I just made it, in your honor : )
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Pokémon Unite just released for free on the Switch (mobile version coming in a few months). It is a perfectly pleasant kid-friendly MOBA. There is no chat so it avoids the toxicity inherent to the genre and gameplay seems easy enough for my kids to grasp. The game is free with in-app purchases for avatar clothing, skins, and more Pokémon, though the latter can be obtained with in-game winnings. My son has been very competition-averse since he was born to the point where he is scared to play a game he can lose, so seeing him excited about the competition in this game is a plus for me.
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I read a review on it yesterday that said it was the most predatory monetization system they had ever seen, and the person reviewing it was in revenue generation in the gaming industry. thoughts?
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Interesting. I guess I would have to look at it further but it seems exactly like LoL to me, which I always thought was fair.
Here’s how it looks to me:
The shop has three categories: Pokémon (your playable champs), clothing for your avatar, or skins for your champs. Yes, each has its own currency, but in my opinion, the only thing needed to play the game fully are the champs. You get some for free just for playing, there is a free champ rotation, and this category of purchases can be bough with currency earned in-game.
The rest of the stuff is cosmetic.
I think there is also a “battle pass” type feature that gives you more cosmetic stuff more quickly if you pay the subscription but I didn’t look closely.
So the bottom line is that it seems after a brief play that there are plenty of things to buy but it os all cosmetic and the things you actually need to play are provided for you or obtainable just through playing.
I admit that I could be wrong if it turns out there os some other tier of purchase lea that I haven’t seen yet.
I hate f2p garbage, especially when it makes a game unbalanced in favor of people who pay real money, but the cosmetic-only thing doesn’t bother me.
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Instead of editing, I decided to completely off-topic complain. Why will autocorrect change about half the words I’m meaning to type into some stupid, obscure, nonsensical word but when I type “os” is won’t correct it to “is?”
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Following up, I have found out that there is a hard cap on in-game gold per week, so it would take 3-4 weeks to get enough gold for a champ. I don’t know how long it takes to hit that weekly cap, though. Still, my kids just know that they play with what they have or with what is free for the week. I still don’t see it as predatory as most f2p stuff.
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It was on Reddit, so very possibly highly hyperbolic.
Slightly off topic, but relevant. My 9yo daughter has seen all of the Marvel movies except Black Widow and Shang Chi. Of course those are the 2 I have not seen either.
Now that BW is off premium on Disney, I was going to watch it this weekend. This would be the first time I have shown her a Marvel movie without seeing it though.
But I assume that if she has seen all of the others, this is fine, yes?
Even though I’m sure he’s heard it all at school, I am still pretty careful about the language my 8yo hears so I haven’t let him watch any of the Marvel movies other than Thor. That said, as far as violence and fantasy stuff, they all seem to be about the same to me, so I can’t imagine Black Widow departing from the norm too much. However, I did hear that the story gets into human trafficking, so there may be some sexual undertones, too, which there usually isn’t too much of in Marvel outside of a occasional Tony Stark quip. I plan on watching in next weekend and as always I am also judging the content for my kids, so I can report in from a dad’s perspective in a week if she’s hasn’t gotten around to it by then.
It’s funny, because Guardians of the Galaxy (both) I did cringe a bit at some of the language when watching with my daughter, but I don’t even think she noticed the bad words.
Yeah, I read about the Human Trafficking part also. I might just have my wife and I watch it tonight first.
My 8 year old was introduced to Monopoly Deal and has become obsessed with it. She’s pretty good, although she gets too into trying to get the cards to slam down a $27 or $30 million rent to break her opponent’s back.
We also started chess, which she seems to like but still is getting used to all the rules.
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Does anyone have any experience with Mario Kart Live? It looks like a neat idea but my concern is that is it maybe a little limited?
I keep looking at this thread and realise these tiny spawn are getting older and less tiny by the minute…
So in that light, keen to get some thoughts on some competitive coop style dungeon games (is that a thing?). Kind of like ones where you are adventuring and growing your hero, but no pvp.
For pvp - gotcha style games, I would suggest cockroach poker. So much feedback in such a small period of time 
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My daughter has been playing the Miitopia game on the Switch, and she really likes it, especially because she can name all of the characters in the game. The best is that she did not understand what this meant at first and named the bad guy Dark Lord, but that was also his title, and now the Antagonist in the game is The Dark Lord, Dark Lord. It is very funny.
Although she mostly just plays Roblox these days with her friends, its the hot game of the 4th grade.
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I’ve tried a number of the co-op dungeon crawls with my now-8yo. His favorite is probably Imperial Assault based on theme alone, but I’m not as big a fan. In typical Fantasy Flight fashion, the game has more bits and is more fiddly than it needs to be. Also, the app that runs the co-op campaign still confuses me a bit.
Stuffed Fables is good, if a little on the lighter side.
Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion blows all of these out of the water with such a great system, but it is also on the more complicated end of things. My son understood it after a bit since it is such a clean design and because the early campaign serves as a tutorial.
We’ve also played the D&D Adventure games, which are only so/so but which are probably easier to learn and play. There is much less set up and combat is on the easier end.
On the quicker side of things you have Wakening Lair and One Deck Dungeon.
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I should add that my daughter and I have also played through the main story line on Diablo 3 on the Switch and we had a lot of fun.
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How do you manage the social aspects on Roblox? I haven’t looked at the game at all but I know some of my daughter’s friends play it also… am I mistaken in thinking it’s like a Minecraft style MMO?
It’s more of a collection of MMOs, some are minecraft style, I have seen her play a couple, but there are all sorts I have seen.
She mostly plays Royale High and Adopt Me, the first is like a Roleplay School Dressup Game, the later is kind of like a pet collection and raising game. But she also is fond of the Work in a Pizza Place game…where you work at a Pizza Place (it’s kind of hard to explain.)
As for social management, she only is allowed to friend kids from her school or afterschool program. Some of these games have trading, and she does trade with people outside of her friends list, but she mostly sticks to talk with her friends. Usually she sets up time to play games in Roblox with her friends, so they are like virtual play dates.
I coincidentally was asking her who everyone on her friends list was last night, but I don’t do it often. We are still sticking with the “trust until we are given reason not to” theory here.
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Sounds like there’s some semblance of parental controls though? In terms of limiting who can see them online, chat with them, etc… obviously with my background in law enforcement and my wife’s time spent as a state prosecutor in the “computer crimes unit” (a nice euphemism since they couldn’t exactly call it the “anti kiddie porn and online predators unit”) we’re overly leery of online contacts.
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