Games for under 5's

aderby · n00b Joined: 10 Sep 2002 Posts: 64 Location: UK

One for the parents out there.. I've searched the forum and this topic doesn't seem to have been raised recently. Anyway I've got a bright nearly 4 year old on my hands and he's desperate to play on the computer. Finding games/diversions that he's capable of dealing with is challenging. My successes so far -

gcompris - a suite of educational sub-games (ranging from basic mouse skills to quite hard number/word puzzles)

stickers - basically what it says on the tin, an electronic sticker book - this is his favourite so far

childsplay - another suite but less developed than gcompris, he likes the 'match the card' game though.

Flash Games

http://www.hitentertainment.com/thomasandfriends/ - Thomas the Tank engine mini games
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies - This is a good one with a vast number of games

Anybody else found anything appropriate?

-=GGW=- $ol!d $n4>|e · Veteran Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 1616 Location: USA

cs: s wake him up to how the world worx ealie

But seriously, when I was that young my favorites were math blaster, comander keen, monster bash, raptor, space invaders, load runner, pong (through comander keen) theres a nice blob volyball game out there thats harmless fun in flahs, and of course put put goes to the moon. :lol:

ps: OH snap, just rememberd this educational game that was pretty fun but I dun remember the name.. grr.

gaminggeek · Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 4:52 am Post subject:

<shameless advertizing>
Acorn Drop
</shameless advertiving>

avieth · Veteran Joined: 17 Sep 2004 Posts: 1945 Location: Canada

Potato Guy, included in kdegames package.

aderby · n00b Joined: 10 Sep 2002 Posts: 64 Location: UK

gaminggeek
I gave it a try but not much joy - I just get a blue screen with the score details but nothing else - this what I get in the console -

kyPixel · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 31 Jan 2005 Posts: 117

Tuxpaint is good for kids..

Isn't really a game by any means... but... for kids .. He might like it ^^.

gaminggeek · Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 10:21 pm Post subject:

Try playing the game in windowed mode

ruben · Guru Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 462

Maybe supertux and tuxracer ?

aderby · n00b Joined: 10 Sep 2002 Posts: 64 Location: UK

Now let me see, in no particular order..

gaminggeek - Thanks, it works in windows mode, I like the graphics a lot btw. Might just be a month or two soon for this one, he's not quite got the hang of keyboard control..

ruben - Thanks for the suggestions, I hadn't thought to try tuxracer. He found it a bit frustrating but it helps that you are largely forced in one direction and collecting fish interested him. This might be the one to teach him about using different keys on the keyboard. I hadn't heard of Supertux - I might give it a try myself but I think a platformer is way too complex for a 3 year old. I'll save it for a year.

avieth - Yes, we've tried that - for some reason it didn't catch his interest. I don't think there is enough to do...

/Astr4y - A painting application is a good suggestion. I tried him with KolourPaint which he quite liked. Is Tuxpaint significantly different?

Thanks to everyone.
Andrew.

jec0s · n00b Joined: 15 Mar 2005 Posts: 13

gizmos and gadgets was the greatest game back in the day ( crap its for 7-12 year olds) http://www.kidsclick.com/descrip/ss_gizmos.htm

ruben · Guru Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 462

aderby,
you are right... supertux is probably too complex. for some reason i was thinking about 5-6 years old. but it's a game to keep in mind, for when he's a bit older, i think it's made very well.

labrador · Guru Joined: 04 Oct 2003 Posts: 316

I clicked on the link to download acorn from Windows, using firefox 1.04,
and it brought me here:http://www.microsoft.com/

This is some funny side effect of the literal link being:
http://http//prdownloads.sourceforge.net/acorndrop/AcornDrop-0.2.3.tar.gz?download

Its quite ironic...

gaminggeek · Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 3:56 am Post subject:

Hmm I though I fixed that link....

gaminggeek · Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 3:59 am Post subject:

The link is correct.

Maby you looks at the page when it was incorrect and it is still in your cache try reloading the page a copple of times

jsheedy · Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 4:50 am Post subject:

Yes there are a bunch of games for kids under linux. I would search on happypenguin.org for some of them, or try linuxgames. There is also freshmeat.net, and there used to be a linuxforkids.com website. I have a 5 year old daughter that loves to play marble blast, and she is not bad either. She also plays tux paint, tuxtype, and gcompris at times. Other times I will load some games under dosbox for her to play, or maybe wine. Now she is starting to read a little, and she is wanting to play games with words. She usually has a 1/1 ratio, book time(reading, math, etc), computer time.
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Just J