Educational and Kid friendly game suggestions

[CyNicole]

I'm sprucing up an old pc to give to some of my little cousins for Christmas. Their parents are not tech savvy in any way, even downloading and installing games is beyond their capabilities, so that's going to fall to me.

Parents, do you have any suggestions of kid friendly games that I can download and install for them? Preferably educational stuff. It's for a 7 year old boy and a rather advanced 9 year old girl (she skipped a grade this year).

Rabbids coding is one I'm considering and maybe something like minecraft just for fun, but I have no idea what else is out there.

 

[superrob]

GTA 5 Online, allows children to meet new people and learn languages from around the world(You'll be surprised at just how many curse words there are from around the world which mean pretty much the same thing in a friendlier way) plus they get bonus content of experiencing modders first hand during their early years

 

[TheJudge]

Minecraft is great, the stuff my son learned to build when he was younger (he's 8 now) was astounding.

What do they enjoy? I always tell people that even a basic game can be educational if it forces learning. My eldest son (autistic) has learned to read and write at home more than school because he needed to learn how to use Google and Youtube to find what he enjoys. As long as the game provides motivation the kids stand to learn reading/ writing/ math etc

 

[Bloodlines]

Monkey Island Games

 

[Areola Grande]

Roblox
Minecraft
Rabbids

The Incredible Machine
Lemmings
Sokoban
Tetris
Pinball
(Not even kidding about the above, they all teach different skills and they're a lot of fun. You may need a DosBox or something to get them running but once it's setup you should be fine)

Leisure Suit Larry
GTA V for linguistic learnings as well as reaction times and morality.
Cyberpunk to inspire an understanding of the way technology interfaces in daily life and how technological improvements can shape our future.
Bully, so they learn who not to be.

 

[moedeez]

Big City Adventures are not educational but kiddos find it fun. It's a finding game. DM me if you want and I'll send you a gdrive link to grab em.

Also fortnite just released lego fortnite, basically minecraft in the fortnite engine.
They might like it. (you didn't mention specs, but hopefully it's good enough to play this)

My 6 year likes playing the games from pbskids, there are quite a few and they are semi educational Games | PBS KIDS

And I found these lists. Hope they help.

7 Best Educational PC Video Games for Kids (2022)

Discover educational video games to get your child to learn through entertainment and fun.

blog.acer.com

23 Educational Games From The '90s That Actually Go Hard

Did they ever find Carmen Sandiego?

www.buzzfeed.com

 

[Sageofchaos]

Grounded (fairly physics-oriented)
Ori and the Will of the Wisps (not that educational)
Any LEGO Title, batman, harry potter, etc. (also, not that educational)

I don't know how educational they need to be, but as mentioned... Minecraft taught me most compute and electrical principals, a lot of memory cells were built back in the day. We built an 8-bit calculator. lol.

I liked Crayon Physics when I was younger.

Pontifex and Polybridge is also cool.

 

[CyNicole]

GTA 5 Online, allows children to meet new people and learn languages from around the world(You'll be surprised at just how many curse words there are from around the world which mean pretty much the same thing in a friendlier way) plus they get bonus content of experiencing modders first hand during their early years

Russian will be a very important language to learn in RSA so CSGO2 first.

GTA 5 will be a close second.

 

[TheJudge]

The Incredible Machine
Lemmings
Sokoban
Tetris
Pinball

I was gonna add Tetris and mention TiM. Loved the incredible machine and similar games.

Things like Angry Birds also allow for problem solving as do those games where you match and break coloured crystals etc because they teach planning.

Let us never ever ever forget the awesomeness of Portal too.

 

[raskad87]

I'm sprucing up an old pc to give to some of my little cousins for Christmas. Their parents are not tech savvy in any way, even downloading and installing games is beyond their capabilities, so that's going to fall to me.

Parents, do you have any suggestions of kid friendly games that I can download and install for them? Preferably educational stuff. It's for a 7 year old boy and a rather advanced 9 year old girl (she skipped a grade this year).

Rabbids coding is one I'm considering and maybe something like minecraft just for fun, but I have no idea what else is out there.

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2, my 5 and 8 year old are mad about it. Basically just a super smash bros clone but very well designed and simple.

 

[Valheru]

From our library:

* Animal Shelter
* Bluey: The Videogame
* Bunny Park
* Coloring Pixels
* Crayola Scoot
* Paw Patrol: Mighty Pups
* Paw Patrol: On a Roll
* Paw Patrol: The Movie: Advensture City
* Planet Zoo

Usually when the family comes over, I allow them to play Forza 4 / Project Cars on my machine (I have a wheel).

 

[TheJudge]

From our library:

* Animal Shelter
* Bluey: The Videogame
* Bunny Park
* Coloring Pixels
* Crayola Scoot
* Paw Patrol: Mighty Pups
* Paw Patrol: On a Roll
* Paw Patrol: The Movie: Advensture City
* Planet Zoo

Usually when the family comes over, I allow them to play Forza 4 / Project Cars on my machine (I have a wheel).

At 6 my youngest had already discovered FNAF and SCP. 🤣

He's a twisted little kid who loves horror but also has a squishmallow and Pokémon plush collection that he loves just as much.

 

[CyNicole]

Thanks! These are some great suggestions.

The games don't have to be super educational, they have school for that, but if it can help them better their reading and spelling that would be great and if they can learn to become thinking adults one day, they'll have a leg up on most of the population.

 

[Valheru]

Thanks! These are some great suggestions.

The games don't have to be super educational, they have school for that, but if it can help them better their reading and spelling that would be great and if they can learn to become thinking adults one day, they'll have a leg up on most of the population.

For educational, you can try Reading Eggs & Mathletics, they are paid services I think.

 

[CyNicole]

Monkey Island Games

Listen, I found Monkey Island on Internet Archive and played it a few months ago and I struggled. I don't want phone calls from crying children. Then again I'm playing Myst so we can cry frustration tears together.

 

[Marcell1992]

I played a very educational game when I was 15 or so. It really improves your deduction and observation skills. It teaches you that looks can be deceiving.

It was called Tits, ass or shoulder? They gave you a zoomed in pic and you had to guess the body part.



My suggestion is hidden object search games. Probably not energetic enough for some kids, but worth a shot, I think. It improved my observational skills I'd say.

 

[timsmith0027]

Check out wobbly life on steam for the 7 year old. I play this with my son on split screen, the devs keep on adding new missions and updates for free.

 

[FluffyTaha]

Dota 2
CSGO
Valorant

They will thank you later

 

[Sageofchaos]

Crayola Scoot

Dude!! The original Crayola game was so much fun!!
I remember installing it onto my PC with around 30 floppy disks!
Looking it up, it looks like it was called "Crayola Art Studio".
This was the 90's though, so kids these days might not be as impressed by it as I was.

You can also look at The Powder Toy, I liked this one because you could make things explode, it had different chemicals and metals, you could even draw a circuit and power a lightbulb, and even build your own nuclear bomb! Small game, huge compute. It used to lag my PC at the time it was released. I found it on a NAG Magazine disk.

• World of Goo
• Amazing Alex (I remember this as The Incredible Machine?)
• Stardew Valley

 

[Sundancer]

Stardew Valley was great to play with my friend's teenagers but I'm not sure I want to have discussions with younger kids about the alcoholic bus driver or why the mayor's underwear needs to be collected from someone else's bedroom

Also has a character struggling with depression so could open up some good dialogue but maybe check out what parents and kids thought of this and other games on the Common Sense Media website.

 

[TheJudge]

Check out wobbly life on steam for the 7 year old. I play this with my son on split screen, the devs keep on adding new missions and updates for free.

My son plays Wobbly life and with two PCs we play together. Never have I felt as shit at a game as when I play this.