Shooter games? Counter strike can be played offline with bots and it’s free. Aimlabs is made specifically to improve aim, also free.
Faster paced strategy games like Dota 2 also requires accuracy to click on monsters and enemies and can be played offline with bots and it’s free.
More story-oriented games of course could also work. StarCraft, company of heroes, command and conquer, age of empires, etc.
For shooters there’s tons, but many have gore…you can try portal or slime rancher but I was playing doom and Wolfenstein and stuff like that when I was like 10 and whatever as did many of us…but well…not here to give parenting advice, shouldn’t listen to me.
My first thought was Minecraft. I‘m not sure if it‘s playable offline still but a google search makes me believe so.
It runs on basically anything, and if the kids in question are still super young, there should be a peaceful/creative mode without monsters to scare them or survival mechanics to worry about, making it essentially just more complex LEGO.
What helped me when I was a kid were games like Quake 3 Arena, Worms, and Mechwarrior 2, 3, and 4.
Q3A was because of the speed. you had to be fast with the mouse if you hoped to compete. Add to the fact that the bots in Q3A, at the time anyways, were quite good. you can play it offline with bots or even over a local LAN.
Again going back to a LAN staple but Worms is also good. you need precision with the mouse on that one. lots of geometry at play.
Finally the Mechwarrior games which really emphasize the mouse and keyboard combination. Torso Twisting and Flicking, positioning of your legs in regards to your torso, etc. really helps with mouse coordination.
Oh I have the perfect game! This was one of the first games I let my kids try, just to get a hang of moving the mouse. It doesn’t use the keyboard at all.
It’s called nodebuster, very “chill” game and only costs 2-3$.
Also, the best thing I did, was buy a super small mouse, that fits their hands. They tried my mouse, but it was way to bulky. I saw instant improvement after I bought a small shitty 5$ mouse.
depends on the age of your kids, buuuut: if they’re fairly young, maybe spyfox/putt-putt/pajama-sam/freddi-fish games? those can be found on eg. steam, and should run fairly painlessly from there. (and if you want to make them steam-free/offline, you can just copy the files from those games elsewhere and use eg. scummvm (https://scummvm.org/) to run them. But that’s entirely optional & up to you. afaik steam bundles them with scummvm anyway).
Basically they are point & click adventure games aimed for younger kids. I’m in my 40’s and kinda do enjoy spyfox as well x)
The games are fairly old (afaik mid-to-late 90’s, or so), so graphics are fairly low res by today’s standards, but they’re essentially just playable cartoons with mild puzzles, all dialogue is spoken (subtitles are an option) and no real fail states.
If you want to just, remove steam from the equation, eg. for no-internet kids’ computer:
basically: buy them from steam, then just install them. Then, just copy the game files somewhere else, install scummvm & add the games to scummvm to play them.
Scummvm is just an app which runs these older adventure games on wide variety of systems, incl modern windows (the games are occasionally so old, windows doesn’t support them natively at all). Scummvm is fairly straightforward to set up, basically just click “add game” -> browse to where the game is -> ok -> it is now in scummvm, click “Play” to play it.
If you’re asking about “yar har har, me mateys, and a bottle of rhum” -methods, that’s an excercise left for the reader.
the freebies are in general fairly old (like early-to-mid 90’s dos stuff), but work fine on scummvm, hence they’re offering them there. AFAIK all of them are controlled by mouse only.
Not all of them are suitable for all ages though.
Flight of the Amazon Queen is a story set in 40’s, about a pilot for hire and his small plane crashing into the amazons while transporting a movie star. Overall theme is cartoony/goofy/comedy, with a bit of juvenile humour ( by modern standards). There are some things some could find unsuitable for children, I guess.
rubber breasts, used in non-sexual way to build a costume to fool gangsters
the “bad guys” are essentially ww2 germans (but not referred as such, iirc their faction isn’t even given a name, I think)
some alcohol & tobacco references
very mild innuendos.
Beneath a steel sky - postapocalyptic oppressive world, although a bit cartoony/comical and oddly british considering the story takes place in australia. Banger adventure game but does contain few violent deaths. I played this during my early teens, but I wouldn’t suggest letting very young kids have a go at this.
The rest of the games on there I either haven’t played or can’t recommend.
But, since you asked for games for kids to learn to use mouse, I suspect the kids in question are like 5-7? These 2 games aren’t probably for them yet.
@[email protected] you’re correct about the age group. And l’m concerned about the cultural exposure as well, since I can’t afford too much westernised culture out here ☺️ ☺️
ye. ended up checking some of the games’ store pages. There’s a note about scummvm.
Dunno if they keep the scummvm updated though, not that it matters much unless there’s an issue with a specific game. IIRC Indy Atlantis is bundles with decade+ old scummvm, though it’s been a while since I checked.
Minecraft is good for teaching a lot of stuff, depending on the age of the kids. A friend of mine has kids who are learning to read and type early so they can access what they want in creative mode, too
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I answered elsewhere.
But a friendly warning, OP: you will get downvotes for using too many emojiis on Lemmy, heh.
This isn’t reddit. Use as many emojis as you like. 👌👌
Luanti (or Voxelibre which is a slightly closer clone of minecraft). My 6 year old is absolutely champion with the mouse from this.
If you want voxelibre you install luanti first then search for it under the “games” section.
edit: This will run on a potato and is installable from the play store if you have a chromebook for example.
Shooter games? Counter strike can be played offline with bots and it’s free. Aimlabs is made specifically to improve aim, also free. Faster paced strategy games like Dota 2 also requires accuracy to click on monsters and enemies and can be played offline with bots and it’s free.
More story-oriented games of course could also work. StarCraft, company of heroes, command and conquer, age of empires, etc. For shooters there’s tons, but many have gore…you can try portal or slime rancher but I was playing doom and Wolfenstein and stuff like that when I was like 10 and whatever as did many of us…but well…not here to give parenting advice, shouldn’t listen to me.
My first thought was Minecraft. I‘m not sure if it‘s playable offline still but a google search makes me believe so.
It runs on basically anything, and if the kids in question are still super young, there should be a peaceful/creative mode without monsters to scare them or survival mechanics to worry about, making it essentially just more complex LEGO.
My kids learned mouse usage with GCompris at the age of 4 or so.
It has very basic mini-games for absolute mouse- and keyboard-beginners and has a high motivation factor.
And the rest of the educational game package is also great, stuff for all ages in there.
Also free, open and multi-platform.
@[email protected] gcompris is a gui app ???🤔🤔🤔
https://www.gcompris.net/index-en.html
It’s made by kde, and for kids, so I wouldn’t expect them to release as a TUI interface. Especially for mouse control or touchscreen training.
Yes, actually it kinda brings its own kids friendly GUI.
What helped me when I was a kid were games like Quake 3 Arena, Worms, and Mechwarrior 2, 3, and 4.
Q3A was because of the speed. you had to be fast with the mouse if you hoped to compete. Add to the fact that the bots in Q3A, at the time anyways, were quite good. you can play it offline with bots or even over a local LAN.
Again going back to a LAN staple but Worms is also good. you need precision with the mouse on that one. lots of geometry at play.
Finally the Mechwarrior games which really emphasize the mouse and keyboard combination. Torso Twisting and Flicking, positioning of your legs in regards to your torso, etc. really helps with mouse coordination.
Kovaaks / aimlab. OSU
@[email protected] can you please be a bit more explicit ??😄😄😄
Aimlabs is quite literally a mouse precision training game. It has different ‘tests’ and courses for different skills.
Very effective in short bursts, but your kids might find it boring after awhile.
Oh I have the perfect game! This was one of the first games I let my kids try, just to get a hang of moving the mouse. It doesn’t use the keyboard at all. It’s called nodebuster, very “chill” game and only costs 2-3$. Also, the best thing I did, was buy a super small mouse, that fits their hands. They tried my mouse, but it was way to bulky. I saw instant improvement after I bought a small shitty 5$ mouse.
IIRC, this was the explicit purpose of games that came pre-installed on old computers like Minesweeper and Solitaire.
Minesweeper was to teach mouse precision, solitaire was specifically for click and drag.
Minesweeper also taught right-click vs left-click
Took me ~10 years before I learned about right click in Minesweeper 🥲.
And how much longer for left and right simultaneously?
Makes so much sense. TIL
@[email protected] what is til ??
@[email protected] @[email protected]
Today I Learned
Tyl what til means!
If you’re running Windows:
https://win7games.com/
I didn’t realise this existed so thanks from me. Also probably the best answer here.
@[email protected] but can it be played on Linux ??🤔🤔🤔
In a VM or (probably) via Wine.
Nothing better than games they like
Eggman
depends on the age of your kids, buuuut: if they’re fairly young, maybe spyfox/putt-putt/pajama-sam/freddi-fish games? those can be found on eg. steam, and should run fairly painlessly from there. (and if you want to make them steam-free/offline, you can just copy the files from those games elsewhere and use eg. scummvm (https://scummvm.org/) to run them. But that’s entirely optional & up to you. afaik steam bundles them with scummvm anyway).
Basically they are point & click adventure games aimed for younger kids. I’m in my 40’s and kinda do enjoy spyfox as well x)
The games are fairly old (afaik mid-to-late 90’s, or so), so graphics are fairly low res by today’s standards, but they’re essentially just playable cartoons with mild puzzles, all dialogue is spoken (subtitles are an option) and no real fail states.
@[email protected] l’m not a technology person 😄😄😄 Can you please tell me how to download them and play them offline ??🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓
If you want to just, remove steam from the equation, eg. for no-internet kids’ computer:
basically: buy them from steam, then just install them. Then, just copy the game files somewhere else, install scummvm & add the games to scummvm to play them.
Scummvm is just an app which runs these older adventure games on wide variety of systems, incl modern windows (the games are occasionally so old, windows doesn’t support them natively at all). Scummvm is fairly straightforward to set up, basically just click “add game” -> browse to where the game is -> ok -> it is now in scummvm, click “Play” to play it.
If you’re asking about “yar har har, me mateys, and a bottle of rhum” -methods, that’s an excercise left for the reader.
@[email protected] 😂😂😂😂😂 l am looking for something free😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
well, if we’re sticking to scummvm, they offer some free games on their site: https://scummvm.org/games/#games
the freebies are in general fairly old (like early-to-mid 90’s dos stuff), but work fine on scummvm, hence they’re offering them there. AFAIK all of them are controlled by mouse only.
Not all of them are suitable for all ages though.
Flight of the Amazon Queen is a story set in 40’s, about a pilot for hire and his small plane crashing into the amazons while transporting a movie star. Overall theme is cartoony/goofy/comedy, with a bit of juvenile humour ( by modern standards). There are some things some could find unsuitable for children, I guess.
Beneath a steel sky - postapocalyptic oppressive world, although a bit cartoony/comical and oddly british considering the story takes place in australia. Banger adventure game but does contain few violent deaths. I played this during my early teens, but I wouldn’t suggest letting very young kids have a go at this.
The rest of the games on there I either haven’t played or can’t recommend.
But, since you asked for games for kids to learn to use mouse, I suspect the kids in question are like 5-7? These 2 games aren’t probably for them yet.
@[email protected] you’re correct about the age group. And l’m concerned about the cultural exposure as well, since I can’t afford too much westernised culture out here ☺️ ☺️
IIRC, the Steam releases of those are already using Scumm.
ye. ended up checking some of the games’ store pages. There’s a note about scummvm.
Dunno if they keep the scummvm updated though, not that it matters much unless there’s an issue with a specific game. IIRC Indy Atlantis is bundles with decade+ old scummvm, though it’s been a while since I checked.
Doom
Minecraft is good for teaching a lot of stuff, depending on the age of the kids. A friend of mine has kids who are learning to read and type early so they can access what they want in creative mode, too