Gaming with your children - Bonding over videogames

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TheArtilleryman

TheArtilleryman

Tremendously Miraculous Astoundingly Sensational
kiwifarms.net
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Dec 9, 2021
General discussion on playing videogames with your kids.
What age did you introduce them to games?
What did you play with them?
Do you still play together?
How did you treat adult content games when they were young?

(Edit: Or alternatively tell your experience of your parents playing videogames with you)

Obviously take extra care with your power level here

Mine are too young still but I'd like to start them on original Spyro The Dragon or Crash Bandicoot when they're old enough and if they show interest when I'm playing games. The only thing I fear is possibly marking them as weird kids early for playing such old games, it feels somewhat selfish to try and impose my nostalgia upon them instead of letting them play new games for that reason. I'm going to shop around more when the time comes but right now I already have Minecraft, Terraria, Overcooked, Speedrunners, Pizza Tower and A Hat in Time, all of which I think should be good games for them.

I think I'm going to approve or deny new games on an individual basis rather than strictly adhering to ESRB guidelines. I definitely played too many adult games as a child, I'm not going to give them that same free reign because it wasn't good for me, but at the same time there are titles that I would say are fine in spite of their age ratings. I'll have to get inside with one of those parent communities discussing media and games for their kids. Or hey maybe one will spawn here
 
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get a load of this guy thinking people on this gossip forum have children and play videogames with them.
 
herefortheactualthreads said:
get a load of this guy thinking people on this gossip forum have children and play videogames with them.
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Um okay so what you just said is very hurtful because yes, okay, I may not technically have kids and play videogames with them, in a biological sense, but in a mental sense I am in every way a parent and I have identified that way for 3 years.

I'm transparent.
 
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TheArtilleryman said:
Un okay so what you just said is very hurtful because yes, okay, I may not technically have kids and play videogames with them, in a biological sense, but in a mental sense I am in every way a parent and I have identified that way for 3 years.

I'm transparent.
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so you married a single mother?
 
I will game with my kids the way my dad gamed with me. I'll play Wolfenstein classic, and make a funny "bleh!" sound whenever the little man sticks his tongue out.
 
I grew up with Halo 1-3, and they are excellent couch co-op games. Light on scary violence what with no gibs and purple alien blood, and if I was anything to go by growing up with the flood and Cortana since a young age left me desensitized to them both, the flood didn't give me nightmares and Cortana didn't give me with any weird first experiences. Otherwise, the first games for you to play with them to come to mind would be the Lego Star Wars games. Skylanders would also be a good adventure game if you set up an emulator for it, since nowadays you don't need to pay any money for the little characters. If Portal holds their attention it would be a great exercise in critical thinking, and Portal 2 has co-op too. This should go without saying, but on the topic of games please don't allow them on Roblox.

And don't worry about making them out to be socially awkward for playing older games. When I was a kid the other friends I had over saw the older games as cool new and exclusive games that they've never seen before. A quality game is a quality game, even a child can recognize that.
 
I let my kids (late 80s/early 90s) play any games they wanted to try because I really liked games and still do. It is such a cool medium, the stuff I used to dream about when I was younger.

We had one kid a bit later than the others and with this one I wanted them to know the same magic of "growing up with the video game technology" like the others. So they started on a Nintendo (older stuff is fine but the others had their NES) and after a couple years of that they got to enjoy the SNES and Genesis more and they more or less "caught up" to theor other siblings around the end of the GameCube era.

My oldest is doing something similar with his kids now and when they come visit us we can all play a classic like Mario or Tetris or Rad Racer or Punch Out and have fun.

I do recommend this approach. It doesn't have to be a hard and fast rule and nowadays there is a lot to catch up on. But have them work and learn their skills on older systems and follow the development of the tech.
 
TheArtilleryman said:
The only thing I fear is possibly marking them as weird kids early for playing such old games, it feels somewhat selfish to try and impose my nostalgia upon them instead of letting them play new games for that reason.
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You could try see if they like the look of the rebooted versions first, then to the older ones. Those Lego games with co-op are good ones to consider as well. Like I played a bunch of racing games with friends, so I got interested in motor sport and eventually started doing go-karting on weekends. Playing shooter games turned into going to the rifle ranges.

Honestly anything other than unsupervised iPads playing Roblox or whatever is still less destructive than what most kids have now.
 
Depends on the kid, really. My son is 9 so I've had a few years of gaming with him at this point. He used to love watching 100% playthroughs of Donkey Kong 64 (he explained it was because he liked the music) and tried playing it when he was younger but it's too hard for him. He watched me play Super Metroid a lot and was able to beat the Bomb Torizo boss when he was 4, but the mechanics of moving around was too much for him.

Roblox and Minecraft are almost a given since they are multiplayer (and more fun together), but we've also played a lot of Garry's Mod together. He's old enough now that he has developed his own preferences for games. He loves Undertale and Delta Rune, loves Metroid Fusion (and I refurbed a Game Boy Advance for him to play on my childhood copy of the game), enjoys Tetris and other puzzle games, and we play stuff like Mario Party as a family as well with my wife.

The music being good is really important to his rating system, so he loves chiptunes and Roblox clones of Friday Night Funkin. He isn't elitist about old games, but for a while he was elitist about black and white film and refused to watch it lmao
 
I use to watch my Dad play horror games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. I still distinctly remember always have a blanket ready so I could hide under the covers when it got to scary for me.

He also use to be a big rpg fan so watching him play Rpgs was like reading a animated book.

As I got older we'd play fighting games against each other like Tekken and 3rd Strike. I eventually got better at games than him. One time he woke me up when he had friends over to play against them as they would put money on fights. I ended up taking all his friends money.

Once I got my own console and games I deviated from my father's tastes and got more into tactics games and monster hunter. I tired to get him into monster hunter, but he never enjoyed as he prefers fighting and fps now. He still actually goes to local fighting game tournaments and beats the pants off me when I go to visit him as I am still only really good with Asuka and Makoto.
 
I used to play video games with my nephews and nieces when they were really young (like 3 or 4) by just sitting on the couch with them and giving them a control not hooked up to anything. They would "play" right along with me. Those were good days.

When they got older, I would be obligated to flat destroy them on MarioKart. They had to learn the hard way there is no such thing as family on Rainbow Road.
 
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