Anyone know any good games suitable for ~6yos?
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I’m biased, but my 6 year old enjoys playing both the games I’ve released: Gimme Friction Baby and Parachute22.
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Oh wicked nice one dude! Gonna grab these now!
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Not sure about cognitive development of various ages, but would Skwish be too much or just right?
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Looks good, thanks! (link for the curious: Skwish for Playdate by pawprints)
I think it's probably a bit too pure-puzzly for my kid, but it'll be fin to see if he can work the puzzles out.
I was born at age 12 so I can't really say from experience, but of the Season 1 games, I would speculate that Inventory Hero and Pick Pack Pup might be candidates.
And sideloaded: OneBit PacMan.
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This game is exceedingly cute and fun but might be a bit too difficult at that age, I'm not sure: Crunky for the Panic Playdate by Carson K.
This game is pretty straight forward: [PlayDate] Fishing Simulator by Charlito33
Also I made a little game a few months ago that may be of interest: AiR BALL (Playdate game) by professir
It does speed up pretty quickly though, and the difficulty gets pretty high. If you'd like an easier mode, let me know and I can add it in.
Cheers
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I decided to use this as a prompt for creating a game designed from the get-go for six year olds. We've been enjoying making mazes on a whiteboard so I decided to create a maze-creator. I've been chronicling the dev process in a twitter thread if anyone else is interested:
There were a few false starts, notably one where I found myself creating a KidPix style drawing app:
But yesterday I started from scratch again and I have something more maze-focused:
A big limitation is that six year olds don't really have the dexterity to hold a button down for very long (they can press, but can't hold). Similarly can't really use the Dpad, push A/B and hold the console at the same time -- one hand is for holding one hand is for playing.
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That's so cool dude!!
What I've found is that my lad can understand a bunch of the games mechanically but they either rely on too much reading, or too much dexterity. His absolute favourite is Inventory Hero so far, and he's getting into Sasquatchers.
Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
I finally released a truly kid-friendly app today. I haven't yet finished the Maze maker, but I did make PlayPaint! It's a drawing app for PlayDate in the style of MacPaint. There is no reading (the menu bar is purely a prop at the moment) but it paints, fills, erases and exports as PNG.
One way I'm hoping will make it kid-accessible is everything is always on the screen -- doing my best to avoid hidden controls & modes and focus on a mouse cursor that can draw. Currently it requires sufficient dexterity to hold the A button while simultaneously using the D-Pad. While it means adults can be quicker, with small hands that's bad...so I will be tweaking the input controls such that little kid grip is also 100% supported and hoping to never require simultaneous button mashing.
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Playmaker's block mode had me and my younger sister hooked. The simple act of creating a scene in it is so fun.