Hi, I’m looking for suggestions for some good games for four-year olds. I would prefer games that use the mouse or a very limited number of key commands.
My boys are bored with Plants Vs. Zombies and I’m looking for something that will be entertaining and challenging - some degree of educational value (direct or indirect) would be cool too.
Any recommendations?
Pajama Sam - or, indeed, anything else from Humongous Entertainment. Cartoon-ish logic puzzle adventure game - highly entertaining. Lots of mouse-clicking. Play-through video here:
Also, PopCap is a rich mine of kid-friendly games. Bookworm Adventures is good for beginning readersMoving from Cafe Society to Game Room.
I don’t know if they’re still easy to get, but the Putt-Putt games seem to be designed for that age. The same with the video game versions of kids shows, like Dora the Explorer, Blues Clues, etc.
I think I saw them all added to Steam not too long ago. I was tempted to buy them for some insane reason.
E: Yeah, and they’re on sale now. You can get all of them as a pack for about $25, or them and a bunch of other kids games for $50. They do look extremely dated, though, but kids young enough to like Putt Putt usually haven’t developed graphics standards.
They also appear to run via SCUMM-VM, which is an absolutely incredibly stable emulator on Windows, so there’s no configuration problems usually. (The VM was made by one of the people who developed the SCUMM scripting language in the first place)
Spec Ops: The Line
The kid is four, I don’t think they’re the right age.
I mean, that mentality just won’t connect with them like it would a two year old.
How about some tower defense?
Defense Grid and Defense Grid 2 are straightforward tower defense games, but are tons of fun and can be challenging on higher difficulties.
FTL is easy to use with just a mouse and one keyboard key (pause), not hard to understand either.
Kerbal space program! You can probably get them started by trying out some rockets builds and taking their suggestions as you build it, then watch the whole thing explode. Fun for kids.
Peggle? Very addicting.
I wondered about Pinball FX2, which is on sale for $1.01 at the Humble Bundle. Comes with some pinball tables, too.
Is this a good game for kids? Do you just push a couple buttons to activate flippers and that is it?
Maybe I have a low opinion on the average 4-year old but my guess is these games would be way too hard. Haven’t played DG2 but DG1 was plenty enough challenging on the normal difficulty, and the maps take a long time to finish.
I’ve heard Minecraft is popular with kids, there’s the peaceful mode if you don’t want them fighting stuff.
There’s no way in heck FTL or DG are more complex/difficult than minecraft. Or maybe I’m just wired differently, but the PC version at least, probably the more popular version, pretty much required you to hunt online for crafting recipes, and stuff.
Kids are smart.
Thanks for all the great suggestions folks! Keep 'em coming.
The popcap games seem to be working a charm - intuitive, mostly not to complex to play etc.
Dopers rock 
I did purchase and play this today with my soon-to-be 6-year old child. She’s no expert and this was her first video game. She did OK flipping the flippers, but still struggled to keep the ball in play.
Anyway, it is pretty much just pushing triggers to flip the flippers. Nothing more.
And $1.01 came with about 7-8 tables.
Scribblenauts? I like it because it’s a game with educational value, and not learning with a game tacked on (edutainment).
Angry Birds
Cut the Rope
Jelly Defense (or any kind of tower defense game)
Let’s Create! Pottery (not a game, but it’s a cool virtual pottery maker- you shape it, use different brushes to paint it, etc)
There are also a ton of Lego adventure games (Batman, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Harry Potter), but they won’t be fun without a controller
The problem is not one of difficulty, particularly (although I’d suggest FTL is hard - I’ve not played DG) but that 4 year olds can have different expectations. Everyone’s kids are different, of course, but I find Minecraft to be very suitable for almost any age children that can use the controls - you can put it on Creative and they don’t have to do any of the actual crafting, and can fly, and put blocks down as they want. It becomes more a toy than a game.
Skylanders is also popular among the 5yr olds in my house, although part of the “fun” is spending large amounts of real money on new characters, although at least you do get a real toy to play with as well.
But actually, the games that my 5yr old asks to play when he sits at the computer are the free flash ones at the Nick Jr website.
Seconding Scribblenauts, though help from someone who can read the puzzles and spell the answers is required. Some other PC games for my girls (4 and 6) are/were Terraria, P&Z, Peggle, Bejeweled. Origin’s On the House promotions have been great. They also like a game that came with Win 7, Purble Place or some such. You can easily find web based games with similar mechanics (match/remember games, mostly, plus a kiddy version of Mastermind)
Web based, they like/liked Lego (there’s a couple different Lego games/sites they like), Sushi Cat, Little Wheel (with help), ABC for Kids (Ozzie public broadcaster, has US PBS games as well), and Sara’s Cooking Class.
We don’t use the consoles much these days, but the girls sort of liked a Lego game on the 360, Indiana Jones, but found it confronting. They liked Wii Sports a lot. I find that kids always do.
I’m also giving yet another thumbs down to Kinthalis’ suggestions. Dude, do you even know any kids?
http://sushicat.org/
http://www.fastgames.com/littlewheel.html
http://jayisgames.com/games/little-witchs-mess/
I suggest “Go Outside And Play In The Sunshine”.
It improves stamina, helps prevent diabetes, and keeps your tyke from becoming a fat-@ss.