Adventure Games for children?
 

My 4 year old daughter watched me play Machinarium and loved it so much that she decided she wanted to play the "robot game" herself. It's got to the point now that her mouse skills are good enough for her to get through most of the game herself, but some of the timed events are still a bit advanced for her.

She's also finished off Samorost 1 and 2 in a similar way. But now I'm stumped. The rest of the games I have are a little too advanced or too heavy for kids her age to play themselves.

Can anyone recommend any other good adventure games that are child friendly (not necessarily games made for kids)?

The Freddi Fish games, or Spy Fox games are all really excellent for kids and also supported by ScummVM. Lots of interactivity and music and lush, colorful graphics.

You should be able to get them through amazon or digital distribution sites.

I think there's an educational type mini-game by amanita design (Machinarium, Samorost) somewhere on the BBC website.

Sorry, a quick search didn't turn up the game I was thinking of, have to ask the wife.

But maybe there's something in here for your kid:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/games/

You are referring to Questionaut, an excellent recommendation, although the questions might be on the hard side for a 4 year old.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bite...naut/pop.shtml

I was having the same problem with my grandsons, they don't know how to read, so the game either has to be self-explanatory, or have speech. Lots of the free games you need to read, so those were out. Lots of the big fish games for kids are pretty good, but the best that I found was Anka from Big Fish Games, it has speech, the mini puzzles had a "skip" option, and also a hint button for the harder things. Also, my grandsons like playing Kings Quest 7 with me, as the items are highlighted, it has speech, and isn't terribly hard, as long as they play with Grandma. Just some thoughts...

One of this month's Following Freeware releases, Sissy's Magical Ponycorn Adventure, had much of its content created by a 5 year old girl.

How about some of the Nancy Drew games? The puzzles may be a bit advanced at times, but hey, you can choose to play as either junior detective or senior detective, so that should solve the problem. And if you just avoid the more ghostly stories in the series, they use to have a quite child-friendly atmosphere and tone. :)

I'll second this recommendation. Humongous Entertainment, a developer co-founded by Monkey Island's Ron Gilbert, have a great line of children's adventure titles that are aimed are varying age groups (Freddi Fish, Pajama Sam, Spy Fox and more), all fully voiced. They're available for the PC/Mac and some of them have been rereleased on the Nintendo Wii.

Thanks everyone. You've given me some leads to chase up. I think the Humongous Entertainment games look like a good bet.

Questionaut, as beautiful as it looks, is for older kids but I'll keep it in mind for the future. I've got KQ7 so I might try that out.

I trawled through Following Freeware and Casual Collections and found World of Goo and Crayon Physics Deluxe, both of which look like fun.

One other title that popped up in web searches was Little Wheel, which was simple and enjoyable but very short. Does anyone know if this game will be developed further? I loved the art direction.

I think there are a few Spongebob Squarepants graphic adventure games out there... including one based on the movie.

"Employee Of The Month", for instance.

Peppers Adventure out of time and the EcoQuest games by Sierra are pretty good for kids too, if you can get your hands on them.

The Bone games are also quite cute!

Bone: Out From Boneville
Bone: The Great Cow Race

yes, the bone games
 

I forgot about the bone games, the grandkids love those.

as for the above game that was made by a 4-year-old, it has cute graphics, but it is for people that know how to read, and my grandkids don't know how to read, or at least don't know how to read well enough to play the game. That is the biggest problem for me with finding children's games.... they don't know how to read well, so you need something that has speech and highlighted hotspots, as they are still new to using the mouse.

the bone games are great and the kids loved them, but they also had speech trees where you had to pick the right speech pattern, and that was hard for them. It is hard to find a game that is for a young, 4-8 year old. as I said before, the kings quest 7 is pretty good, no conversation paths, and the hotspots are highlighted, and Anka from Big Fish games are the ones that are the ones that are sticking in my mind now. Speech games ... that is the biggest obstacle...

It was Machinarium that started it all for my daughter. I think the genius of it is the pictogram style - no reading required - and her mouse skills have improved drastically since she put her mind to playing out the story herself. I can always hope there'll be a sequel (as the ending seems to imply). But even if there isn't, there's still the chance that Amanita Design's upcoming games (Samorost 3 and Botanicula) will fit the bill.