IIRC, this was the explicit purpose of games that came pre-installed on old computers like Minesweeper and Solitaire.
this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2025
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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
Tyl what til means!
Minesweeper also taught right-click vs left-click
Took me ~10 years before I learned about right click in Minesweeper π₯².
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 πππ Can you please tell me how to download them and play them offline ??π€π€π€π€π€
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.
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Turn based strategy or point&click adventures could be a good start.
@5ibelius9insterberg@feddit.org could you give some examples ?? Suitable for absolute beginners ??π€π€π€π€π€
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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Plants vs zombies. Go for the original, the remaster is dumb.
If youβre 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 ??π€π€π€
In a VM or (probably) via Wine.
My first thought was Minecraft. Iβm not sure if itβs 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.
Nothing better than games they like
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.
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. ππ
What age range? I've seen "house flipper" give great results, I think in general those simulator games that give the dopamine hit of completing tasks are good incentives, especially chill games (nothing time based, let them take their time). I've found something like "a little to the left" is not actually great for that, it requires precision and an eye for pattern recognition that just causes frustration when you think you got it but nothing happens.
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GCompris or TuxPaint are great for younger kids. Theyβre free/open source and have versions available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Shooter games? Counter strike can be played offline with bots and it's free. Aimlabs is made specifically to improve aim, also free. Faster paced strategy games like Dota 2 also requires accuracy to click on monsters and enemies and can be played offline with bots and it's free.
More story-oriented games of course could also work. StarCraft, company of heroes, command and conquer, age of empires, etc. For shooters there's tons, but many have gore..you can try portal or slime rancher but I was playing doom and Wolfenstein and stuff like that when I was like 10 and whatever as did many of us..but well..not here to give parenting advice, shouldn't listen to me.
Minecraft is good for teaching a lot of stuff, depending on the age of the kids. A friend of mine has kids who are learning to read and type early so they can access what they want in creative mode, too
Eggman
Oh I have the perfect game! This was one of the first games I let my kids try, just to get a hang of moving the mouse. It doesn't use the keyboard at all. It's called nodebuster, very "chill" game and only costs 2-3$. Also, the best thing I did, was buy a super small mouse, that fits their hands. They tried my mouse, but it was way to bulky. I saw instant improvement after I bought a small shitty 5$ mouse.
Doom
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