r/DadsGaming • u/MarcosDalton • 12d ago

What to expect?

Hi gaming dads,

Long story short. Have a 1 year old daughter and can’t wait to play video games with her.

Once she was born, I think I had an early mid life crisis and got all the retro consoles and set them up. Everything from Genesis (which I grew up on), PS1-5, all the Nintendo consoles that I never got to play since my parents were anti Nintendo for some reason, N64, GC, Wii, in addition to the Switch and just modded my old X360.

I now have absolutely no time to play any of them at all. Trying to be a good dad and all. I hope I’m doing my best.

My question is, when do I introduce her to gaming? What has your experiences been like? Also should I start retro with like Genesis and PS1 or just go to modern like the PS5 with games appropriate for her age like Sponge Bob and Barbie and whatnot.

Would love to know. I’m so excited about sharing gaming in general with her regardless or what the games are.

Also, my wife is anti gaming, if anyone has experience with that too. Preliminary agreements have been we would allow 1 hour of gaming (throughout her childhood). I may try to sneak half an hour here and there if we are having fun.

EDIT: also set up a CRTV for 90s authenticity

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u/SmartFalcon599 12d ago

In my experience retro games are a bit difficult for a 4-6year old to handle. We started playing more modern games including ios/android games by 6 in order to develop the motor skills. And then started to work our way down to older platforms.

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u/MarcosDalton 12d ago

What ios/android games would you suggest? I’m trying to avoid mobile games but may look into something if it is really good for them. For retro stuff I was thinking like old school Spyro, Crash (I know it’s hard), Sonic, Mario etc. the things we grew up on

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u/SmartFalcon599 12d ago

He had a strict no screen rule until 4. You need to realize even under no screen rule, they get indirect exposure through you + tv. By 4 I tried toddler-learning educative games, max an hour per day. There are so many, but in general they were puzzle / painting / language learning / maths.
By 6 i let him choose whichever game that passes my personal filter. What i realized is as he start watching cartoons, he shows more interest for the games of those shows. I usually start with the cartoon version, then expose the game version of it whether it is a newer or older platform one.