Top 10 Amiga games our kids need to play

[eXeler0]

Howdy,
Although I have enough real Amigas to equip a school class, in my sons "game-room" there's an A500 Mini. Its simply more convenient and he's not really interested in the hardware aspect of it.

But while fiddling around with the A500 Mini I realized some games, if you remove the nostalgia factor that our generation has, its not a great collection of games for today's generation. Games he has previously played and enjoyed on Amiga are e.g. Deluxe Galaga, Pang, Bubble Bobble etc..

What would be a good top ten must play games for a kid that's under the age of 10? Since my kid doesn't know English well enough yet, I'm excluding text adventures or games where you need to read a lot of text. Also, not too violent and I'm also excluding all 3d or FPS games as they are so much worse compared to what the kids are used to from Switch, Playstation etc.. Also, I'm not repeating any games already on the A500 mini...

(Of course I asked ChatGPT too and here's that list: )
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Here are the top 10 Amiga games that are suitable for kids under 10:
Lucky Luke
The Simpsons: Bart vs. the World
Putty Squad / Superfrog
Super Frog
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Little Puff in Dragonland
Chuck Rock
Rick Dangerous
Lionheart
James Pond: Underwater Agent
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My list would probably be some variation of this:
1. Pang
2. Deluxe Galaga / Xenon 2 / Banshee
3. Bubble Bobble / Rainbow Islands
4. Turrican 2
5. Chuck Rock / Lionheart
6. Heartlight or Emerald Mine (Boulderdash clones)
7. Pushover / Pipe Mania
8. Pinball Fantasies / Illusions
9. Superfrog
10. Lemmings

[Predseda]

Walker

[onkelarie]

Here's my list, allthough my daughters never liked playing any game on the Amiga

- Hybris
- Lemmings
- Bubble Bobble
- Alien Fishfinger
- Battle Squadron
- Super Skweek 2
- Superfrog
- Qwak
- Rick dangerous 2
- Firepower

[stevelord]

My top 10 for your son, in no particular order:

1. Stunt Car Racer
2. Indy Heat
3. Super Obliteration
4. Lemmings / Oh No More Lemmings
5. Scorched Tanks
6. Sensible World of Soccer
7. Archer Maclean's Pool/ Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker
8. North & South
9. New Zealand Story
10. Super Stardust

If any of those don't fit what your son needs, I'd also consider Space Taxi 3, APB, and Tiny Bobble.

[Nobby_UK]

Lucky Luke ?

[gimbal]

James Pond suitable for kids? The style maybe, but that game is brutal deluxe.

The A500 mini! I will assume you replace the pretty terrible CD32 controller it comes with because that thing makes quite a few games unplayable. It's the Amiga though, please take a version with trainer for most of these

1. Super Cars 2
2. Dynamite Dux
3. Turrican 2
4. Parasol Stars
5. Chuck Rock
6. Double Dragon 2
7. Dynablaster
8. Stardust / Super Stardust
9. Twintris
10. the Chaos Engine

Some variety with games that are moderately playable the first time you pick up the joypad. Although the first "easy" race of Super Cars 2 is actually pretty damned hard now that I think about it...

[hitm4n]

We need to force feed them way more than 10. So heres my longer list. YOU WILL like the games i like boy!!

Deluxe Galaga
Ruff N Tumble
Lemmings
Millenium 2.2
Super Stardust
Tetren
Banshee
Bombuzal
Mean Arenas
Datastorm
Slam Tilt
Pushover
Poing 7
Alien Bash II
Megaball 4 AGA
R3 The Art Of Rocketry
Microbes
Kastle Kumquat
Rotox
Plat-Man
Nibby Nibble
Cybernetix
Super Obliteration

and probably more i forgot...

[Seiya]

ideal for kids are Educational games where there is no war, no death, no destruction. We know that these bad news come from their phone or other media, so videogames maybe should more relaxing for their.

[Megalomaniac]

Robocod and Rod-Land are both cute, relatively innocent and great fun even now. Puzzle games are often a good choice, Lemmings and Klax grabbed me at that sort of age, Puzznic might be worth looking at too. SlamTilt (or Dreams or Fantasies) would work too. Buggy Boy is pretty easy and very kid-friendly, I think a lot of people got through Lotus 2 quite quickly (though, to my shame, I've never finished it)

Most Amiga shoot 'em ups are a bit too hard if you're not familiar with the style - Datastorm would be especially sadistic as a starting point. Maybe Agony, that's relatively easy?

[eXeler0]

Thanx all, definitely some "new" games being suggested here, games I've completely forgotten about.
And yea, top 20 is probably a better size for such a list.

[malko]

I don't know if a SE version exists but as 1st Amiga game, before 10, my mini-Godzillas enjoyed a lot the FR version of "Loom" (even if the end was scary for them - so be next to yours).
They also played until the end "Simon the Sorcerer" as well as "The secret of the Monkey Island" (both in FR of course - SE exist ?).
On the non-point-and-click side, I can mention (non exhausting list) Worthy, Bubble Bobble, Rick Dangerous, Push Over and more recently Luma.

[rsn8887]

I feel like there's no true value these old games offer to kids of today. Modern indie games, for example Shovel Knight, Dead Cells, Binding of Isaac or Super Meat Boy, do much better for current kids. And think about Fortnite where kids can even attend concerts of their favorite bands and play together online. Or Roblox, where they can make their own mini-games inside the game.

Of course, for us Amiga fans, the old games are great games. But games have evolved. There's no need to waste childrens' time making them play the old ones unless they are really into it or something.

It reminds me of my dad who always wants me to watch black and white movies from the 50s. No thanks. Or when he was trying to make us listen to Phil Collins, Sting, or the Beatles when we were kids. Yawn.

For example, remember always clicking "What is..." and "Go To" in old Lucasfilm adventures just to figure out the interactive areas of the screen? Why make a kid suffer through that?

I am playing devil's advocate a bit, because I personally love Amiga games a lot.

[Megalomaniac]

I can see the counter argument here. As a kid I preferred my dad's Beatles records to most of what was in the charts, I guess I was lucky that Britpop came along in my early teens, meant that I almost seemed vaguely cool for a time. But I drew the line at preferring Space War or Asteroids or even Sabre Wulf to just about any Amiga game, and agewise those games were a lot less old during the Amiga era than any classic-era Amiga game is now. I guess generation 4 is what was exciting when I grew up, and what my head is stuck in. I'm sometimes shocked by how old some things are - Nevermind is older now than even Love Me Do was then....

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by rsn8887

I feel like there's no true value these old games offer to kids of today.

There is a little educational value to it to know where the roots of gaming are. Let's face it, games are a part of society now so they may as well be part of history as well.

It shouldn't be that it is perfectly fine, acceptable and even expected to watch and study old movies and music but then not the same for old video games and old computer platforms.

[ransom1122]

Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego
Shufflepuck Cafe
Battleships
Wonderboy (2022)

[Reynolds]

Well, my list would be in no particular order:

Lotus Turbo Challenge (any of the 3)
Shadow of the Beast
Pinball Dreams
Superfrog
Curse of Enchantia
Sensible World of Soccer
F-15 Strike Eagle 2
North and South
Flashback
Desert Strike

But these are just fundamental parts of the whole lot of what we have on Amiga. I'd say, there are some recent stuff too which are worth to play, so my 2nd contains some recent ones like

Joomp!
Zerosphere
Project Quest
Settle the world
Ambermoon Advanced
Grind
Turrican 2 AGA
None of Us
Aquabyss
Minky

And of course there are some other great stuff so the list could be longer, especially if we count with the 3D fps ports too. (I know those are quite violent ones but it is another subject to discuss)

[gimbal]

I would call Curse of Enchantia a strange choice, but maybe the game is exactly made for a child's imagination

A flight simulator though...

[malko]

Originally Posted by rsn8887

I feel like there's no true value these old games offer to kids of today. Modern indie games, for example Shovel Knight, Dead Cells, Binding of Isaac or Super Meat Boy, do much better for current kids. And think about Fortnite where kids can even attend concerts of their favorite bands and play together online. Or Roblox, where they can make their own mini-games inside the game. [...]

Listening to my mini-Godzillas their classrooms'mates, when they were 8, played GTA (some even watched movies like "Chucky")
So I am quite please they get, by their own choice, hooked by some Amiga games as described above.

[...] There's no need to waste childrens' time making them play the old ones unless they are really into it or something. [...]

Before they get into it, you have to let them try Amiga games. But since you consider Amiga games as old and time wasting, how can your children try them ?

[...] It reminds me of my dad who always wants me to watch black and white movies from the 50s. No thanks. Or when he was trying to make us listen to Phil Collins, Sting, or the Beatles when we were kids. Yawn.

As an aside comment, my mini-Godzillas watched black and white "Laurel & Hardy" and that's far from my generation .

Open mind of children is an important task for every parents

[Reynolds]

Originally Posted by gimbal

I would call Curse of Enchantia a strange choice, but maybe the game is exactly made for a child's imagination

A flight simulator though...

When as a kid I was unable to understand everything correctly about aviation, but had hungarian guide and explanation of what to do for a take-off in mags I loved to play Fighter bomber and F-15 II. So, why not?

And my first choice would have been Monkey Island, but a ghost-zombie pirate captain as villain to fight against is really not a good selection for smaller kids. At least Enchantia is more cartoon-ish.

[A500]

Originally Posted by malko

Open mind of children is an important task for every parents

I've had similar experiences - as long as you let the kids try things out and decide for themselves, they will sometimes surprise you with their choices

This is what my kids liked to play when they were small:

Nicky Boum 1 & 2
Tetris (C64 - the Amiga version was and is too clunky)
Superfrog