Children Friendly beginner games

[Jacob_1999]

Good afternoon! I am looking for some suggestions for young children's games, that I can play with my daughter. She is 3.5 and has been enjoying watching me play games like City Skylines and Jurrasic world evolution. I'd love some suggestions if anyone has suggestions. Ideally games we can eventually play together as I want this to be family time. Also, Im aware she is too young for most. But I'd rather start introducing her now and continue to drive interest so that when she is more able we can actually play together. 

 

Thank you all and have a wonderful day 

[Jacob_1999]

Im also open to games you have had success with your kids watching along with. 

[OhioYJ]

I would suggest the Lego games. As almost all of them can be played co-op. So even if she doesn't fully understand the mission, she will have fun messing around, and you can help her. 

 

Also if you search on Steam, there are tons of Disney games geared kids. Most of them or just basically collections of mini-games based on whatever movie, but they are simple mostly geared towards kids. Not to mention if you find one based on whatever movie or character she happens to like, she'll likely have fun. 

 

Fighting games? I know what you're thinking probably... However, you can find some of these that you can filter the violence, or aren't so violent (don't have the blood and such). My son enjoyed these as he could just mash buttons and have fun doing it. Honestly since I'm not so great at them anyways, him just mashing buttons meant he could beat me anyways half the time. 

[Jacob_1999]

1 hour ago, OhioYJ said:

I would suggest the Lego games. As almost all of them can be played co-op. So even if she doesn't fully understand the mission, she will have fun messing around, and you can help her. 

 

Also if you search on Steam, there are tons of Disney games geared kids. Most of them or just basically collections of mini-games based on whatever movie, but they are simple mostly geared towards kids. Not to mention if you find one based on whatever movie or character she happens to like, she'll likely have fun. 

 

Fighting games? I know what you're thinking probably... However, you can find some of these that you can filter the violence, or aren't so violent (don't have the blood and such). My son enjoyed these as he could just mash buttons and have fun doing it. Honestly since I'm not so great at them anyways, him just mashing buttons meant he could beat me anyways half the time. 

What great ideas! im looking through the Lego games now! and a fighting games sounds like a great idea

[Jacob_1999]

58 minutes ago, 8tg said:

The sims, older ones like the first game for a lack of complexity. It’s a game to work at your own pace, and is generally fun to play with kinda like a virtual dollhouse. When I was very young my dad was super into mechwarrior and halo, and those were super fun to watch but as I small child I was very dumb and couldn’t figure out how to play mechwarrior, halo took me a while.

My mom played a lot of simulation games, ie the sims, simcity, roller coaster tycoon and assorted online games from the likes of pogo.

Those types of games have the benefit of being able to play them in a very simple or very complex manner, so kids can learn at their own pace how to improve what they’re doing by implementing new features whenever they feel like, without any risk of failure. 
For example, your cities skylines city doesn’t need busses, or trains, or boats or anything like that. You can play cities skylines with one type of road, 3 types of zoning, power and water, and you will still have a mostly successful city. When you hit a limitation with those is where you can add new things to alleviate those limitations. This means you can still succeed with the bare minimum, but can succeed even more grandly with more stuff later.

This applies to almost all of those simulation games. In the sims, you don’t need floors, or paint, or even walls really, even a bathroom is optional. Roller coaster tycoon or similar games you don’t need to make crazy custom coasters, you can drop in prebuilt stuff, and let the game sort it out for you.

Games like that are also just topic neutral, I personally wouldn’t want to show a young kid halo early on. Fantasy sci fi aliens aside, even in halo 1 you’re still blowing their guts out all over the walls, and the flood is genuinely terrifying.

Take the sci fi out of the equation and shooters In general are still just too violent in my eyes. Though arcadey wave shooters like ratchet and clank are fantastic for young kids to get into a game that lets you lose, and tells you how to do better.

 

The sims 1 is my primary choice for getting a young child involved with games you can play with them, If you want to make it easier for a kid, pick up an original Xbox and the xbox version of the sims 1. The controller simplifies things into colorful buttons.

 

Also get the classic family console, pick up a Wii and Wii sports, that’s all you need. Or a switch and it’s modern equivalent, but I’m 26 so I remember the Wii as the family console.

 

 

Ill have to see if we can get a family switch. Maybe ill snag the Switch 2 when it comes out. Also gonna try to let her go on a sim city at some point. Great ideas thank you 

[DeerDK]

i know its a "cheap" shot, but Minecraft on Peaceful has been very popular with my kids. Its mostly been me playing with the kids giving input on what to do, but lately my oldest (5yo at the time) started playing by himself on the ipad. We have shifted from survival to creative to let him unfold, but it seems like he has grown tired of just spawning 100 endermen, so I think we will return to survival soon.

 

Lego games are also great, be aware that some of them may be a bit scary for the little ones.

 

Ive tried a bit civilization, my son was open to that, and while I havent tested it yet, i can imagine that some simulators may be fun as well.