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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   972 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 7, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Video Game Thread

What are you playing?

Only a couple hours of Deus Ex this week:

Paul is alive and Jaime has joined us too. Maggie Chow was electro-shocked and chopped to bits with the Dragon's Tooth inside the Universal Constructor area. :) Soon after I ran into a bug back in NYC where the Illuminati contact, Stanton Dowd, wouldn't talk to me. Later discovered I had to shoot him in the head with a firearm. That actually worked. Next up, the Naval base.

Then I started a new Civ V game, intending to go wide. I finished the Liberty tree and ended up having only 3 cities by midgame. Whoops.

BTW, does anyone have any recommendations for games to play with my daughter?

She likes Nuclear Option, but in all honesty too much of it is hidden behind regularly reading the map and the killfeed; she can't really understand what's going on purely by what is visible on screen. Too much of the game state lives invisibly in the player's mental model of the game.

Are there any other similarly calm, technical games that are more readable for an illiterate five-year old?

I would have played Sprocket with her, since she expressed an interest in tanks, but the game seems to have developed away from its earlier, simpler form into a full-on 3D editor for turboautists, so that's out.

Kerbal Space Program she doesn't care for. Launching rockets and getting them to orbit takes too long, and there's not enough to see on the way.

I considered Factorio, but I think the overall complexity is far too high.

Any ideas?

And yes, just not playing video games at all and going outside instead is what I'd usually do. But I have a flu right now, so we're not as outdoorsy as usually for a few days, and the usual indoor plan A of doing physical exercises together will also have to wait. Plan B is just playing with building blocks, Lego, RC cars etc., and that seems like the likeliest choice.

She's about the right age to play the first few levels of The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis herself on easy mode. You'd need to assist for the later levels, but it's well-enough designed that adults can give hints without giving answers.

Nom Nom Galaxy is a bit factorio-meets-terraria, but at a much smaller and simpler scale, and clearer visuals. Still a lot happening off-screen, but it's a two-or-three item mental map, not the hundred-deep, and each step is pretty visible. May or may not be a good compromise.

The Witness's general story (to the extent it has one) is going to be way too much at that age range, but the actual puzzles are pretty simple and generally all in one screen or room. Just skip The Challenge.

Slime Rancher and Slime Rancher 2 have some dialogue and math, but the whole 'grab slimes and put em in a bin, combine em' is pretty straightforward. The Tarr might be a bit much, depending on her tolerance for peril, though.

Tiny Glade is just building, nothing else. Might still be meditative, and gives a lot of options for interaction, but may be too simple for you. Cloud Gardens is a similar boat, but a little more guided.

Technical games for illiterate kids... Hm. Not sure. But have you considered the Lego games? There's a new Lego Batman that's supposed to be good.

How about Roller Coaster Tycoon? Or similar? Any of the classic 18 billion SimX games... I know SimTown was deliberately designed as a younger age version of SimCity, for instance.

Mandatory plug any time someone asks about games for a child, regardless of any other context: Once she becomes literate I'd recommend the old Super Solvers and Operation Neptune games, which were legitimately enjoyable as games even without the educational aspect.

calm, technical games that are readable for an illiterate five-year old

  • Mini Motorways and Mini Metro (draw road/rail networks and watch cute multicolored cars/trains drive through them; imminent failure is indicated with lists of missing travelers or with big red circles slowly filling in, not numbers; no-failure endless mode is available)

  • Bridge Constructor (design bridges, drive cars/trucks over them, watch them turn red/blue with compression/tension and break, and redesign with more triangles)

  • Freeways (draw highway interchanges and watch cute multicolored cars drive through them; control scheme with no undo button may be difficult for a young child to understand and use, especially for multi-level interchanges)

  • Come up with a fun house idea and tell/help the child to draw a matching floor plan, with pencil and paper or on the computer with QCAD

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