My 6 year old has just completed Lego city undercover on a Nintendo switch. I will switch to a steam deck for my own gameplay but to sweeten the deal and let me sell the switch, please could you recommend games that would be good for a 6/7 year old?
Looking for games he can play by himself without much help and also games we could play together.
Thanks in advance!
The original Lego Racers. Works really well on the deck, is Lego themed, and is just an all-round fun game.
Child-me spent countless hours with it, adult-me beat it in under 2 hours. Fair warning though: the title screen song will get stuck in your head
- Pizza Possum
- Lego games (all of them)
- Amazing Frog
- Glitch Busters
- Disney infinity
- Zoo Tycoon
- Sackboy
- Minecraft (mods!)
- Abraca
- Lovers in a dangerous space time
- Lethal League
- Human Fall Flat
- Bang on Balls
- Palworld
- Unravel Two
- Windjammers 2
- Team Sonic Racing
- Dragon Quest Builders 2
- Royal Revolt Warriors
- Warside
- Cassette Beasts
- Rubber Bandits
- Party Animals
- Goat Simulator 3
- Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
- NBA2K25
- Beam NG Drive
- Slime Rancher 2
- My Time at Sandrock
- Sonic X Shadow Generations *Cat Quest 2
- Paleo Pines
- Little Kitty, Big City
- Crash Bandicoot™ N. Sane Trilogy
- Tinykin
- Sonic Frontiers
- The Plucky Squire
- Crash Bandicoot™ 4: It’s About Time
- Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2
- Bluey: The Videogame
- A Hat in Time
- HOT WHEELS UNLEASHED™ 2 - Turbocharged
- Yooka-Laylee
- Disney Dreamlight Valley
Untitled Goose Game has been a hit in our house. The Bluey game has been a close second. Power wash Simulator might be worth a shot. Sometimes it’s a bit fiddly finding the last little bit to complete the wash though.
Edit: I didn’t realize this was the steam deck sub. I’m only familiar with these releases on the PlayStation, so hopefully they’re available
It’s alright, those games are all Steam Deck verified so they’ll play just fine.
Loved “A Short Hike” and every kid I’ve shown it to got hooked!
Haven’t tried these out on a calibrated six year old, but some that I liked which might be in the ballpark are Tinykin, a Short Hike, Smurfs Vileleaf, Loddlenaut, Lil Gator Game, Little Kitty Big City, Costume Quest, What the Golf/Car.
What the golf is awesome
Now I want to know how to calibrate a 6 year old
Croc: Legend of the Gobbos was a childhood favourite of mine that I played when I was 6 in the mid-late 00s and the remaster just came out yesterday! It’s a fun 3D platformer from the 90s that was on the PS1/PC and was mainly made for kids. On PC it’s a GOG exclusive though, so you’d have to set up Heroic Games Launcher to download the game, then add the game manually to your Steam library if you don’t want your child messing around with desktop mode. I think it’s very suitable for his age. The original game had tank controls which he might not like if he’s used to modern game controls, but the new remaster has the option for full dual analogue stick controls which makes it feel like a normal modern game to control. I run a Linux desktop and the game works perfectly on the newest Proton version.
Virtual pinball games
XenoTilt and DemonsTilt are fantastic, and my 8 year old loved them. They’re don’t really understand everything going on, but they get super excited when they trigger multiball or some cool table effect.
My six year old loves Pikuniku (puzzle platformer), Alba: A Wildlife Adventure (wholesome 3d adventure), and Horizon Chase Turbo (classic arcade-like racing).
Katamari Damacy. Be prepared to replace those thumbsticks.
Spyro the dragon! I played it as a kid and even as an adult its still amazing!
My kids (7 and 6) enjoy valheim, Lego Star wars, deaths door, portal 2 and spiritfarer
Oh, also Goat Simulator. So much hilarious mayhem!
Pajama Sam was one of my favorites as a kid
What kind of stuff is he into? My son loves simulator games like…
- BeamNG Drive - better with a wheel but very playable on controller.
- Snowrunner
- American truck simulator
- Farming simulator
- Construction simulator
- Lawn mowing simulator
There are a lot of good kart games on PC also, though I will say that my favorite - Sonic Racing Transformed - is much harder than Mario Kart.
Minecraft Dungeons is basically Diablo for kids.
Minecraft is good but I also like Dragon Quest Builders.
Tons of Lego games are also available on the Deck. Minecraft is always great. GCompris is a great collection for children.
And of course you can always emulate Switch games.
I will warn that some of the Lego games are rather buggy on PC. My son and I played all the way through Skywalker Saga and then when we started doing free play found that it would constantly crash.
I will warn that some of the Lego games are rather buggy on PC.
I had the same issues on my Windows PC. But they run great on my SteamDeck.
I don’t use Windows at all, and have had the issue I mentioned for Skywalker Saga both on Steam OS and in Fedora on my laptop.
It does only occur in split screen though.
Oh, that makes sense. Local multiplayer on SteamDeck can still be pretty rubbish, so I probably just didn’t notice.
