Video games aren’t just for older audiences. Granted, the cream of the crop tend to feature complex game mechanics and dark, mature stories about revenge, redemption, and other complicated concepts that bump up age ratings to T and M. However, not all games for children are rubbish.
Quite a few stellar titles are designed with children in mind, some of which are universally appealing to all ages.
If you’re looking for some games to play with a child —or if you want to introduce a kid to the world of gaming— here’s a list of titles. This isn’t exhaustive, but you’re better off playing one of these with a kid than, say, Call of Duty.
The fewer eight-year olds screaming obscenities in voice chat over losing to a sniper rifle for the fifteenth time in a row, the better.
Minecraft
Minecraft’s core design speaks to anyone with an ounce of creativity, i.e. children and the young at heart (and architects).
It features a digital world where players can break blocks for raw materials and use them to build tree houses, obsidian forts, and portals to the underworld. Go crazy and team up with other players to go even crazier.
While some gamers play Minecraft in Survival or Adventure mode, Creative mode lets kids’ overactive imaginations run wild. This mode essentially gives children and their adult supervisors access to infinite digital Legos and lets them create any wild and wacky piece of architecture they want.
Kids and adults can cooperate to bring imagination to life, and nobody needs to clean up afterwards or worry about stepping on rogue studded plastic blocks in the middle of the night.
