VideoGame_Discussion

Very early. At around 2, I let my older daughter play Mario. She didn't get the concept of going to the right. Too early.

Then she got a bit older and loved Paw Patrol, so I let her play On the Roll, which at 4, she started to understand going to the right and got better with the controls. Soon she was hitting the max completion in the collectathon.

At 5-6, she started to have her own taste in games, particularly loves Pokemon, and I let her play Pokemon Sun and Crystal.

Now at 7, she loves Smash Bros. Ultimate and anything Kirby. I'm gonna let her start with one of the newer gen Pokemon.

My son is 2 and plays New Super Lucky's Tales. He's been playing for about 6 months now and can do quite a bit on his own. Whenever he gets stuck he asks for help. I try introducing new games and sometimes he'll enjoy them for a little bit, but he always goes back to NSLT.

I recently bought a racing wheel and Cruis'n Blast and he's been having fun with that. We also play Burnout Paradise, but he's mostly watching me right now as he learns to get better at controlling the steering.

We always set a timer for 15-20 minutes to have a healthy limit. He knows once the timer goes off he needs to turn off the Xbox. He's good most of the time, but there are some times I need to take the controller away.

About starting off on older systems, that might work well for slightly older kids that you can really explain all the concepts and help them through the perseverance part. NES games are brutal by comparison to most games these days. There are no tutorials and the games are much shorter so they depend on you dying a lot until you can memorize the patterns or timings.

My son is 3 and loves watching me play. I try to get him into some, but he doesn't seem to like them if he can't do exactly what he wants...he can't really make anything do exactly what he wants right now lol. he really likes just driving around in Rocket league...but anything needing precision is a ways off

sa330206 wrote:


We started at 4, and we limit their time to under an hour with no games on school days. I had the same thought to start them on NES, but they quickly wanted to play Switch games instead. (Sad face) The wife exposed them to phone games, and school to online tablet stuff. Soon all they wanted to do was go on a phone/tablet. I put a stop to that as they were finding inappropriate stuff, and asking to buy crap on free to play games. So now it's consoles/handheld only and no internet.

Mine started at 4 or so with peppa and paw patrol. She is 6 and only wants to play HFW now. Her hands are finally big enough to use the triggers and she’s made it all the way to the west coast by herself. She won’t play other stuff for long but Kirby, Minecraft, genshin etc have been interests. She’s really good about stopping and knowing it’s an uncommon reward to get to play. She loves any female character with a bow.

My older son is 4.5 and we started with Paw Patrol: On a Roll! on PS4 since it was free on PS+. He was able to get the basics of it down. We recently completed TMNT: Shredder's Revenge together and he enjoyed that. We tried the LEGO Ninjago game, but the 3D platforming is too difficult for him. Mario Kart 8 is also a little difficult for him without the auto-steer option enabled.

I'll probably try some Nintendo Switch Sports with him soon and let him mess around with Rock Band 4.

The controls on most 3D games require bigger hands, camera and character control etc. I never played a game with that degree of complexity until around 1996-1997 when I was 17-18 years old. Today’s kids are amazing.

I've been thinking a lot lately about hypothetically how best to introduce my nephew to videogames once he gets old enough. I have a DS Lite with Namco Museum so I'd consider that phase 0. I'm currently gathering up some DS games for my New 3DS XL which might be the best way to follow up the DS Lite. (stylus controls are kind of a detour as things stand right now, but I nonetheless assume it's something a kid would dig. And if nothing else it's something that doesn't require having much experience in traditional controls)

The reason Namco Museum seems great is bc (aside from Pac Man and Ms Pac Man) they introduce how a dpad works and its four directions. I considered Puzzle Quest as well for this exact reason, but that requires a bit more reading, on top of that the game really drags on.

One issue I was grappling with is how to best introduce Mega Man X. (Granted the games are difficult and a child might not figure out how to wall jump.) The handheld options are limited, and you need something with a good Start button bc the games use that a lot.

Sonic is pretty straightforwards, there's Sonic Origins, which is on a lot of things.

Mario is a bit more complex. When I first owned SMW I did not know how the run button works. I didn't use it until I realized it was required in Donut Plains 1 (you're trapped in that screen unless you wall run and I needed my sister to explain it to me, and even then I didn't get it. That screen barely even gives enough space to get to running speed!). Pretty much the only option is Mario All Stars + World which iirc has the button mappings shown when you select a game to play. It's better than nothing... possibly a good way to follow up from Sonic possibly, once the child is ready for something more advanced than Sonic's one button control scheme.

P.S. Captain Toad on the Switch seems like the perfect kids game. I have only played the demo but the game seems to require literally no talent. There's not even any platforming. The character moves slow, there's even some touch/pointing thrown in to manipulate parts of the environment which I assume might be appealing to kids.

This might get a bit long winded so I'll start with the TL:DR,
All of my kids started gaming around 4 or 5. I started each of them out with some kind of handheld device, a Kids Fire tablet, a 3DS, before they started taking an interest in console video games. I started them out with kids games, Paw Patrol, La La Loopsey, Nintendogs, Cooking Mama...

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My oldest, now 13, started out playing through several of the Skylanders games. It was a great time buying, collecting, and leveling each toy character. Fast forward to now, and she isn't as much in to games. She plays Mario Kart, Minecraft, and Fortnite from time to time. Oh, she does love the Marvel Spider-Man games. She's looking forward to the sequel and also Hogwartz Legacy.

My son of 10 is the big gamer. Some of his first games were Minecraft, Rocket League, and the LEGO Movie, Marvel, and Star Wars games. He now plays online with a few of his friends. He plays Madden, WWE, Fortnite, Apex Legends. He's always down to try a new game and has even leveled a character on FFXIV with dear old Dad, though we've been on hiatus since beating Endwalker.

My youngest at 6 just started getting into video games. She hadn't shown interest until recently. The first major hit for her is/was Bugsnax. She likes to play Fortnite when her bro will let her join him. Her latest game is Goat Simulator 3, it's a bit mature at times, but it mostly goes over the kids' head. Hilarious game for kids and adults. Lots of pop. culture reference. She also played a lot of Kirby Forgotten Land and New Pokemon Snap.

Of course, as a family we still enjoy a game of Mario party, Wii Sports, or Just Dance.

Sadly, I have failed in some small way because anytime I boot up a game of old, I get the "Eww, Dad, why are you playing that. It and you are sooo old!". I'm also still waiting for the day that one or all of them venture into more story-driven and RPG type games. None are interested in those as of now.