Ideally, I’d like a game that would be good for logical thinking and appropriate for an 8 year old for a few years? Any ideas?
I play puzzle games and there are no games in that genre that can last for a few years. (Even with user created contents.)
Any established games that actually can last years if you are into the genre(ie. Factorio, Minecraft, Terraria, or procedural content generation games) have established guides and wiki so eventually you don’t really think about doing creative stuff cause there are more effective/efficient ways to scale up.
And for games like Zelda:TotK where you can create many different crazy ways to defeat puzzles, mobs or bosses in the over world(since autobuild or zonai devices are disabled inside the shrine), it has that counter side of having to grind for materials or you need to rely on exploits like item dup to keep the boring side down. And, if you kid doesn’t even like lego, then chances are those “crafting” games won’t appeal to them.
What I think is best, is that you observe what they liked to do more, and then find games with mechanics they would like and have fun doing. And gradually transition to games with more complex progression or puzzles, before you let them try those really open ended crafting ones.
Most crafting games needs some basic skills to get better, cause the things you need to build relies on the materials you have. So you need to calculate how many certain parts needed to gather before you start building it. That would promote basic math skills and planning. Traditional puzzle games that focus more on logical thinking(ie. Talos Principle, Cogs, Toki Tori, Portal) mostly relies on spatial recognition/sequential order of breaking down tasks required to reach the goal.)
Last but not least, fun is essential to drive learning related skills to progress. There is no like one game to play and suddenly your 8 years old would become future a engineer or scientist. But the stuff he learned while tackle all the obstacles game designer throw at him will help him at problem solving for a long time.
Snipperclips
BotW and TotK for sure too.
Into The Breach too.
I was about to say ToTK. Some of the shrines are really good physics puzzles incorporating simple machines like levers and pulleys which can be applicable outside of the game as well.
Toki Tori 2 is a metroidvania that doesn’t give you movement upgrades, but instead gates your ability to navigate with knowledge (here’s how you interact with this thing in the map to overcome this challenge). The graphics are cutesy, but it is a great game.
Death Squared. Name might sound bad but it’s a puzzle game that pretty good
Not sure what you mean by “for a few years” but my friend’s 9 year old loved Tangle Tower. Great art, voice acting, detective story and puzzles that are the right amount of challenging!
