this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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Steam Deck

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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!

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 19 hours ago

The lego batman games emulated on steam deck

Just a question: can they hold the deck ? I have small hands it feels way too big (my hands are still larger than any 6yo's hands I've ever seen)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 19 hours ago

Dangerous Dave. Me and my mom used to take turns on that one when i was little. Also og Doom. Not kidding I loved Doom as a first grader

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

wobbly life! i fuckiing love wobbly life it is like GTA but more physics based and family friendly. It has that perfect co-op recipe of providing focus tasks and challenges you can accomplish together but also giving ample room and opportunity for spontaneous and chaotic fun

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1211020/Wobbly_Life/

lego games are great too!

For more chill gameplay I REALLY like Farm Together, I haven't tried the second one yet.

I can recommend a lot of local-splitscreen games too.

Motortown for driving trucks but it has no splitscreen

Stunt Rally 3 has splitscreen and actually the driving feels really good in my opinion, it is free and open source!

https://github.com/stuntrally/stuntrally3

[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I would love some split screen recommendations for myself and my almost gamer girlfriend. She loved all the lego games weve played, it takes two, sackboy, unravel, bg3, divinity, castles crashers, children of morta, idk lots of others but please feed me all your recommendations because theres never enough split screen.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Here is too big of a list.

https://sopuli.xyz/comment/15071475

Also I'll recommend this guy again as an indie game critic.

https://youtu.be/uN51VdTNzTg

Voidigo

Folk Hero

Devader

Also Chronicon maybe?

Definitely Totally Reliable Delivery service.

Plateup

Caveblazers - you probably already own it, it is massively underrated.

Casette Beasts!!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

No such thing as too big of a list, thank you. Also you'll recommend what guy? Your comment cuts off maybe?

Edit nvm that was weird, maybe it didnt load all the way or maybe you edited but i see it all now. Thanks again!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Oh, also Goat Simulator. So much hilarious mayhem!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)
  • 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
[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Minecraft is all a kid needs these days

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Luanti is all the minecraft a kid needs these days

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago

That and Vintage Story!

Ok Veloren too

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Loved “A Short Hike” and every kid I’ve shown it to got hooked!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

My six year old loves Pikuniku (puzzle platformer), Alba: A Wildlife Adventure (wholesome 3d adventure), and Horizon Chase Turbo (classic arcade-like racing).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Aer

Rime

Stonefall

Shovel Knight

Journey

Spider Heck

Overcooked (1 & 2)

Snakeybus

Osmos

Sonic Mania

World of Goo

Duck Tales Remastered

Spyro: Reignited Trilogy

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Mario teaches typing. Gate their steam dexk time behind what wpm or accuracy % they get. Don't let touch typing die with the millennials

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Might consider this bundle, some of the games are targeted at kids younger than 6, but it's a good deal for younger players.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Spongebob: Battle for Bikini Bottom is a great one. Colorful, fun, complex enough that he can grow with but simplistic enough for him to have fun without constantly needing help.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

My kids (7 and 6) enjoy valheim, Lego Star wars, deaths door, portal 2 and spiritfarer

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago

Valheim is one of the best survival games ever, not splitscreen tho

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

It's alright, those games are all Steam Deck verified so they'll play just fine.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Spyro the dragon! I played it as a kid and even as an adult its still amazing!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago

Honestly the remake of the first three is gorgeous too

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Katamari Damacy. Be prepared to replace those thumbsticks.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

Wobbly Life is a pretty good one. It has online capabilities but no chat, communication is limited to a very small subset of emojis.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

I played skywalker saga through no problem, albeit on windows streaming theough moonlight to the steamdeck but it worked great. Alot of lego games actually, with no issues. Lego the hobbit, lord of the rings, lego harry potter, some straight from steamdeck some streamed from pc depending on hard drive space, but i didnt encounter any bugs or crashes with any of them so your mileage may vary.

Edit: all were local splitscreen as well

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Interesting. I don't have a Windows PC to test but I ran into the same issues (frequent freezing) when I tried playing Skywalker Saga through Boosteroid. I also found many posts online about the Lego games in general being a buggy mess on PC when playing co-op. They work fine solo - can't even get them to crash there.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 13 hours ago

Yeah i dont know what to tell you, i didnt do anything special but didnt have any issues with any of the lego games either on windows or native steamdeck. Actually i think lego the hobbit might have crashed twice during spliscreen, but both times were after at least 4+ hours of playtime, and my SSD was 90%+ full and I only have 16GB of ram and 4gb of VRAM so i think I chalked it up to a swap file/memory fault, but I've had the same issue playing other games for extended periods of time. Lego games actually seemed to be some of the most reliable in my experience. Not discounting your experience but i just wanted to give an alternate experience/possibility.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Oh, that makes sense. Local multiplayer on SteamDeck can still be pretty rubbish, so I probably just didn't notice.