I was 10 when I started playing adventure games. Granted, I'm not a boy, but the same kinds of games appealed to me at 10 that I'm sure did to some of the boys of my generation -- King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, etc., etc. If I'd known the Monkey Island games existed at the time, I'm sure I would have loved those too.
When I was home over Christmas I went shopping with my mom and a friend of hers, who has a 12 year old son. He'd just gotten a PC for Christmas because they hadn't been able to find good games for the Mac. He got Myst (or a Myst sequel, not sure) for Christmas too. (I was a little confused by this because Myst is available for the Mac, but I didn't get into it with her. Could be they got him Revelation and didn't have a DVD drive on their Mac.) Anyway, she asked me if I could recommend good non-violent games for him... and the first that came to mind were Tierra's King's Quest remakes. I liked them at that age, shouldn't he?!
But I couldn't think of any commercial games to recommend, and this is exactly why. THERE ARE NONE. As a kid I probably would have loved the Nancy Drew games, but would a boy be caught dead playing one of those? I actually think Future Boy would be a good game for "tween" boys (and girls), if they have a little patience for the reading. I'm actually planning to recommend it to my mom's friend. But I really can't think of other newish games that would be appropriate for / interesting to that age group.
-emily
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