Video computer games keep teens and adults occupied and entertained for hours, but what about younger kids? What are some titles that are made for them that they can have fun, learn, and grow with? Here are 12 of the best computer games for kids that make our list.
- LEGO Minecraft The Crafting Box 3.0 21161 Minecraft Brick Construction Toy and Minifigures, Castle and Farm Building Set, Great Gift for Minecraft Players Aged 8 and up, New 2020 (564 Pieces) 4.9 out of 5 stars 2,234.
- Full price was R449,00 R449,00 Now R359,20 R359,20 + with Game Pass Minecraft Master Collection Full price was R839,00 R839,00 Now R671,20 R671,20 + with Game Pass.
.Choose your version thoughtfully. If you buy Minecraft Dungeons on the Microsoft Store for Windows 10, you will also need to play through the Microsoft Store. If you purchase the Minecraft Dungeons Launcher version of the game, you will have to access the game through the Minecraft Dungeons Launcher. Prices, specifications, availability and terms of offers may change without notice. Price protection, price matching or price guarantees do not apply to Intra-day, Daily Deals or limited-time promotions. Quantity limits may apply to orders, including orders for discounted and promotional items.
1. RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 by Frontier Developments
Categories: Non-violent, educational, building
Age range: 10+
What's better than a day at a theme park full of thrilling roller-coaster rides? Maybe building and managing a theme park full of thrilling roller-coasters rides. RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 allows players to construct and manage a park full of paying customers (called 'peeps'), and design coasters from the ground up then 'ride' them in first-person view.
RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 is a strategy/simulation/management game that puts the player in control of all aspects of planning and building a theme park for maximum fun and profit. Day and night cycles bring different types and age groups, which will be attracted to different ride types.
Planning a fun, well-designed park is challenging; setting up fireworks shows to go off in time with roller-coaster dips and loops and keep the 'peeps' paying into the park's coffers is just part of the fun.
Getting to see and feel what the coaster you designed and built looks like when you're riding in the first car is the icing on the cake. The sandbox mode turns off the management aspect and gives you infinite amounts of materials to allow younger players to build to their heart's - and imagination's - content.
2. Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga by Traveller's Tales
Categories: Action, toy-like combat, collecting, unlocking
Age range: 7+
Kids love Lego® toys. There's the undeniable appeal of Lego, which is able to recreate recognizable, blocky, and accessible versions of the things we love that immediately signify 'fun.' Kids also love Star Wars and have been loving it for 40+ years now. So the merging of the two properties into a video game seems like a great draw for kids. And it is.
The Lego Star Wars games have been released over the years, re-telling the stories of the movies through playable action/puzzle/platform levels. And with Lego-based humor and building dynamics, all are individually a blast. Origin bundle sims.
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga bundles all the Lego Star Wars games into one cohesive package, with some shiny graphics updates. It allows players to bop around and play through the 'episodes' in whatever order they choose, through a clever world-hub in a Lego-version Mos Eisley Cantina.
Completing all the episodes and levels of the story mode could take anywhere from 13 to 20 hours of dedicated gameplay. But the package offers many more options, modes, unlockable player characters and collectibles. Finishing the whole lengthy story mode is really only about 30% of the achievements possible.
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Sagais fun for casual action play for young kids, but also offers satisfying achievement-hunting completion tasks for the more completist-obsessive (and older) Star Wars fans.
3. Cuphead by StudioMDHR
Categories: Retro-action, whimsical art style
Age range: 12+
Cuphead is one of the more beautiful video games you will ever play. It is also one of the absolutely hardest games to complete. The indie-darling game recreates the classic animation style of early, classical Disney and Fleischer Studios hand-drawn animation, in a 'run-and-gun' style gameplay. Think early NES side-scrolling classics like Contra or later hits like Gunstar Heroes that feels like a living, controllable cartoon.
The titular character (a whimsically designed living cup with arms and legs) lives with his brother Mugman on the fantastical animated and illustrated land of Inkwell Isles. The opening cartoon looks and sounds like it could have come from the masterworks archives of the old hand-drawn studios, complete with scratches on the 'film' and perfectly period-appropriate soundtrack that narrates the tale in barber-shop style song.
The brothers enter 'The Devil's Casino' and go on a winning streak playing craps. But they disregard the Elder Kettle's advice and don't quit while they're ahead. They risk their very souls on a dice roll and lose. They're given one last chance: travel Inkwell Isle and collect the 'soul contracts' of the various animated denizens of the place and return with them, and they might be spared.
This equates into a gorgeously animated series of incredibly long and unforgiving, multi-part boss battles with giant, 1930s-style cartoon menaces. It's at once a love letter to the difficult old days of retro-gaming, with titles like Mega Man or Contra, and a love letter to an art and animation style that doesn't see much play in the era of computer-generated imagery (CGI).
Younger kids may throw their controllers to the floor in rage-quitting frustration after their 20th death at the hands of a giant flower level boss. But 12-year-olds and above might just find that special kind of dedication their parents had to beating old console games that seemed impossible.
The gameplay is hard, but always fair. The simple platform controls of jumping, shooting, and dodging are easy to learn, but Cuphead demands that you master them to unlock progress. And it rewards that progress with the most impressive animation you'll probably see in gaming.
4. Goosebumps: The Game by WayForward
Categories: Reading/puzzle, critical thinking
Age range: 9+
RL Stine's beloved Goosebumps book series are many kids' first introduction to the world of horror fiction; scary, but age-appropriate tales of werewolves, vampires, mummies, and haunted ventriloquist dummies. They are sort of like a training-wheels version to the bike-riding of Steven King or Dean Koontz novels.
With the adaptation of the franchise into movies starring Jack Black, Goosebumps: The Game was released and offers young gamers a point-and-click, story-driven puzzle-adventure chock-full of references to the best-selling books.
This is an instance where you really do have to have read the books to get the most out of the game; kids not familiar with the stories and characters may not find it compelling enough to push through.
5. Yooka-Laylee by Playtonic Games
Categories: Retro-platforming, cartoon-style characters
Age range: 9+
Video games are now generational affairs. There is a market for re-imaginings and sequels to beloved classics of fondly remembered childhood titles thanks to parents of video game-playing youngsters who have grown up with console games that are now 'retro.'
Banjo-Kazooie, developed for the Nintendo 64 by developer Rare studio, is one such game. A fully-funded Kickstarter development project, Yooka-Laylee is a spiritual sequel to the Banjo-Kazooie platform gamer and playstyle of that era. The nostalgia for those simpler, nicer times of gaming is strong; it's a record-breaking success of funding, meeting, and surpassing its goals by miles.
Yooka-Laylee captures and recreates those gameplay elements and skills: platforming, puzzle-solving, and secret-finding, just like the old days. It does this with a similar carefree, cartoony design sensibility, but updated with a modern polish. The attention to recreating a 20-plus-year old game design can be looked at as both a blessing and a curse.
For kids new to gaming, it can be a great introduction to core concepts and skill and reflex building, as well as getting a feel for the game-like elements of games, level-design conventions, and secret-area finding. For older gamers, Yooka-Laylee might feel a little bit too retro in its sensibilities. But if that kind of gameplay is new to a kid, they can experience the same sense of accomplishment that their folks did when they were little.
6. Minecraft by Mojang
Categories: Building, sandbox, casual to dedicated
Age range: 6 to 100