Well if you're sticking to GOG there's:

Stardew Valley
Terraria
Starbound
Slime Rancher (wonderful game!)
Littlewood
Wizard of Legend
Streets of Rage 4 (possibly, i played the originals when i was pretty young...)
Pikuniku
Yooka-Laylee

Should get you going :)

Regarding Steam I do not want to have them own steam accounts yet.

You can give them selected access to your own account.

My little one has really enjoyed

Contraption Maker
Poly Bridge 2
Equilinox
Qube
The Talos Principle
World of Goo
Lit
No Man's Sky

A lot of the titles from Humongous Entertainment are supported by ScummVM, but I think most of them are targeted at younger kids?

Emulators like Dolphin (Wii and Gamecube) might be another option, but I'm not sure how easy it is to dump/rip games from discs these days?


Last edited by whizse on 27 December 2020 at 4:47 pm UTC

Since your avatar looks like Bud Spencer, the linux native game Slap & Beans looks like a good match.

I didn't try it myself but it looks like a fun beat em all that can be enjoyed by all ages.

Edit : On the the switch, with my nieces and nephew, we had a blast with Mario Party and Smash Bros Ultimate.

I cannot recommend enough the wonderful Zelda breath of the wild, maybe my game of the decade all platforms taken together.

Last edited by TobyGornow on 27 December 2020 at 5:14 pm UTC

Mine are the same age range
I second slime rancher, super tux cart, contraption maker, and poly bridge on the list.

Of course, a lot will depend on the reading level of you youngest in particular.

We got a switch (my first console) along with Pokemon: Let's go, and my youngest struggles with some of the text. It's fun and easy.

Untitled Goose Game is smooth switch game, and I believe it runs fine in wine/proton

Regarding Steam. I use own steam account and will launch some of the games via it. Sadly, Steam will FREAK OUT of you try to launch two different games on two different devices.

In order to get permission from Valve to play your games, you have to switch to "offline" mode. It's easy, but annoying.

I've never looked into giving a small child an online account. Ok it's face, that seems like a bad idea at best.


Edit: just thought of this, though not strictly Linux, there are a lot of older dos games that may run well. I guess it will depend a on your kids tolerance of older looking games.
I remember the old broderbound games being fun (and educational). Treasure Mountain, Outnumbered, and Gizmos and Gadgets were favorites of mine... A long time ago.

Summer if the old Lucasarts games are great too and I think some are on GOG, day off the tentacle, grim Fandango, etc.

I think I got my first FPS, (Dark Forces), flight sim (x wing) and RTS (command and conquer or war craft) around 8 or 9. It might be worth letting your oldest browse GOG with you and pick out something that they like. That way they are more interested/invested if there is a learning curve.

Last edited by denyasis on 27 December 2020 at 7:23 pm UTC

Hey HerrLange, Merry Christmas to you and your family. I think the games from Amanita Design are perfect for these ages. I played Machinarium and Botanicula with my 10-year old niece and she loved them. There are both on GOG with native versions. Hope that helps. Be safe!

I would recommend some of our childhood games too:

Sega Megadrive and Genesis Classics
Super Indie Karts
Just Dance 2017 (you will need proton, but kids really like this game and it also makes them play by moving, a win-win IMO)
Kopanito All-Star Soccer -- Similar to the GOAL 3 of the famicom/nes

Another suggestion is music games like Frets On Fire. (There might be better forks out there, haven't followed development.

On the switch there is super mario maker 2, if they are into platformers at all. The levels are community generated, so the difficulty of them are all over the place, but the game let's you choose the difficulty level you want to play on, and the difficulty is pretty consistent on the lower difficulties.
Similar older game on linux is Super Meat Boy. Or the Portal series on the 3d side.

Neverball and Neverputt.
SuperTux
Warmux
Frozen Bubble

All FLOSS games most likely already in your distro. (Handy if the kids suddenly sprouts beards and start lecturing you about software freedom).

Thx for all the input so far.

Slime Rancher and Frozen Bubble looks like it could be interesting. I will try these next.

I just started Battle Chef Brigade and it's nice
Maybe someone finished the game ?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/452570/Battle_Chef_Brigade_Deluxe/

Thx for all the input so far.

Slime Rancher and Frozen Bubble looks like it could be interesting. I will try these next.

Let us know what you think!

On a side note, I notice you give your children a time limit on thier gaming. If you are willing, I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

My kids really enjoyed RetroPie on a Raspberry Pi. Simple and local multiplayer games are common in old platforms, also the pixelated graphics make the violence (usually) less explicit. Another handy feature is having to configure the gamepads just once.

We just upgraded to a Ryzen 3400G powered desktop with a small case for Xmas. Now the catalogue has extended up to PS3 and WiiU, but newer platforms require some hacks for a proper integration in EmulationStation.

Of course, now we can also play native games. These are the ones that we'll try first:

• SuperTuxKart (Free)
• Eggnogg+ (Free)
• Hammerwatch
• Legend of Dungeon
• PixelJunk Shooter and Monsters

We let them play a few hours on the weekends and some holidays.

I think maybe Crazy Taxi could be good (Steam/Windows through proton). It worked.

I recommend motion games like Skyward sword. Besides the lovely design of the game, I believe the simple movements is better than the kids simply using only their finger and hands. Skyward Sword with Motion controller.

Last edited by Linuxwarper on 30 December 2020 at 3:53 pm UTC

Hope we're not getting too retro here, but Lemmings might be a fun bet.

My father just delighted my oldest for a few hours playing Lemmings on his laptop. Works very well if they are still learning to read since there is not a lot of text.

You'll never get the midi music score or if you're head though.

Hope we're not getting too retro here, but Lemmings might be a fun bet.
[...]

Lemmings is great! There's also a free clone with Tux looking penguins called Pingus.

Also stumbled upon Fish Fillets while trying to find Pingus. It's a puzzle game aimed at kids.

Thx for all the input so far.

Slime Rancher and Frozen Bubble looks like it could be interesting. I will try these next.

Let us know what you think!

On a side note, I notice you give your children a time limit on their gaming. If you are willing, I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Well, I just strongly believe that Kids needs to have access to all the techy things like tablets, PCs, TV and Gaming consoles to learn dealing with them and because it's natural to use this kind of stuff. On the other hand side I strongly believe that too much of it is not good for their development. Especially my 6 year old son is really sucked into the games and tends to forget everything around and just thinking nothing else than his favorite computer games. I think he is in danger for computer gaming addiction. He clearly needs strict rules. This keeps him enjoying the games while still doing all the every day stuff and learn how to control the thing.

Hope we're not getting too retro here, but Lemmings might be a fun bet.
[...]

Lemmings is great! There's also a free clone with Tux looking penguins called Pingus.

Also stumbled upon Fish Fillets while trying to find Pingus. It's a puzzle game aimed at kids.

Pingus/Lemmings is OK in the first levels but later not. My daughter really dislikes to sacrifice a few of the lemmings/pingus to save the rest of them. Since the first level which could be only bet by sacrificing the game is Blöd! (stupid). :-)

Makes sense. I think I struggled with the lemming sacrifice part when I was young. I still don't like playing evil characters in various games.

Also, thanks for sharing your opinions on game time with your kids. It was very nice to hear your opinions.