Steam games for kids

My eight-year-old son has his own Steam account and my daughter’s turning seven next week. I’m thinking it’s a good time to set her up with her own Steam account too, though I have absolutely no idea how to sift through the fluff on Steam to find the gems. Any games on Steam that Steam for elementary kids that’ll run on an okay laptop? (It’s a 2010 Thinkpad T410 w/ an i7 and a NVS 3100M graphics card, 4GB of RAM.)

Think you’re touching upon two steam features that I believe are missing;

  1. Using the system Performance rating (in Vista, W7 and W8) as a ‘search argument’ to see games that fit that profile – alternatively using Steam to Benchmark your machine and then showing compatible game titles with various sorting options.

  2. Option of having an Age setting on the store/titles?

No suggestion for games though; I guess the ‘arcade’ area would be the most kid friendly.

>1. Using the system Performance rating (in Vista, W7 and W8) as a ‘search argument’ to see games that fit that profile – alternatively using Steam to Benchmark your machine and then showing compatible game titles with various sorting options.

I was about to load up Steam to do this when I realised that you were talking about missing Steam features. Sigh.

If it helps, the machine can play Civ 5/Warlock: Master of the Arcane fine on low/medium.

My 8 year old daughter enjoys the following games from my steam list:

Amazing Adventures The lost tomb
Max and the magic marker
Plants vs. zombies
Crayon Physics Deluxe

Funny you should mention gems.

Plants vs Zombies and Crayon Physics are solid picks.

I could maybe see an 8 year old getting into something like Terraria.

I liked Emerald City Confidential. Seemed very kid friendly.

Ticket to Ride. Alternatively comes in a board game version :)

Scribblenauts and the Lego whatever games should be great. The Lucasarts adventure games should be fine too, though they are more fun when there’s more than one person sitting around the computer.

If you get something more graphically-intensive, you can install the drivers for the 310m (consumer-class) instead of the 3100m (business-class) for better performance. The business cards are basically designed for better stability while the consumer ones are geared toward better performance.

My 7 year old is obsessed with minecraft. Not a steam game, but still, maybe the greatest lego game ever made.

Plants vs Zombies and World of Goo.

My son likes

Minecraft
Garrys Mod
Gratuitous Space battles
Lego games
Portal 2
Super Meat boy
World of Goo
Terraria

Hope that helps.

Rayman, Cave Story, Samorost 2, Noitu Love 2, Machinarium, Osmos. Braid?

Thumbs up for Plants vs. Zombies and World of Goo.

My kids really got into Solar 2. And I would recommend NightSky as well.

For something slightly deeper, you might try Costume Quest.

My son is 6 and here is his rotation.

Plants vs Zombies
NightSky
Ancients of Ooga
BIT.TRIP RUNNER
Crayon Physics Deluxe
Hamilton’s Great Adventure
Osmos
Samorost 2

And Universe Sandbox is a huge fave right now.

Secret of the Magic Crystal of course!

Can’t get my 8 year old off Minecraft since he just started it. The most violent part was when he packed TNT around a stubborn cow that wouldn’t move. When asked, his response was “How else was I to get it to move?”

Civ 4 is a good one if he’s starting to like strategy games. Playing on the easier settings makes for a nice game for young grognards :) My two older boys have been playing since they were 7 or so. Also, PvZ & Crayon Physics. My 9yr old is really into FTL (turned 9 in September).

some games in my collection that would be fun for kids:
audiosurf
bit.trip runner
beyond good & evil
braid
crayon physics deluxe
Earthworm Jim 2 (PC version is worth it for the amazing redbook audio)
Flora’s Fruit Farm
Lume
Rayman Origins
Rock of Ages
Sonic & Sega All Stars
Monkey Island games
Stacking
Yosumin!

EDIT: Giana Sisters

I sense great things in your son’s future, good sir. :-)