Can anyone suggest me offline games for making kids practice control over the mouse ??😃😃😃
IIRC, this was the explicit purpose of games that came pre-installed on old computers like Minesweeper and Solitaire.
Minesweeper was to teach mouse precision, solitaire was specifically for click and drag.
Makes so much sense. TIL
@0li0li@lemmy.world what is til ??
@Slaskvatten@lemmy.world @Iunnrais@lemmy.world
Today I Learned
Minesweeper also taught right-click vs left-click
Took me ~10 years before I learned about right click in Minesweeper 🥲.
And how much longer for left and right simultaneously?
depends on the age of your kids, buuuut: if they’re fairly young, maybe spyfox/putt-putt/pajama-sam/freddi-fish games? those can be found on eg. steam, and should run fairly painlessly from there. (and if you want to make them steam-free/offline, you can just copy the files from those games elsewhere and use eg. scummvm (https://scummvm.org/) to run them. But that’s entirely optional & up to you. afaik steam bundles them with scummvm anyway).
Basically they are point & click adventure games aimed for younger kids. I’m in my 40’s and kinda do enjoy spyfox as well x)
The games are fairly old (afaik mid-to-late 90’s, or so), so graphics are fairly low res by today’s standards, but they’re essentially just playable cartoons with mild puzzles, all dialogue is spoken (subtitles are an option) and no real fail states.
IIRC, the Steam releases of those are already using Scumm.
ye. ended up checking some of the games’ store pages. There’s a note about scummvm.
Dunno if they keep the scummvm updated though, not that it matters much unless there’s an issue with a specific game. IIRC Indy Atlantis is bundles with decade+ old scummvm, though it’s been a while since I checked.
Damn Freddie Fish was one of the few games in the city library about 25 years ago. Always ditched choir practice to play, loved it!
@Malix@sopuli.xyz l’m not a technology person 😄😄😄 Can you please tell me how to download them and play them offline ??🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓
If you want to just, remove steam from the equation, eg. for no-internet kids’ computer:
basically: buy them from steam, then just install them. Then, just copy the game files somewhere else, install scummvm & add the games to scummvm to play them.
Scummvm is just an app which runs these older adventure games on wide variety of systems, incl modern windows (the games are occasionally so old, windows doesn’t support them natively at all). Scummvm is fairly straightforward to set up, basically just click “add game” -> browse to where the game is -> ok -> it is now in scummvm, click “Play” to play it.
If you’re asking about “yar har har, me mateys, and a bottle of rhum” -methods, that’s an excercise left for the reader.
@Malix@sopuli.xyz 😂😂😂😂😂 l am looking for something free😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
well, if we’re sticking to scummvm, they offer some free games on their site: https://scummvm.org/games/#games
the freebies are in general fairly old (like early-to-mid 90’s dos stuff), but work fine on scummvm, hence they’re offering them there. AFAIK all of them are controlled by mouse only.
Not all of them are suitable for all ages though.
Flight of the Amazon Queen is a story set in 40’s, about a pilot for hire and his small plane crashing into the amazons while transporting a movie star. Overall theme is cartoony/goofy/comedy, with a bit of juvenile humour ( by modern standards). There are some things some could find unsuitable for children, I guess.
- rubber breasts, used in non-sexual way to build a costume to fool gangsters
- the “bad guys” are essentially ww2 germans (but not referred as such, iirc their faction isn’t even given a name, I think)
- some alcohol & tobacco references
- very mild innuendos.
Beneath a steel sky - postapocalyptic oppressive world, although a bit cartoony/comical and oddly british considering the story takes place in australia. Banger adventure game but does contain few violent deaths. I played this during my early teens, but I wouldn’t suggest letting very young kids have a go at this.
The rest of the games on there I either haven’t played or can’t recommend.
But, since you asked for games for kids to learn to use mouse, I suspect the kids in question are like 5-7? These 2 games aren’t probably for them yet.
@Malix@sopuli.xyz you’re correct about the age group. And l’m concerned about the cultural exposure as well, since I can’t afford too much westernised culture out here ☺️ ☺️
My kids learned mouse usage with GCompris at the age of 4 or so.
It has very basic mini-games for absolute mouse- and keyboard-beginners and has a high motivation factor.
And the rest of the educational game package is also great, stuff for all ages in there.
Also free, open and multi-platform.@Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de gcompris is a gui app ???🤔🤔🤔
Yes, actually it kinda brings its own kids friendly GUI.
https://www.gcompris.net/index-en.html
It’s made by kde, and for kids, so I wouldn’t expect them to release as a TUI interface. Especially for mouse control or touchscreen training.
Turn based strategy or point&click adventures could be a good start.
@5ibelius9insterberg@feddit.org could you give some examples ?? Suitable for absolute beginners ??🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓
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Old LucasArts or Sierra games like Escape from monkey island or Kings Quest would be good.
Plus they teach kids to hoard everything because you never know if you needed that custard pie to defeat the Minotaur in act 4.
I had the Island of Doctor Brain as a kid, I enjoyed it and was able to beat it at seven or eight years old but the puzzles might be a bit much for any younger kids (iirc there was a tower of hanoi puzzle that was an interesting challenge) and I’m guessing the first game, Castle of Dr Brain, was at a similar level.
Those were aimed at kids but even those might be too much of a challenge depending on the age of the kids in question. And we’re not even going to talk about how quickly I got stuck in Space Quest as an adult.
Luanti (or Voxelibre which is a slightly closer clone of minecraft). My 6 year old is absolutely champion with the mouse from this.
If you want voxelibre you install luanti first then search for it under the “games” section.
edit: This will run on a potato and is installable from the play store if you have a chromebook for example.
Take a look at point-and-click adventure games. Deponia is a good example of this.
Plants vs zombies. Go for the original, the remaster is dumb.
Minecraft, The Sims and Minesweeper. Minecraft specifically on Peaceful Creative settings so the kids can do creative stuff without scary monsters. Trine Enchanted Edition could also work, but with parental supervision.
@SammyJK@programming.dev actually l’m looking for games that are not violent/aesthetically ugly.
🤦
Then Minecraft is what you’re looking for.
Minecraft is gorgeous with a few mods. Or, more practically, a good modpack.
It’s also quite complex (with a good modpack).
And building requires a lot of mouse precision. And other kids their age are probably playing it. TBH among all these answers, it’s the obvious choice, if you ask me.
Minecraft on peaceful difficulty isn’t violent at all. Hostile monsters don’t spawn, and while you can kill a pig or something, there is no reason or encouragement to since you don’t get hungry. As far as aesthetically ugly… that’s entirely subjective. I highly doubt your kids will mind how it looks (I sure didn’t). In fact, I loved the blocky style when I was a kid. Reminded me of legos.
I answered elsewhere.
But a friendly warning, OP: you will get downvotes for using too many emojiis on Lemmy, heh.
This isn’t reddit. Use as many emojis as you like. 👌👌
GCompris or TuxPaint are great for younger kids. They’re free/open source and have versions available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
My first thought was Minecraft. I‘m not sure if it‘s playable offline still but a google search makes me believe so.
It runs on basically anything, and if the kids in question are still super young, there should be a peaceful/creative mode without monsters to scare them or survival mechanics to worry about, making it essentially just more complex LEGO.
If you’re running Windows:
https://win7games.com/I didn’t realise this existed so thanks from me. Also probably the best answer here.
@Zachariah@lemmy.world but can it be played on Linux ??🤔🤔🤔
In a VM or (probably) via Wine.
Kovaaks / aimlab. OSU
@Alawami@lemmy.ml can you please be a bit more explicit ??😄😄😄
Aimlabs is quite literally a mouse precision training game. It has different ‘tests’ and courses for different skills.
Very effective in short bursts, but your kids might find it boring after awhile.
What helped me when I was a kid were games like Quake 3 Arena, Worms, and Mechwarrior 2, 3, and 4.
Q3A was because of the speed. you had to be fast with the mouse if you hoped to compete. Add to the fact that the bots in Q3A, at the time anyways, were quite good. you can play it offline with bots or even over a local LAN.
Again going back to a LAN staple but Worms is also good. you need precision with the mouse on that one. lots of geometry at play.
Finally the Mechwarrior games which really emphasize the mouse and keyboard combination. Torso Twisting and Flicking, positioning of your legs in regards to your torso, etc. really helps with mouse coordination.
Nothing better than games they like
