.

peanut3141 wrote:
manta173 wrote:

I assume we will migrate over to the Nintendo here in the next year or 2... but he's 4 right now and I want to work on playing with him a bit more before letting him bang his head against a wall in a solo game. I know there are co-op games for switch, but I have giant hands and am apprehensive about the tiny little joycons. Maybe I can get a second normal sized controller I can use to play with him... But I still think it might be better to wait a bit.

The switch pro controller is a very nice controller for adult sized hands. These were good for his hands while he was in that 3-4 age range, though now at 6 the pro controller works well for him too.

Nice I hadn't seen those before. At 4 how was gaming on the switch? What co-op games did your kid enjoy?