2011 / PC game / 1 player
****
Long delayed by my hysterical parental concern that it would spell our daughter's irrevocable descent into crippling screen addiction (I don't want her to end up like me), it turned out to be relatively harmless. As long as she stays quarantined in offline Creative mode, anyway. But if she starts seeing the world around her as destructible blocks, I'm yanking her out of the matrix.
2024 / PC game / 1 player
**
It turns out my new laptop can play modern games, at least undemanding 3D platformers, though for sanity we may have to upgrade to a proper mouse and controller (I typed 'joypad' first, before remembering what the 21st-century kids call them).
This game offers nothing if you're not already a fan of the franchise and young enough to be placated by the familiarity, but what else is new? The young fan hasn't asked to play it a second time yet.
2011 / Roleplaying game adventure / 2+ players
****
A toasty dungeon for a winter evening, I kept the cosy burrow layout (which the player efficiently underutilised as usual), but saved the ill-fated sibling and over-emphasised the theme with fiery baddies drafted from Sylvion and lessons in the folly of combining elemental magics, that should set her straight.
2008 / Roleplaying game adventure / 2+ players
***
A simple and well-mapped rural scenario that was easy to adapt to our junior pony game after drafting in forest encounters and species-swapped adversaries from other adventures to play hostile vegetation, changing the sheep to pigs because Carcassonne doesn't have sheeples, and tacking on a sickly happy ending where the missing livestock was recovered safe and sound and we all made friends because she's six. Plenty of time for violence and bloodshed later.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind – Game of the Year Edition
2003 / PC game / 1 player
*****
But when I recently replaced my laptop with one that could handle early-21st century graphics, it seemed like something my daughter might enjoy messing around on during half-term break, and it only needs to be as complex as we want it to be. Discovering that the character speech is all stored in folders as replaceable files also introduced her to the joy of hacking.
2007 / PC game / 1-2 players
*
A horrendous minigames compendium designed to disappoint little girls, but at least you don't have to pay for it any more. It's got nothing on the Game Boy Advance Barbie games and their dependable generic 90s platforming.
1992 / Sega Mega Drive emulator game / 1-2 players
****
I remember when I first played the Amiga version of this pocket money/vandalism simulator – what couldn't have been any more than three years after its release – that it seemed a prematurely dated relic with its blocky graphics, limited movement and abominable looping soundtrack. My 2020s daughter didn't have these same hang-ups when enjoying the mildly anarchic classic, though we did play the Sega version that improves in some areas – mainly in the character's Bart Simpson-style wisecracks adding insult to injuries.
2012 / Tile placement board game mini expansion / 2-6 players
***
It wasn't one of my more sought-after mini expansions from the range, but it's another fiddly distraction to add in for frequent rewards and a good bit of maths practice to help with our education and cognitive decline, respectively, and another chance to rescue wasted followers that doesn't involve getting gobbled by a dragon.
2018 / Deckbuilding card game supplement / 2-4 players / USA
**
Not really worth buying without the extra goodies of the first set, but worth trying out for free with a handwritten list and a D12. There are fewer overpowered power-ups than in the first round, but only the Black Market and Hidden Base are really inspired concepts. But having to keep these in mind also means I invariably forget about something else, like the Scenario, so my star realm can do without more overcomplications.
One Page Adventures: Nexus of the Four Seasons, Arctic & Fort
2022 / Roleplaying game adventures / 2+ players
***
A multiseasonal sandbox centred on a neat little gimmick that the six-year-old had no trouble getting her head around with the aid of descriptive hints. We saved a stranded giraffe kid, rescued the wizard, got moderately scorched by dragons and ate a load of burritos. Most of this wasn't in the prompts.
One Page Adventures: Desert, Desert II, Pyramid & Mausoleum
2022 / Roleplaying game adventures / 2+ players
****
A desolate change of scenery from generic forests and plains, I was able to adapt most the physical, mental and mystical challenges from these D&D prompts to our kids' game, but swapped out the angry kobolds for an animated pharaoh mask and combined the two tombs into a parody of The Crystal Maze. I was especially pleased with myself when I noticed the Mumm-sey potential.
2018 / Card game expansion deck / 3-6 players
***
Dixit and Stella are our favourite family games for evenings when both parents are around, so more variety is always welcome, but this ended up being our default Muse set when we discovered that.
We chose this as our next card supplement (after Memories and Journey) after checking out several flip-throughs on YouTube. There didn't seem to be as many creepy ones on the screen as in the flesh.
***
Enhancing basic set collection with educational scatological realism, this was a no-brainer birthday present when I saw it on sale.
The rules are a bit fiddly, but the six-year-old got it, even if she's squarely focused on the kawaii foreverhome building so far and not the more diabolical side where kitties are weaponised in neighbourhood feuds. Enacting the rule that whoever most recently scooped poop goes first could get me out of that chore in the future.
2011 / Truth or dare game / 2-6 players
**
The usual crude pasting of franchise over stock game, with many questions and challenges either inappropriate or physically impossible for the minimum age recommendation, but with enough paraphernalia and poorly-proofread variations on the same tasks to keep it endlessly entertaining if they're into it. It was her favourite of her birthday games, unfortunately.
