Nobody wants to see you go hollow (parenting thread)

穴

I’m not a parent but me and my brother are the oldest out of 8 cousins in my family, so it is common for us to end up being in charge of all of them at family reunions or things like that and they kind of see me as the person who they play video games with. Due to their varying ages it is sometimes very hard to find something that all of them can have fun with.
So far I’ve only found two games that even the youngest of them can enjoy playing at the same time.

The first one is Nintendo Land, especially the mario chase minigame, since that game is basically just a variation on tag/hide and seek, they are already familiarized with the rules; and the controls are basically a dpad and one button so I have in the past explained the game to a 4 year old, and she got it inmediatly.
The concept is very simple yet it’s a lot of fun, I have had two 12 year olds, a 7 year old, a 6 year old and a 4 year old playing the game at the same time and they were all having a blast. Heck I can even join the game, have a good time and it doesn’t get too unbalanced.
They all played it for the first time like 3 or 4 years ago and to this day when they come to my house they still keep asking for nintendo land.
They also like the Luigi’s Mansion mini game and the Animal Crossing one, but those are bit more complicated but still pretty fun. I would recommend Mario Chase if you have some little kids involved, and the Luigi’s Mansion or Animal Crossisng minigames if they are a bit older.

The second one is Heave Ho (apparently this game is very popular among youtubers but I literally just found that out while searching for the link, I just bought it one day on the eshop because it was on sale and it looked fun and because it was devolver)
Heave Ho is a fun physics based co-op game, I was surprised by how much my little cousins liked this game, at first I thought the younger ones where going to have some difficulties with the controls, but after some explaining and 5 minutes of learning how to climb walls, even the younger ones (6 years old) were having a pretty good time.
Seeing the characters flying accross the screen or falling to their deaths, is extremely funny to kids so be prepared for some shrieking laughs and screams.

In short, if you happen to have a large group of kids demanding a fun time out of videogames give them Nintendo Land or Heave Ho.

◉◉maru

穴 8 cousins in my family

¡Ay Dios mio! The Perfect family.

tapevulture

穴 LOTS of people recommend heave ho for playing with kids. i’d like to give it a shot when my oldest drops a few more points in his Dex stat (currently 5 years old)

穴

◉◉maru I’ve thought about that before! It would be so cool! But sadly we haven’t been all together in one place in almost 2 years because covid, we have played 8 player smash before though but never Saturn Bomberman! I guess I will have the ROM and the emulator ready for when we all get together again! (Or maybe the Saturn mister core will be ready by then)

antillese

antillese
Update: 24 hours later my 11-y-o daughter broke her arm falling off a skateboard. Life imitates art.

tapevulture

antillese aw man that’s brutal. sorry this happened and hope she recovers ok. skateboarding is so dangerous…if only it wasn’t so cool

andrewelmore

I’ve been having trouble finding games my 5yo would enjoy as well. Every once in a while she’ll sit down with SM64 for a while, but she tends to get frustrated by it pretty quick and wants to move on to something else. I got her a DSi a while back and a copy of Mario Kart DS and she ended up getting pretty good at that, then eventually I just got her an R4 Gold card and loaded it with stuff that seemed like it might be kid-playable and may keep text to a minimum. That’s worked out pretty okay. The other day I sat her down with Flipnic on PS2 and she played that for a good long while. I’m thinking about setting her up on that no-fail easy mode on the new Ratchet & Clank? I or my wife will still have to be there to read a lot of menu and UI stuff for her but I think she might be into it if she can wrap her head around the controls.

So if anyone has any recommendations I’m all ears!

tapevulture

Katamari Damacy has been good for us. Controls are obviously unwieldy for a 5 y/o but after a while he got the hang of it. Also Astro’s Playroom if that’s an option for you.

He also likes grinding in RPGs where possible. For example, in Final Fantasy XII he can just run through the areas with some guidance from me on where to go when we’re hunting a monster, then hand it off to me when we get there.

thebryanjzx90

I bought myself breath of the wild as a little celebration for getting the covid vaccine and suddenly it’s my kid’s favorite game ever and she’s borrowing Zelda lore books from the library and rattling off facts from games from 20 years ago that I never played. It started out with me mostly playing and her watching, but she’s progressed to doing some shrines on her own and even fighting (a chuchu lol). Also she insists on Link wearing the gerudo girl clothes whenever she has the controller.

captain

I don’t know if any of you have had the pleasure of its acquaintance but I feel a certain confidence in saying Perplexus is the Dark Souls of children’s toys.

(it’s one of those ball labyrinth puzzles but cooler)

Dunkr

Yesterday was open house at our kid’s school and we got to bring home some of her video game reviews.

tapevulture

Dunkr i really love it thank you for posting. NEW new games journalism

whatsarobot

Dunkr no joke, this review has made me want to play Alba!

rejj

Dunkr

hint: X is a video game

This is an important hint we could all do with being reminded of more often

thebryanjzx90

Wow dang I’m impressed at that level of detail. It’s really a struggle to get my kid to write anything of substance.

thebryanjzx90

thebryanjzx90 man I gotta correct this I feel like a jerk just for writing this, because of course my kid is perfectly capable of writing funny and original stuff I never would have expected from an 8 year old when she’s motivated to, and it’s only a struggle to get her to write substantial things in response to dumb homework questions from school. Gah I’m lame.

billy

As mentioned in the Sega thread a few days ago, I’ve finally reached the special dad time where I get to introduce my 4 year-old to video games. So far she’s tried a few different games with varying levels of success:

Sonic 2 (success)
By far the most successful game she’s tried. She manages to get through the first few zones unassisted (apart from bosses), and had a handle on movement almost immediately. She’s playing with a Mega Drive controller, which definitely helps thanks to the large buttons and comfy d-pad.
Crazy Taxi (success)
Second most successful game. Her mind was absolutely blown by the idea of driving a car anywhere she wanted, and the bright colours had an instant appeal. Struggled initially to get her head around accelerating AND steering, but now knows the map well enough to get herself to the water and drive around on the seabed. This, when you’re 4, is the most hilarious thing in the world.
Kirby’s Adventure (failure)
Thought this one would be a no-brainer, but the various types of movement and combat made it too complex. Abandoned.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (success)
This is an excellent game for a 4 year-old, particularly with the motion controls (more intuitive than a stick) and smart steering (makes it impossible to fall off the edge) turned on. She manages to win 50cc races in this one! It’s genuinely impressive. Progress is occasionally halted when she goes underwater because driving underwater is, as previously discussed, hilarious.
Sonic Mania (failure)
After our Sonic 2 success, she asked to play it in the living room and somehow I don’t actually have anything connected to that TV that’s capable of playing Sonic 2. We tried Sonic Mania on Switch and it did not go well. The level designs are less forgiving, hazard placements are less fair than Sonic 2 and there’s overall just more distracting stuff happening on screen. Joy-con controls may also have been a factor. I was surprised by this one! Absolute failure.

I’ll update as we try more games.

wickedcestus

billy The first two games I remember playing are Sonic 2 and Lotus Turbo Challenge so this makes perfect sense to me. Kids just wanna go fast

Iain

My eldest (8) makes me me toast and coffee sometimes. I LIKE IT!

copySave

2.5 year old here and yeah, basically 4 or so hours of free time a week. It’s been great seeing him advance so much and begin showing us more affection and becoming creative with his play, but damn it can be frustrating and time consumed with monotony (playing with the sink faucet or the garage door opener for an hour anyone?) Thankfully my job is permanent work from home, so I can do little personal things here and there and he’s at daycare M-F. While my game playing has been reduced, my video game lexicon has increased due to podcasts and researching games for him to play.

I posted this in another thread but I made a Raspberry Pi with an NFC reader for him (at around 3.5 years) so I can periodically gift him physical games to try and make the experience more simple and substantial than just picking from a big list while he’s too young to understand buying games (probably until age 9):

More info here: https://copy-save.blogspot.com/2022/01/raspberry-pi-with-nfc-cards-for-my-son.html
It’s good enough to support all 8 and 16-bit systems up to the NEOGEO. He’ll get a PC to emulate N64, PS1, Saturn and Dreamcast when he starts grade school as well (plus an android handheld for GB/C/A at some point).

WARNING RAMBLING NOSTALGIA AHEAD
After having him, I couldn’t help reflecting on my own childhood (born in 1986) and I’ve tried to recall what made me like games in the first place. The thing is my experience with games was very limited early on (age 4-7). Our NES game selection was about 20 games (with about 12 good ones) and we rented games occasionally, but I remembered them. When I was 7 that’s when I learned about the SNES and I got one for xmas in ’93. I don’t recall hounding my parents for it but I remember the feeling of getting Super Mario World and Turtles in Time and knowing they were mine and how new they felt. My mom eventually got me Nintendo Power through one of those school booster magazine drives (first issue was #66 with Donkey Kng Country on the cover) and it took off from there. It’s funny to think about now because of how unaware I was about the state of games, but was hungry for them. When I turned 10 and the N64 came out and I got some time with the PS1, that was it - I was a lifer. I think seeing the progress of games and the anticipation of getting or renting new games really got me into it (basically got 6-10 new games a year between my birthday and xmas - without my choice of titles).

Here’s the other thing - I mostly played mid-tier or lower quality games for the first 10 years of my life. While I played some important games early on I played a bunch of crap too:

Good to Important games I played until age 10

Super Mario 1-2-3-World
Super/Street Fighter II Turbo
Mario Paint
Super Punch-Out!!
Metal Combat: Falcon’s Revenge
TMNT II-IV-Tournament Fighters (Fighters was a rental)
Batman (NES rental)
Batman Returns (SNES)
Double Dragon 1-2(rental)-Super
Ninja Gaiden II (NES)
Super Mario Kart (rental)
Donkey Kong Country 1-2 (rentals)
Rad Racer
Kirby’s Adventure (grandparents)
Duck Hunt
Mega Man 2-3-X (rentals - never got far)
Mario Land 1-2-3
NBA Jam (rental)
Wolfenstein and DOOM Shareware (cheated my way through them)
Super C (I guess - never got past the first stage)
Super Mario RPG (rental, didn’t get far)
Super Smash TV (rental)
Donkey Kong Jr. (cousin’s)
Duck Tales (rental)
Rescue Rangers (rental)
Phantom 2040 (rental - didn’t get far)
Sonic The Hedgehog (at a Service Merchandise)
F-Zero (friend’s place)
Star Fox (rental)
The Great Circus Mystery (SNES) (cousin’s)
The Guardian Legend (cousin’s)

That’s it - those are all the “good” games that made me like games at all with several I never owned and was only able to play again a decade later on emulators in the mid 00’s. I’ve obviously since gone back and explored the libraries of the NES, SNES, PCE, and Genesis - but damn my list of good games was small.

The Bad to Mediocre Games I played until age 10

Friday the 13th
Track and Field (grandparents)
Karate Champ (rental)
Phantom Fighter
Metal Gear (NES)
Predator (rental)
Earthworm Jim (rental)
Dennis the Menace (SNES)
Home Alone (SNES) (friend’s place)
Adventures of Dr. Franken
The Power Glove
Mortal Kombat (SNES)
Double Dragon III (NES)
Adventures in the Magic Kingdom (NES)
B.O.B. (rental)
The Simpsons - Bart vs. The Space Mutants/ The World (rentals)
Battletoads (rental)
Sonic Blast Man (friend’s place)
Bubsy (friend’s place)
Cliffhanger (SNES) (rental)
The Rocketeer (SNES) (rental - the first game I knew was truly terrible)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (NES) (cousin’s)
Silver Surfer (NES) (Rental)
Spider-man and the x-men arcade’s revenge (SNES) (rental)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (NES) (rental)
Dick Tracy (NES) (rental)
Ghostbusters II (NES) (rental)
Cool Spot (SNES) (friend’s)
The Atari 2600
Wrath of the Black Manta (rental)
Maximum Carnage (SNES)
Battletoads Double Dragon (SNES - first game I picked out with my birthday money at age 8)
Spider-Man: The Animated Series (SNES) (rental)
Batman Forever (SNES) (rental)
Duck Dodgers (SNES)
Bugs Bunny Rabbit Rampage (rental)
Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle (NES)
Itchy and Scratchy Golf (GB)
Ren and Stimpy Veediots (SNES)
Animaniacs (SNES) (cousin’s)
Death and Return of Superman (SNES) (rental)
Justice League Task Force (SNES) (rental)
The Lion King (SNES) (rental)
Pitfall the Mayan Adventure (SNES) (rental)
The Jungle Book (SNES) (rental)
Krusty’s Fun house (SNES) (rental - I still recall the odd smell of the manual)
Double Dragon V (SNES) (rental)
X-Men Mutant Apocalypse (SNES) (rental)
Brutal Paws of Fury (SNES) (rental)
Shaq-Fu (SNES) (rental)
Stunt Race FX (rental)
Super Return of the Jedi (rental - never got past the first stage)
Paper Boy (NES) (cousin’s)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)

There’s probably a few more bad one’s but yeah - given that selection until I was 10 I’m surprised I got into video games as much as I did. A bunch of licensed crap where you jump around and/or hit stuff. I guess I had no one to show me decent games since I was the only kid who really played them a lot. At age 8, Nintendo Power helped out and I eventually got into several other genres, and just started thinking more critically of games in general (either due to age or being more informed). But still, if I had more exposure to better games and someone to share it with on a more regular basis I would probably have a better experience (and possibly better reading and problem solving skills) - so it’ll be fun to re-experience or play games for the first time with my son. (I’ll post the list I’ve been working on later…)

With this in mind, my intent is to slowly ramp up the complexity in both game design, graphics and controls - starting with NES/SMS and working up to the DualShock/PS2 and modern stuff (I still believe PS2 game design is modern). I already have a modded Wii and PS2 lined up too for when he’s older.

Of course if he’s not into it I won’t push it (but I would be kinda bummed).

TL;DR - Having a child has re-invigorated my love of video games in anticipation of playing them together.

antillese

Parenting tip: cite a bunch of completely true stuff at your young kids deadpan and they won’t believe you. Like, if they are playing Smash Brothers, just start telling them a bunch of stuff about Solid Snake about how his power is smoking and it drains his health in his game.

I also did this with my 10-y-o the other day.

Q: “Dad, you know MegaMan’s side-B ability where he shoots a metal blade?”
Dad: “Yeah, Shadow Blade, from MegaMan 3?”
Q: “No, like, he throws a metal shiruken at his enemy.”
D: “Sure sounds like Shadow Blade.”
Q: “Name some MegaMan robots and I’ll tell you if it’s that one.”
D: “OK, Shadow Man, Top Man, Charge Man where you get the power of a train, Snake Man, Dust Man.”
Q: “That’s not a real man Dad.”
D: “Sure it is. He’s in Mega Man 4 and you get all the powers of sucking up dust with a vacuum and then throwing it at your enemy.”
Q: “Dad, stop being silly, you’re not funny.”

◉◉maru

Dang, you’re all amazing parents!

@Dunkr New new games journalism!

@billy I am sure you are aware but, just in case, there is a Sega Ages version of Sonic 2 on Nintendo Switch ($7.99/€6.99).

@copySave That physical experience with RetroPie blew me away. They’ll probably cherish these cards when they are our age.

@antillese has Smash Bros ever inspired your kid to want to check out the original game of a specific character?

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