'But what about the children?' Gaming for young badgers - The Bear and Badger

Time_on_my_hands

RedDave2 wrote:

There should be more dicking about games for rubbish kids.

Yeah, often I find my daughter enjoys playing a game only to find the games need to be a proper game gets in the way. She loves the virtual doll stuff on my phone. Mario kart is another winner. But the Lego games kept trying to get her to progress which just annoyed her.

Have you tried Lego Worlds? It's just mucking about in a lego sandbox. The UI is a bit pants but that's the only real learning curve. My 8 yo daughter loves it. Like you say, Maybe girls are put off by strict objectives in games (ironic considering she loves bossing me around and is otherwise very competitive).

RamSteelwood

Minecraft is like crack for kids. It's still the only game that my two go back to regularly and play for longer periods.
They don't even play it 'properly', they just go on the same world in creative mode and build themselves houses/hotels/farms...then usually stop playing when they fall out either because one of them went to the other's house before they were allowed to visit, or because one didn't come when they were invited.
They have enjoyed other games, and will play the likes of Mario Kart etc., but invariably to get them to go back to any other game (ie. that I might want to play) takes some coercion, whereas minecraft is almost always their pick.
I would say that 1-2 Switch is pretty good for kids too.

Moot_Geeza

Anyone tried any of the edutainment stuff? It's Spring Again on Switch is okay, but only for really young kids (2 to 5 tops) and only for a quid or two as it's over in 20 minutes and isn't particularly replayable. Also bought one called Guess the Word yesterday, which went down quite well. It's a sort of Pictionary thing where they slide jumbled letters into position as a picture reveals itself. Decent enough for £1.60, both are only playable undocked. She got 'SHIP' before I did, which wasn't my finest moment.

Facewon

Time_on_my_hands wrote:

RedDave2 wrote:

There should be more dicking about games for rubbish kids.

Yeah, often I find my daughter enjoys playing a game only to find the games need to be a proper game gets in the way. She loves the virtual doll stuff on my phone. Mario kart is another winner. But the Lego games kept trying to get her to progress which just annoyed her.

Have you tried Lego Worlds? It's just mucking about in a lego sandbox. The UI is a bit pants but that's the only real learning curve. My 8 yo daughter loves it. Like you say, Maybe girls are put off by strict objectives in games (ironic considering she loves bossing me around and is otherwise very competitive).

My 5 year old likes the Lego games, but not too flash on doing actual missions. Doesn't help that they have random bits that are actually hard to work out.

She'll happily faff about in the hub on the Lego movie game though, so I've just bought worlds. Will be testing out this week.

pandajimmy

I haven't got kids of my own but my nieces really struggle with 3D games. I've either done a very poor job of choosing the right games or they're just used to playing on their iPads but they really struggle with controlling the camera with the right anologue stick. I tried Treasure Tracker recently thinking it would be less stressful for them and it was a complete flops. Anybody got other recommendations?

Moot_Geeza

Something where the camera isn't your concern might work, Odyssey maybe? You can move it but the view tries to adjust itself to keep you in view.

monkey

Kirby and Yoshi are 2D and both have demos

pandajimmy

The eldest one is nine and struggled with Odyssey. For shame.

Yoshi sounds more like it

The Daddy

Only just seen this thread but it’s well timed for me as the boy is taking an increasing interest in games. Problem is he really seems to like the ones with fighting in. Fortunately Smash Bros on wiiU seems to scratch that itch. MK on 3DS and switch are favourites as well, and we’ve been playing through DQXI together.

Time_on_my_hands

My 5 year old likes the Lego games, but not too flash on doing actual missions. Doesn't help that they have random bits that are actually hard to work out.

She'll happily faff about in the hub on the Lego movie game though, so I've just bought worlds. Will be testing out this week.

Just to warn you, it's not as slick as the other lego games and plays like a tech demo at times. But if you can get past the poor camera, draw distance and pop up, there's a lot of charm. If I hadn't been couch cooping with the sprog I'd have been less forgiving, but we must have sunk close to 100 hours or more into it over the last year (it was pretty much the only game she played).

Time_on_my_hands

Can I recommend this controller for kids playing PS4 games? It's really good if they can't use the sticks and bumpers on a normal pad.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wired-Mini-Gamepad-Kids-PlayStation/dp/B076PPD3TJ/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550609278&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=kids+ps4+controller&dpPl=1&dpID=418Q6XoqMNL&ref=plSrch

Some games my daughter also likes on the PS4 : Child of Light - it's quite an in depth RPG but there's a couch coop option to help out and work through it together. However, we've dropped this one because she wanted to progress the story and she wound up missing a lot of the levelling up, so her character's a bit under-powered. May return to it, though.

Injustice, Gods among us : she likes superheroes, and you can skip the cut scenes (eg the rather macabre Joker one). I only showed her this as a (rather irresponsible) joke because she saw me playing it, but it turns out she loves the 2 player vs battles. Perhaps choose one that also works as a button masher - Kung Fu Panda is also good.

Tearaway : Quite advanced, but it's a good introduction to 3rd person mechanics if they're getting into games.

MattyJ

I think my son would play Minecraft literally all day if I let him.

hylian_elf

My 5yo is managing Rayman quite well. He didn’t do so well on DK. Which makes sense, Rayman controls a lot better. Nowhere near as floaty or full of inertia etc. Rayman is also a far better game. Loving it so much with my Boy.

He didn’t do too bad on Odyssey. Juts a bit overwhelming with size of stage and go anywhere and 3D etc. Just pure left to right works good for him at the moment.

Facewon

Time_on_my_hands wrote:

My 5 year old likes the Lego games, but not too flash on doing actual missions. Doesn't help that they have random bits that are actually hard to work out. She'll happily faff about in the hub on the Lego movie game though, so I've just bought worlds. Will be testing out this week.

Just to warn you, it's not as slick as the other lego games and plays like a tech demo at times. But if you can get past the poor camera, draw distance and pop up, there's a lot of charm. If I hadn't been couch cooping with the sprog I'd have been less forgiving, but we must have sunk close to 100 hours or more into it over the last year (it was pretty much the only game she played).

Fair, started yesterday, once I work out how to set up some stuff for her to do, it might be better.

it is technically early access, so tech demo isn't the worst comp.

Time_on_my_hands

Hold on - Lego Worlds is early access??!

Facewon

Yep.

Facewon

*mind blown gif*

Time_on_my_hands

You said it - though possibly a facepalm would be more appropriate. It's got 3 expansions and has been on sale for over a year. And it's early access. WTF - is this the lego version of Star Citizen?

Moot_Geeza

Super Chariot on Switch is a nice little game, I think it was just called Chariot on the previous round of consoles. Worth the £7 I paid, early days yet but Tilly seems to love it. The £18 standard price wouldn't work for me though.

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