Steam Deck

wobbly life! i fuckiing love wobbly life it is like GTA but more physics based and family friendly. It has that perfect co-op recipe of providing focus tasks and challenges you can accomplish together but also giving ample room and opportunity for spontaneous and chaotic fun

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1211020/Wobbly_Life/

lego games are great too!

For more chill gameplay I REALLY like Farm Together, I haven't tried the second one yet.

I can recommend a lot of local-splitscreen games too.

Motortown for driving trucks but it has no splitscreen

Stunt Rally 3 has splitscreen and actually the driving feels really good in my opinion, it is free and open source!

https://github.com/stuntrally/stuntrally3

The lego batman games emulated on steam deck

Just a question: can they hold the deck ? I have small hands it feels way too big (my hands are still larger than any 6yo's hands I've ever seen)

Dangerous Dave. Me and my mom used to take turns on that one when i was little. Also og Doom. Not kidding I loved Doom as a first grader

Untitled Goose Game has been a hit in our house. The Bluey game has been a close second. Power wash Simulator might be worth a shot. Sometimes it’s a bit fiddly finding the last little bit to complete the wash though.

Edit: I didn’t realize this was the steam deck sub. I’m only familiar with these releases on the PlayStation, so hopefully they’re available

Katamari Damacy. Be prepared to replace those thumbsticks.

Spyro the dragon! I played it as a kid and even as an adult its still amazing!

• Pizza Possum
• Lego games (all of them)
• Amazing Frog
• Glitch Busters
• Disney infinity
• Zoo Tycoon
• Sackboy
• Minecraft (mods!)
• Abraca
• Lovers in a dangerous space time
• Lethal League
• Human Fall Flat
• Bang on Balls
• Palworld
• Unravel Two
• Windjammers 2
• Team Sonic Racing
• Dragon Quest Builders 2
• Royal Revolt Warriors
• Warside
• Cassette Beasts
• Rubber Bandits
• Party Animals
• Goat Simulator 3
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
• NBA2K25
• Beam NG Drive
• Slime Rancher 2
• My Time at Sandrock
• Sonic X Shadow Generations *Cat Quest 2
• Paleo Pines
• Little Kitty, Big City
• Crash Bandicoot™ N. Sane Trilogy
• Tinykin
• Sonic Frontiers
• The Plucky Squire
• Crash Bandicoot™ 4: It’s About Time
• Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2
• Bluey: The Videogame
• A Hat in Time
• HOT WHEELS UNLEASHED™ 2 - Turbocharged
• Yooka-Laylee
• Disney Dreamlight Valley

My kids (7 and 6) enjoy valheim, Lego Star wars, deaths door, portal 2 and spiritfarer

Loved “A Short Hike” and every kid I’ve shown it to got hooked!

My six year old loves Pikuniku (puzzle platformer), Alba: A Wildlife Adventure (wholesome 3d adventure), and Horizon Chase Turbo (classic arcade-like racing).

Haven't tried these out on a calibrated six year old, but some that I liked which might be in the ballpark are Tinykin, a Short Hike, Smurfs Vileleaf, Loddlenaut, Lil Gator Game, Little Kitty Big City, Costume Quest, What the Golf/Car.

Tons of Lego games are also available on the Deck. Minecraft is always great. GCompris is a great collection for children.

And of course you can always emulate Switch games.

What kind of stuff is he into? My son loves simulator games like...

• BeamNG Drive - better with a wheel but very playable on controller.
• Snowrunner
• American truck simulator
• Farming simulator
• Construction simulator
• Lawn mowing simulator

There are a lot of good kart games on PC also, though I will say that my favorite - Sonic Racing Transformed - is much harder than Mario Kart.

Minecraft Dungeons is basically Diablo for kids.

Minecraft is good but I also like Dragon Quest Builders.

Wobbly Life is a pretty good one. It has online capabilities but no chat, communication is limited to a very small subset of emojis.

Virtual pinball games

Mario teaches typing. Gate their steam dexk time behind what wpm or accuracy % they get. Don't let touch typing die with the millennials

Croc: Legend of the Gobbos was a childhood favourite of mine that I played when I was 6 in the mid-late 00s and the remaster just came out yesterday! It's a fun 3D platformer from the 90s that was on the PS1/PC and was mainly made for kids. On PC it's a GOG exclusive though, so you'd have to set up Heroic Games Launcher to download the game, then add the game manually to your Steam library if you don't want your child messing around with desktop mode. I think it's very suitable for his age. The original game had tank controls which he might not like if he's used to modern game controls, but the new remaster has the option for full dual analogue stick controls which makes it feel like a normal modern game to control. I run a Linux desktop and the game works perfectly on the newest Proton version.

Oh, also Goat Simulator. So much hilarious mayhem!

Pajama Sam was one of my favorites as a kid

The original Lego Racers. Works really well on the deck, is Lego themed, and is just an all-round fun game.

Child-me spent countless hours with it, adult-me beat it in under 2 hours. Fair warning though: the title screen song will get stuck in your head

Aer

Rime

Stonefall

Shovel Knight

Journey

Spider Heck

Overcooked (1 & 2)

Snakeybus

Osmos

Sonic Mania

World of Goo

Duck Tales Remastered

Spyro: Reignited Trilogy

Might consider this bundle, some of the games are targeted at kids younger than 6, but it's a good deal for younger players.

Spongebob: Battle for Bikini Bottom is a great one. Colorful, fun, complex enough that he can grow with but simplistic enough for him to have fun without constantly needing help.

Some of the only games I could think of are other lego games or something like the Scribblenauts series, for its puzzle solving that doesn't have a single solution and encourages creativity.

Minecraft is all a kid needs these days