Pokemon? Despite many of its flaws, it encourages honest trading amongst friends, it is a classic JRPG, and has no microtransaction. You can play it on emulator if you don’t have a switch
I wish someone had taught my friends and me how to play D&D when I was 10, but my parents were part of the “satanic panic” generation, and had zero interest in anything to do with fantasy or improv. Once you get out of highschool, finding a night that everyone can meet up for D&D gets exponentially harder, let alone finding someone who wants to put in the time to DM.
Oh yeah, DnD is a great idea, and if they aren’t into dragons (but who isn’t) there’s all kinds of variations of rpg games. Mutant Year Zero, Vaesen, Alien, Pathfinder, Starfinder, etc. The list goes on and on. And since you have mentioned you have a pc, you can use a virtual tabletop like Fantasy Grounds, for them to play where you don’t have to get them all together in the same room. I play a few different games each week with people I have only met in game. You could buy the FG Ultimate license for one pc, whomever is going to be the DM, and all the other kids could connect with the free beta license, and only the DM needs to own the books. Everyone else can just get on and read the manuals, or play the game with no expense.
Personally I have played dnd with those virtual tabletops and… they’re pretty bad. You spend about 3x as much time fiddling with it than you do playing. Plus you then get distracted by electronics when you should be getting into your character.
Well I guess it all depends on the dm and the material. I play a couple of games each week, and one is a 4 hour session and it’s pretty immersive. We have a few hiccups now and again, but it’s not anything that bad in my opinion. There is some work on the dm side, but since we are all spread about the planet, it allows us to get together and run a campaign. Even my local board game peeps use FG to play. We talk about playing local, but when we get together it’s usually to break out some board games we have and want to play, and one person playing our dnd game is a couple of states away. We joke about putting him on an ipad and facetiming him with his head sitting on the table. LOL.
Dnd (and tabletop gaming in general) is really fun, but I can foresee problems when you try to replace the electronic gambling skinner box of Roblox with a game where the core features are math and imagination.
For immersiveness, I recommend miniatures to use on a grid (can be just paper with 1”x1” squares drawn with a pencil). One thing I can say for doing it cheap and quick is to buy a bunch of those small game piece holders (1”x1”) and find monster art online to print, cut, and put in the holders as your minis.
[For example](LLMSIX 24 Pieces Game Card Stand Clear Card Holders Plastic Place Card Display Stand Photo Card Holder DIY Board Games Stand for Business Cards Price Tags Labels Menus Party Favor)
You can get basic rules online for free and you could probably pick up books used.
Minecraft seems like the obvious choice for kids who liked Roblox. Terraria is another. If they can only play on a server that one of them hosts, then no need to worry about outside users.
Good on you and the other parents for getting that shit out of there, kids don’t need addiction machines trying to pressure them into spending money.
Oh, I’m sure we’re all great parents here. I applaud you for admitting a mistake and having the humility to ask for advice, both excellent parenting skills in my opinion.
I believe the answer is always culture. Once better videogames are discovered it’s likely that they will hardly go back to the bad ones (so that the problem of prohibitionism - which is only a temporary solution - can be solved).
I dunno if you want him playing a true mmo at that age, but old school RuneScape is currently as popular as ever. Specifically old school though, RS3 has the same sort of problems with micro transactions etc.
OP said their son in his friends use Xbox Series X/S, so that effectively removes Krunker and Minecraft Java Edition. That said, I believe Minecraft Bedrock Edition is available for XSX.
Stardew Valley is great, but the son’s social group has 5 people. Stardew Valley only supports up to 4.
Cities Skylines does not have multiplayer.
Can’t speak for Dorfromantik, because I haven’t played it, but the rest seem like great choices.
Was he interested in developing games in Roblox or just playing them? If he was interested in development, consider showing to him Godot. Do a simple tutorial together, maybe a multiplayer that he can send and show off to his friends.
One pick that I’m surprised hasn’t been mentioned yet is Overcooked 2. No profanity or anything. The only disadvantage is that the game is rather short.
Not really. It will feel like programming if you already know how to program, but I don’t think it will teach you programming anymore than any other problem solving activity.
I’m putting up a minecraft server for my kid and her friends, but I don’t really play myself other than than. Few creative builds so I’m curious if you could please expand for me what exactly you mean when you say to mod the shit out of it. Is it enough to create rules or am I going to have to actively moderate their play?
Terraria, for something crafty-buildy with combat and very cartoony/2d blood and gore. 1-8 players.
Don’t Starve Together, survival crafting in a hand-drawn Tim Burton-esque style. 2-6 players.
Awesomenauts, 3v3 fast paced competitive game in the style of Saturday morning cartoons. 3-6 players.
Deep Rock Galactic, coop shooter where you play space dwarves and shoot bugs while doing missions together. Gore may be a bit strong for your liking, but it’s very stylized and only against bugs and robots. 1-4 players.
Risk of Rain 2, shooter where you try and escape a planet together with lots of different ways to play. 1-4 players.
Age of Empires 2, old school fast-paced medieval strategy game modernized with new graphics and such. 1-8 players.
Valheim, viking survival crafty buildy game in which you explore and conquer a dangerous world together. 1-10 players.
Cassette Beasts, technically not multi-player yet but they’re adding it as a free update January. It’s a Pokémon-esque game where you’ll all be trainers in the same overworld together capturing beasts and taking down challenges together. 1-8 players when it comes out.
All of these games are rated T for teen, but it sounds more like you’re opposed to M rated violence and language than T levels. They’re all also insular in that this friend group doesn’t need to involve other people to play together and can either play with or against each other or the computer.
I just want to avoid the porn games on steam, and any super-gory shit like dead space. I thought Diablo would be fun for him but it is a bit too much right now. It was different when super pixelated back in the D2 days.
Overcooked can make for some fun chaos, though it tops at 4 players. Team Fortress 2 could work, but it does have graphic violence and I dunno if it’s available for the newer xboxes. On PC, it has loads of mods and custom maps that offer similar experiences to what you can find in Roblox
The OP said that the friend group has Xboxes, and I assume that you can’t mod the games. I may be wrong though, I haven’t used an Xbox since the 360 and mostly game with the pc myself.
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