Toddler Game Suggestions
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@mattrixk My older son started when he was 4 with Legend of Zelda (NES). I think what caught his attention was the fact that I printed some maps of the "world" and the "dungeons". The kids like this thing of looking at maps and seeing that there is a correlation with what is appearing on the screen.
I got the images and some guides in www.gamefaqs.com and then I helped him giving some directions from time to time.
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There was some similar discussion on this thread:
Best MAME games for kids aged 6 - 10 -
Isn't there a Thomas the Train for snes?
There is Thomas games for both SNES and Genesis/MD and they are actually different games. My son loves watching me play both of them but he wouldn't take the controller. He actually would rather play on my wife's iPad. One time I got him to play Tony Hawk Pro Skater on my GameCube where he held the controller. He was just randomly pressing buttons and laughing when the skater fell on his butt.
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@backstander how old is he?
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@meleu
3 2/3 -
I forget the name of it, but there is a Sesame Street game for the Nintendo Entertainment System which would be excellent for toddlers and features some very clear digitized voices. I think maybe it's called Sesame Street Countdown.
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Thanks everyone for the suggesions.
@xaGe: I'll add those Kirby games to the list.
@flop: How could I have forgotten about Donkey Kong Country? Also, the Monkey Island series is my favourite game series. I have the enhanced editions of 1 and 2 on my Xbox 360. I tried with them when he was little. I thought the artwork would get him, but it's just a lot of walking around and talking with not much happening and it just didn't hold his attention. It might be better now that he's older, so I'll try again.
I think Quake might be a bit too much for a 4 year old though.
@space-cadet: I remember seeing Thomas games, but I've never played them. I'll check them out.
@meleu: That's a great idea with printing out the maps. unfortunately I've never played a Zelda game, so I wouldn't be great at helping him out.
@backstander: I'll check that thread out. I did do a search for similar topics before posting this, but I didn't find any. I guess I wasn't using the correct search terms. Tony Hawks is a great idea, since the rider pretty much just moves under his own power all he has to do is steer.
@drake999: I didn't know there was a sesame street game, but it's not surprising now that I think about it. I'll give it a look.
Again, thank you everyone. This list has given me plenty to get started with.
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@mattrixk said in Toddler Game Suggestions:
unfortunately I've never played a Zelda game, so I wouldn't be great at helping him out.
Neither did I. The guides in gamefaqs.com are very rich and helpful. But the reading is a task for the daddy :-)
BTW: Goofy Troop (SNES) may be a good game to play in coop with your kid. It has some funny puzzles to solve. If that hands-up/hands-down mechanics confuses him maybe it's better to try it later, but you really should try it with him someday. ;-)
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Thanks @meleu. I didn't know about Goof Troop, I'll give it a go.
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Great thread, and one I had wanted to start a few weeks ago.
My 3yo loves watching me play Pacman, Qbert, Frogger and Crazy Taxi. The last one was a mistake, as the video happened to be playing. He also likes it when I read to him the stories from Thomas the Tank Engine on the SNES.
He can't however get to grips with controlling a game yet with a pad, though he gets the concept on am iPad with the touch based games. What controller are you using for him?
Best.
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My son hate games pads other than a Wiimote. He's been a keyboarder from day one.
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@pjft I have 2 PS3 controllers set up on my Pi at the moment, but I do have an 8BitDo NES30 (the square one, not the pro) that I use on my PC. I bought it because I thought he'd have a better go with a smaller controller that has fewer buttons, but I haven't gotten around to setting it up on the Pi yet. I've heard that the 8BitDo and PS3 controllers don't share the bluetooth very well, so I haven't wanted to risk messing them up.
Those are some good suggestions. What system do you have Crazy Taxi on? Is that a PSX game, or something else?
@xaGe: We do have an old Wii, so I might look into trying Mario or something on that. We have a pawn shop near here that has a bunch of older games for Original Xbox, PS2 and Wii, and I think even has some PS1 games. I don't go there too often because if I did I'd end up buying most of their stock (which I really can't afford).
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@xaGe said in Toddler Game Suggestions:
My son hate games pads other than a Wiimote. He's been a keyboarder from day one.
It is our responsibility to teach them from an early age. :-)
Here is my youngest son learning some Leona's special moves (The King of Fighters 2002):
(Of course I'm kidding. He is just doing some random movements on the stick.) :-)
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@meleu Still, he's loving it, and he'll be a champ in no time. (side note, we had that bear too. We just gave it to the neighbour's new little one).
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@mattrixk both my daughters when they were younger were really into the Puzzle Bubble/Bust-a-Move bubble games. We had MAME and I think a copy on PS2. Matching colors and puzzle solving. Nothing too crazy or violent. My 6 year old son however, is into Minecraft and Terraria. And thats it. Nothing like his older siblings.
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Hmm, the wife likes puzzle bobble too. I think we have a copy on Wii. I'll have to look into that. Cheers @celly.
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@meleu that's an epic photo!
... Also super jealous of that arcade controller setup your rocking in that photo!
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@mattrixk see my son was and is spoiled as far as the Wii goes. I soft modded it soon after we bought it, hooked up a USB hard drive and loaded it up with just over a hundred Wii games and several hundred Snes, gba, Genesis and NES roms.
For wii titles he started playing around 3 or 4 with me in coop check out Kirby's return to dreamland, Kirby's epic yarn, Epic Mickey 2 and Donkey Kong County. All four games 4 years later are found memories for us both and he still likes them. DKC can be a bit hard for the little ones though.
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@mattrixk No, no - it's Dreamcast, so that's why it doesn't get a lot of play time. I end up reducing the resolution to 320x240 to have it achieve reasonably smooth gameplay, but all in all it's also not a game I play much (in fact, I had never played it before the Pi).
He also likes to see Super Sprint - in fact, I once asked him to just press "X" (the accelerator) while I tried to manoeuvre the car in the track, and it was a fun, short-lived, co-op experience :P
On the PSX there could be some nice ones - Klonoa comes to mind.
But, once again, these are games he enjoys seeing (in fact, sometimes I just let the attract mode play for a while). He cannot yet play because he doesn't fully get the controller, but I'm sure he'll get to it. He won't be playing King of Fighters with @meleu 's son though ;)
Puzzle Bobble is a nice one - my wife likes it. I'm not sure how much he'd like it, but we'll see.
Let me make a slight shift to the thread here, with the following recommendation:
Sonic 2 is a game I showed him once, because it can be played co-op but the second player has infinite lives / i.e. does not die (he also does not have a lot of say in the outcome of the game, but it's good to have him around).
Any other games on the RetroPie systems that would have a similar "friendly" co-op mode? We could always consider using cheats to grant them infinite lives or immunity (there's a Pac-Man cheat on MAME that makes the ghosts always be eatable, so I can just let him wander in the maze trying to understand the controls), but wondering about games that were designed like that from the get go?
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I just though about 2 more toddler games:
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Bob the Builder - Fix it Fun! for the Gameboy Color. I played that one with my son and he really enjoyed it.
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