Edit: Daughter is only 5 so she’s unlikely to play much but she watches me and as long as it’s not too violent, it should be fine
Portal! Chell may be silent, but it’s directly stated that she got as far as she had due to sheer tenacity and resourcefulness
Also, Silksong, if you’re willing to wait for its release in 2377 AD
Edit: here’s some more (these are all fairly family-friendly):
*Celeste
*Crypt of the NecroDancer
*Spelunky 2
*A Hat in Time
*Slime Rancher
*Webbed
Great suggestions, but Spelunky 2??? I love my daughter, but I also don’t hate myself ;)
Hat in Time is perfect for this.
Also to add: Aquaria, quite old but it’s kinda nice. EDF if you willing to play as Wing Diver only. Iconoclast if you’re into metroidvania. Metroid Prime remaster if you have a switch. Shantae: Half-Genie Hero is pretty nice. Transistor but i don’t really dig it, maybe you’ll like it. Orc Must Die 2 if you only play as Sorcerer. La Mulana 2 if you wanna torture yourself and confuse your daughter 😂
Slime rancher is a fantastic suggestion for a little girl. Great game, female MC, cute little animals and overall graphic style.
I loved it as a relaxing post work game even as a 30yr old man
Shocked I had to scroll so far for A Hat in Time. Seems pretty much perfect for this.
Ooo ooo I’ve got one.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits. It’s like a Pixar souls like adventure game. Lots of foresty magic, very beautiful, and challenging enough to give you a run for your money while she laughs at your many failures.
It’s a good game.
Thanks!
Not so sure if the protagonist is a girl though. It’s a bit ambiguous iirc
It’s very clearly a girl.
Celeste. It’s a platformer with a nice story about anxiety and overcoming one’s fears.
IDK man I’m a grown adult and I died 2,000 times before completing the game. I know I’m not the best player ever but giving it to a 5yo may lead to problems
It has a variety of assist-mode options. My 8-year-old plays it and enjoys it, and actually can play with no assist most kf the time now.
very very good game, it does get pretty challenging at some points though, idk if a 5 yr old would like it
Yeah I’m in my 20s and I found even the first few levels too hard. Granted, I’m a total noob when it comes to platformers, but I think the game would be immediately frustrating for a 5 year old
I gave up on it relatively quick, and only recently finished it after 1500 deaths lol
And to add, the game can be extremely difficult but it can be customized to play very easily, even for a 5 year old. The colors are bright, there’s some slightly scary parts but I’m sure you could play those with her!
Very wholesome message and no killing involved, just some strawberry farming!
Seconding because my 8-year-old plays and loves it, due tobthe fact that it has assist-mode options. He now plays without assist mode at all, and is pretty freaking good at it.
Idk if this counts as it’s not visually obvious, but Amaterasu from Ōkami is a fun female protangonist, on account of her being straight up Amaterasu Ōmikami, the sun goddess (and all around top dog) from Japanese mythology. Graceful and elegant and also she’s a big ol’ wolf who does doggy things, which I imagine would delight a 5 year old.
The game’s artstyle is really stylised and pretty, the story is based on Japanese mythology and legends which I’d think would also interest a kid, it’s kinda zelda-like with puzzles and whatnot, and there’s a dedicated woof button. It came out way back in 2006 but at the same time it’s been remastered pretty recently (it’s in capcom’s summer steam sale if you’re going down that route) so you’ve got some choice about which route to go down trying to find it. Try and stick to European versions if you can because apparently the American localisations removed most of the mentions of the fact that Ammy is a girl which imo is a really weird choice because like, that’s a whole ass mythological figure?
Honestly, Spiritfarer would be perfect. You can play local co-op, it’s quite easy. You will understand what’s going on but your daughter will just think it’s cute. One of you can play as a cat. It’s absolutely gorgeous and a very poignant story.
My partner and I have played it all the way through 3 times now.
I love Spiritfarer, would normally agree without a second thought, but in this case, I’d definitely say be quietly prepared to answer some questions about death.
It does excellently to handle its themes in beautiful ways, but kids can be more aware than we give them credit for, even if they don’t fully grasp a concept.
- Sayonara Wild Hearts
- Celeste
- Sable
- Night in the Woods (female, but also an anthropomorphosised cat)
- Assassin’s Creed: Origins
- Shantae: Half-Genie Hero
- Gris
- Transistor
You’d recommened AC: Origins for a five year old?
I don’t think the special scenes when you kill important targets would sit well with me. In one you smash someones face in repeatedly. You also play at least half the game as a male character.
Going by a few of these recommendations I don’t think many read the part where they said she’s 5!
Plus it’s AC Odyssey where you can play as a woman. And yeah, I played her as a walking clap clinic. Not really a kids game.
walking clap clinic
I gotta steal this one, sounds like the perfect burn
Haven’t played that particular Shantae game, but I found the series off putting to play in front of my kids due to the high amount of fan service. Seems like not what op might not be going for here.
Seconding Sable.
I recommend that one too everyone though.
Technically I think the Celeste character is supposed to be trans, not female.
That’s the same thing, they’re a woman
That’s a part of why Celeste, and Madeline as a character, now has a strong place to some trans gamers. She climbed the fucking mountain. She looked at her self doubt, her fear, the person in the mirror telling her she could never do it, never be that person, and did it. She overcame it.
Madeline is a woman, and writing her character off as “trans, not female” is writing off the impact that story has had for people climbing their own mountains.
Satisfactory.
She’s fearless
She conquers a planet
She’s an engineer
This one’s been on my list. Didn’t realise it’s a female protagonist
Don’t think the gener is specified anywhere so it could be either. Anyways, amazing game.
Most people miss it, because it doesn’t come up and isn’t pointed out. She just is, that’s all. I think that’s pretty amazing.
It’s kinda obvious once you look at the model, though:
Also, the character designer said in an interview that they decided to make the pioneer female.
Interesting. I wonder if this will have more of an influence on the story if/when that is made.
You can only tell by seeing the player model but the devs have confirmed it. Not a whole lot of dialog or story so hard to tell.
Game does get pretty complicated quick and I’m not sure a 5yr old could pull it off solo, might be fun for her to watch you though
Plus, it’s coop!
any Metroid
A Short Hike. Lead character is called Claire. No combat, no death, no resets. Just exploring, puzzles and story.
But deals with family medical issues and a mother daughter coming to terms with one of them being extremely sick.
I have to recommend CrossCode, since it is so damn underrated.
It’s a beautifully crafted 2D / sprite based 16bit / SNES era inspired RPG with a fast paced action combat system and puzzle filled dungeons, as well as big boss fights. Although the trailers do not do it justice imo. It contains one of my favorite protagonists, which is sort of mute, which is also part of the story and cause of some hilarious but also sad moments. Pretty wholesome friendship based storytelling for the most part, although it does contain one suicide towards the end, which gets a little darker too. It’s not graphic though and will topically probably fly over her head anyway. The spoiler free premise is that you play in sort of a MMORPG, which is located physically on another planet where they build something akin to a Westworld theme park out of something similar to nanobots, in which you control your avatar remotely made out of the same material. It has tons of accessibility options to adjust the difficulty too, in case something isn’t quite your cup of tea.
Seconding this. It’s a masterpiece. If she’s 5, I don’t think she’d really pay too much attention to the dialogue anyway.
Honestly, yes. This game is so good that it inspired my girlfriend to take up game development, which shes been doing for two years now
I never got to play the whole game but the HTML5 demo was outstanding!
Good point actually. I completely forgot that it had one, even though that’s what made me buy the early access back then too. Makes it easy for OP to check the game out. At least in regards to some very basic gameplay.
New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe has Toadette and Peachette.
Super Mario 3D World has Peach / Cat Peach.
My daughter beat them both at 5 years old. There’s also Mario Kart 8 which also has Peach. You may be noticing a theme here.
There’s also the Lego games where you get to choose your character and she always picks the girls.
Miitopia is great because you create your own characters. She makes the entire team girls.
My Friend Peppa is kinda entertaining, but she didn’t really care for it all that much.
Kirby is pretty great and both games Return to Dreamland and Forgotten Land are accessible, though both ramp up difficulty later. (Kirby is gender neutral)
There are more games out there, like Kena, Metroid, Celeste, Shantae, but not for her age yet.
Just propping this post up, because poster actually remembers the kid is only 5 years old.
A hat in time is a wonderful mario style game with a young female protagonist.
Man that game was such a breath of fresh air when it came out. I wish I could play it for the first time again.
Eventually she should play Horizon Zero Dawn 😁
Check out En Garde, it releases on the 16th. Swaggy protag, the fighting is comedy based and sanitized, and it looks like it’ll be a blast.
This looks fun. Wishlisted
I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of that! I’ll have to check it out when it comes out next week.
There are too many great games in the Indie/AA space, so something will always fall through the cracks, unfortunately! The only thing we can do about it is to try to spread the word about what seems cool
What about ROM hacks with Zelda replacing link?
Aside from Portal, maybe Mirrors Edge? There’s bullets and fighting, but I don’t remember too much violence. Maybe Tales Of Berseria?
Once she’s older, that opens the door to The Walking Dead telltale series, Resident Evil, Assassins Creed (one of them anyway), Silent Hill, and (the new) Tomb Raiders.
Tomb Raider might not be too bad either considering the focus on stealth and puzzle solving
Tomb Raider might not be too bad
You know I don’t entirely agree
Ah that’s fair (it’s been awhile since I’ve played it), maybe wait a few years. 😅
This is amazing!!
