PC games for Children

rockchick · 04-08-2009, 20:46

We don't have Xbox or wii or whatever else, so I was wondering if anyone has any ideas for PC games for a target audience of 5 to 12 year olds?

Suu Miles · 04-09-2009, 05:26

Try the World of Goo! My son loves it and hates it (he is stuck in one level, lol) and the other one that all might enjoy is Spore. It has a nice part of creating creatures and buildings and stuff for the younger ones, but also nice more strategic features. There is a patch coming out in July I think which will enhance the gameplay even more :-)

sahel · 04-10-2009, 13:00

A lot of the Popcap games should be fun for kids I think.

thoreau · 04-11-2009, 11:01

One of the easiest games to play is Strange Attractors 1.

http://www.ominousdev.com/games.php (the link for Strange Attractors 1 is on the bottom right hand side)

I started playing Strange Attractors (back then there was no SA 2) when I was looking into game design. SA was designed under the constraint of making a game for someone who is physically challenged.

The game uses only a single key - the space bar - to control gravity in space. By controlling gravity you move objects from one place to another. You get levels and bonus rounds. And it is just brilliant fun.

I haven't tried Strange Attractors 2 - but SA1 is just a great game. It can be used to talk about science with kids or as a grown up to just kill a few hours.

sahel · 04-12-2009, 12:36

Oh I almost forgot about this developer, who makes a lot of free, simple, but fun games:

http://www.caiman.us/

One of my favorites I used to play quite a lot is called PushOver:
http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f2495.html

Fail Whale · 04-16-2009, 01:15

Strictly speaking this isnt a game but Tux Paint is a great free painting software for younger kids. It is open source so completely free and has loads of cool little Tux penguin stamps to use. available to download from http://www.tuxpaint.org/.