Picking your kid's first ever gaming experience

[Alder | 243]

After becoming a dad two months ago, I've had all sorts of exciting things running through my mind. One of those is that I can't wait to start sharing my love of games. Now, I don't think there's anything necessarily special about a "first" game, but I have felt it could be a nice, poetic gesture to have a little bit of influence here. I'm curious to the parents out there, is this something you ever considered? In all likelihood it'll be spontaneous, and I'm definitely fine with him building his own interests organically. 

But, what are your thoughts on an ideal "first game" experience? As far as I've been told, mine was Super Mario World, but I think there are plenty of contenders. Link to the Past was pivotal for me and is still my favorite game. Super Mario Bros. still holds up and is historically significant. I've always thought it would be neat to start with some classic games before jumping into modern stuff - that may not be realistic, but imagine starting with Pong, or even Computer Space, lol.

[Hammerfestus | 3,891]

With my boy, his first significant game experience was with the original Super Mario Bros.  He was a 2 year old. It took a lot of coaching to help him figure out how to move/jump.  It was a really proud moment when he first killed that first goomba.  Now he can beat that first level no problem.   He’ll be 4 next week. 
 

You kind of have to play with what keeps them interested too.  Tiny Toon Adventures is pretty popular.  Also stuff like Rad Racer and Mario Kart.   I find you can’t force too much or they lose interest almost immediately.  The NES is nice because the controls are simple for little ones to work and the controller is a good size.  

[docile tapeworm | 4,204]

I think one of the first times my child grabbed the controller with an interest and understanding, I was playing ninja gaiden. She has been around the collection/game room since birth so she always seen me playing and would watch. I never consciously thought to purposely have her play any certain game first. Although I think I probably made sure she was around nes the most. She is 6 now and has her own nes,n64, playstation (1) and crt.

[captmorgandrinker | 1,650]

I think my oldest one's first was Mr. Driller and my younger one was pinball of some sort.

[RH | 4,980]

4 hours ago, docile tapeworm said:

I think one of the first times my child grabbed the controller with an interest and understanding, I was playing ninja gaiden. She has been around the collection/game room since birth so she always seen me playing and would watch. I never consciously thought to purposely have her play any certain game first. Although I think I probably made sure she was around nes the most. She is 6 now and has her own nes,n64, playstation (1) and crt.

One of the first games my 11 year old daughter played when she was younger was “that ninja game”, which was Ninja Gaiden.  She still likes stuff like that.

[fox | 1,681]

My nephew and niece (4 and 3) really enjoy Mario Kart on the switch, and it is so cool that it is something they can play together.  He also enjoys Ms Pac Man and learned to turn it on himself on the 1up arcade, and he is constantly making the dying sound.  Their younger brother is 1, and likes playing with the hot wheels mario kart cars, no prompting he just picked it up day and started going "FRRRR" on the carpet with it.  Pretty such he will enjoy the game too in a couple years.

[Kguillemette | 1,547]

My oldest's first experience was SMB on the All Stars cart for SNES. The SNES was very popular in my house for quite some time until I broke out the GameCube for things like Mega Man collection, Namco Museum and Sonic Mega Collection. Sonic became the hotness in my house and with my kids until I got them a Wii U and Mario slowly came back and dominated. 

In my opinion, you really can't go wrong with the big time mascot platformers from the 8 and 16 bit Era, or even the old arcade museum compilations. One button to jump, another to attack. And a dpad to move. Kids will figure it out soon enough.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

As others have said, I would steer away from any sort of formal introduction and let him gravitate towards what he likes. I had my son play SMB when he was two or three, just moving around a bit and jumping, but he really wasn't interested in it. I showed him quite a few more retro games over the years, but I quickly found out that he doesn't enjoy difficult or frustrating games; it's just not his thing.

As he got older and started to show more interest in what I was playing, I tried to find multiplayer games where he didn't have to worry about dying; Kirby's Epic Yarn on Wii is perfect for that. Even with lots of retro games available, he wanted to try newer stuff instead and fell in love with Goat Simulator, Minecraft, Mario Kart 8, and now Forza Horizon 5.

So my best advice is just let him naturally find what he likes rather than pushing him to play what you enjoy. Sometimes it's actually more rewarding to hear your kids tell you about a game they love, rather than one you love.

Edited March 21, 2022 by DoctorEncore

[Tanooki | 4,953]

I can't speak for others or what you should do, but I can tell you how it went here.

Unofficially I had my baby in my lap and I was playing river city ransom ex on a gameboy micro, she reached out, grabbed the right side, and button stomped some bad guy which hilariously ended with the classic BARF! comment.

Realistically though until I knew she'd be hopefully responsible, I didn't let stuff get played with, and when she was, I sought out online locally what I felt was a logical great first step, a Game Boy Color.  They're super sturdy and with just the classic 8bit button array it has, is a great step into going at it.  I found one from a girl online who had a nice stash of games, a couple were not appropriate for her (resident evil gaiden) or needed reading I kept, but most of them with nice little platformers, puzzles, etc were perfect.  We went through a couple lenses and a shell which is a shame, but learned to be more careful with things.

From there my mom was gifted years back a pink dslite she almost never used and like half dozen or so games, mario, simpsons, brain age, crossword, picross, stuff like that.  The first one sadly didn't last, she's stubborn and it took one too many drops.  Eventually from there though I let her on occasion use one of my many SPs which has endured thankfully, and she had a deal with us if she could save 1/2 I'd cover the rest and reward one game... so now she has a turquoise switch lite and it is her primary go to.

As she got better about stuff I started to let her pick through my games to play things, though she does have a few excellent original GB games and a few GBA too along with a big stash of DS stuff.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,592]

We dabbled in a few games, but the first real games were New Super Mario Bros. U with my oldest (we did the entire campaign), and Trials Rising with my twins (in the beginning I controlled the lean while they controlled the gas)

[Kguillemette | 1,547]

6 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

Minecraft

Sooner or later all kids are drawn to Minecraft, it seems. Completely agree with your advice about letting kids find their own games. I love hearing about the elaborate worlds they created in Minecraft or the cool levels they made in Super Mario Maker 2. I get every bit as much joy as I would playing a game by myself.

[Alder | 243]

On 3/20/2022 at 5:09 PM, Kguillemette said:

Sooner or later all kids are drawn to Minecraft, it seems. Completely agree with your advice about letting kids find their own games. I love hearing about the elaborate worlds they created in Minecraft or the cool levels they made in Super Mario Maker 2. I get every bit as much joy as I would playing a game by myself.

I really wish Minecraft was around when I was a kid. A few years ago, my cousin's kid was showing me the world he built. He was maybe 12 years old at the time, and he had a redstone circuit set up to do addition in binary. I'm like... dude, this is college level computer engineering stuff, lol. It's exactly the kind of thing I would've dove headfirst into. Mario Maker is great too. I've played it a lot, but find it really hard to publish a level since I want things to be perfect. In general I feel less creative as I get older. Kids just make something funny and move on with their lives, lol.

[TDIRunner | 2,779]

11 hours ago, Alder said:

I really wish Minecraft was around when I was a kid. A few years ago, my cousin's kid was showing me the world he built. He was maybe 12 years old at the time, and he had a redstone circuit set up to do addition in binary. I'm like... dude, this is college level computer engineering stuff, lol. It's exactly the kind of thing I would've dove headfirst into. Mario Maker is great too. I've played it a lot, but find it really hard to publish a level since I want things to be perfect. In general I feel less creative as I get older. Kids just make something funny and move on with their lives, lol.

I understand this.  When I was a kid, I could play sim games for hours and create what I thought were pretty interesting creations.  If I had games like Minecraft or Mario Maker as a kid, I probably would have spent hundreds of hours playing each.  Now as an adult, I just can't get into that kind of stuff and it's a little sad.  

[a3quit4s | 4,127]

Blindfold him, spin him around, set free in the game room. The gaming gods shall determine his path. If he ends up at the PC, he will be tarnished forever 

Edited March 27, 2022 by a3quit4s

[Estil | 1,265]

On 3/19/2022 at 10:59 PM, RH said:

One of the first games my 11 year old daughter played when she was younger was “that ninja game”, which was Ninja Gaiden.  She still likes stuff like that.

And let me guess, she managed to beat it within a week