My daughter (4) is very into exploring cities, homes and villages in Skyrim, feeding aliens in No Man’s Sky, and cleaning houses in House Flipper. She gets annoyed in games like House Flipper because she can’t leave the property to explore all of the visible houses on the block. I’d like to find other PC games that are relatively kid-friendly (or at least with my guidance and supervision) and easy for her to just wander about and be nosy.
Any suggestions? Simple adventure/fantasy would be great and provide us with something to progress through together, but anything that lets you explore a neighborhood and/or poke around in buildings and such would be perfect. I’m picking up Goat Simulator today for that exact purpose.
I appreciate it in advance.
Minecraft, 100%. You can set it to peaceful mode so no enemies spawn, and even mess with the world settings so more structures generate in your map.
Since she is very young and has no social pressure towards microsoftcraft, I‘d suggest mineclone, its free, open source and in opposition to bedrock mc not bloated with ingame purchases.
Minecraft used to be good though.
Could just play Java edition…
You mean besides the advantages that mineclone has?
If you could list one that isn’t just “Microsoft bad” sure, I’ve never played it, but I’ve played literally thousands of hours of Minecraft Java, along with several thousand more on mod packs for Java.
Not to mention the very large community of Minecraft let’s players, tutorials, etc that exist for Minecraft, and it’s huge cultural influence.
Not saying mineclone is bad or anything, I don’t know much about it aside from the site listing it’s features, but MC is the OG and huge for a reason, and I agree bedrock is full of garbage MTX, but Java is not.
One?
- mandatory telemetry
- mandatory microsoft account
- modders literally had to reverse engineer minecraft to mod it (closed source)
- you cant download the game without logging into mojang despite the fact that you have to log in to your microsoft account anyway
- constant changes that make the game more approachable but barely any that make it more complex ie redstone (subjective)
- cant be played offline easily
Those are just the first ones I can come up with.
I have started playing minecraft in the browser. Had to pay for it using paypal since it wasnt available in shops. I definitely played thousands of hours as well, made lets plays, have multiple servers.
The reason I dont recommend it anymore is the initial minecraft was very different from today. It used to be about creativity. Today it feels like a race for content. Mostly like a game as a service thing.
You don’t have to login to a mojang and ms account, it’s just Microsoft accounts, which if you dislike Microsoft sure…
The telemetry is far from insidious and is used in many many games as a way to provide data about what people interact with (or don’t) so devs have a better idea of what to focus on. https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Snooper
Modders seemed to have made due with the closed source nature… Again talking about Java specifically, not Bedrock.
Not sure if you’re aware but the 1.21 release includes an auto-crafter, pretty big addition for Redstone related automation. Though this post is also about a 4yo so… It’s not super likely they’ll be interested in Redstone anyway.
Can be played offline if you’ve logged into the mc launcher at least once before being offline afaik.
I don’t really understand what you mean by “a race for content” if anything it feels like the game hasn’t changed enough considering how long it’s been out, they’ll add one or two new kinda nifty things per release, but compared to mod makers… The pace is much slower.
Sure, you can turn around everything as you like. You wanted to hear one, you got many. Feels kinda disrespectful of you to try this hard to be right.
Still in early development, probably not that suited for a kid. The bespoke and enclosed experience of Minecraft would be better, assuming you can turn the shop off or limit it in some way.
I dont know where you have your information from but it works just like minecraft does, no difference. Especially for a really young kid that probably barely would press „play game“ there’s no issues afaik.
Why do you suggest something that you have to assume things about? You cant turn off the shop in bedrock minecraft. It is part of the ui (made to pull kids into microtransactions) exactly the reason why I would not suggest it to kids - or anyone - in the first place.
I got that information from the official page, which lists features implemented vs missing.
I checked the page and your claim is false. It is not in early development and the list of missing features has 4 points in comparison to 40+ points that are on par with minecraft.
Its also incredibly easy to install and free so no harm in trying.
The putt putt line of games. They run on scummvm and my kids love them. Later kings quest, and stardew valley. The lego marvel super heroes on Xbox 360 (I think there’s a pc version) has an entire Manhattan island that they can roam around freely and interact with.
Putt-putt, pajama sam a.d freddy fish are great!
There’s a few short indie adventure games that may fit the bill:
- The First Tree
- Spirit of the North
- Abzu
- Aer
- Proteus
- Untitled Goose Game (Not an adventure game, but good goofy fun)
- Donut County (Not adventure, but a very simple and accessible puzzle that spans an entire town)
I haven’t played Stray, but it may be a good fit. I also haven’t played past the opening scene of Firewatch, but if your daughter can manage walking around Skyrim then I think it should be okay.
I searched for indie exploration games. City of Muse came up.
There’s a list of 3D exploration games on Itch.
Slime Rancher might be worth looking into.
If you’re open to dealing with emulation, both the new Zeldas pretty much fit the bill. There’s combat but probably less than Skyrim.
Slime Rancher is one I enjoyed for a while that’s definitely kid friendly. Supraland didn’t really grab me, but in terms of being super tame and having varied stuff to explore it fits again.
If it specifically has to be houses/cities, none of those fit that well. But they have worlds that are varied and interesting.
Botw/Totk’s combat might be a bit too difficult in the beginning for a 4 year old, so OP might need to take the reigns when combat starts.
That’s possible. I think it’s more kid friendly than Skyrim though.
It’s also mostly easy to ignore.
The Peppa Pig game is surprisingly open. If you just walk off screen it lets you keep going and you end up in new locations. Hop on the bus and end up in another location. There aren’t many blocks to stop you from going where you feel like going and there’s a variety of activities at each location.
Maybe Stardew valley would scratch that itch. Or some old rpgs like FF or chrono trigger.
Might be a little advanced for a 4yo, but it definitely checks the exploration/adventure mark.
I was also going to suggest this. No, she won’t be able to understand what she’s doing in it yet, but the game is a celebration of exploration.
These aren’t exactly exploration games, but they’re simple games that my toddler likes too:
- Animal Crossing is easily her favorite. She loves “helping” my wife pick outfits and fish.
- A Building Full of Cats is short, cheap, and cute. She likes making up stories about each apartment and cat. There’s also tons of similar games in different locations.
- Cats in Time has simple puzzles that she can do with a bit of help.
- Slime Rancher might be a good fit. It’s simple and cute with a focus on exploration.
- Dorf Romantik is a relaxing and cute game that’s a good introduction to resource management. She might not be good at the actual goal of the game, but she likes placing tiles.
- Subnautica in creative mode might be interesting for exploration, depending on how sensitive your kid is about some of the darker areas and creatures.
Since you’re on PC, using cheats or potentially mods can expand the list of games you have available, since you might be able to just ignore certain aspects of a game, like combat, money or resources in general.
The more recent Assassin’s Creed games have something called a Discovery Tour, where you can just explore the world, without combat. They are partially meant for educational purposes and can teach about the different regions and history, and offer guided tours. I don’t know if there’s a real free roam, where you can just do whatever though.
You mentioned buying Goat Simulator, so maybe other of these “Simulator” games might be for you.
I don’t know how much you can go into houses, but Farming Simulator could be worth a look. Your kid can probably just explore the map and maybe even try some of the farming.
As someone else mentioned, Slime Rancher might be fun just to explore the world with the cute creatures all around, but there’s not really much or any buildings as far as I know (don’t know if the sequel has this stuff).
A Short Hike could be worth a look. You’re on a mountainous island / national park type deal and your main objective is to get to the peak of the mountain, but you can just explore, do some side quests, solve puzzles, etc. I feel like the screenshots on the Steam Store page for the game look really ugly, since it’s so pixelated, but that’s just a filter, that you can change in game (from smooth to really pixely).
Sounds like “The witcher 3” world will be a good fit for your daughter curiosity, the guest line however is too dark for her age.
Doesn’t that game feature fully nude characters at times in the vanilla base game? And sex? And violence? And brothels?
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You don’t have to do any of that, but just walking around you will get attacked by all manner of creatures so I would take Witcher 3 off the list on that basis.
What’s the underwater game that came out a few years ago? Your spaceship crashes in the ocean of a cold planet, and you explore and make bases, and solve a mystery… SubZero or something?
Subnautica? I think subzero was maybe an expansion for it.
Below Zero is Subnautica 2
This is a good suggestion because in the Subnautica Below Zero you can play a custom game mode where you can turn off predator aggression, hunger, thirst, and freezing allowing you to roam to your hearts content without getting eaten.
Subnautica! That’s the first (and better) one IMHO. The sequel is Below Zero.
Might be a little scary for a 4 yo - at least it can be that way for this thirty something.
If combat is an option, those simple ARPGs could fit the bill nicely:
No one said Journey, but it’s one of the best immersive games that let you wander in really cool environments. Might be a little frightening in some parts but under your supervision it should be fine
