September 26th, 2025

The Lost Art of Slow Gaming

Like many technologists, I grew up glued to computers. Between my gaming addiction and my BBS operation (building and rebuilding systems in Telegard, Renegade, Wildcat, etc.), suffice it to say computers are a big part of who I am today. And now that I have 3 kids of my own (all under 6 years old), I want them to be able to explore computers the same way I did. Except, I don't. There is no way I'll give them the same freedom I had, as "computers" are now just black box portals into much darker and sinister things. Sadly.

I know what you're thinking: "get off my lawn, let the kids be kids, you had Leisure Suit Larry, Chad!". But remember, LSL was a text-based adventure that moved slowly from scene to scene, where you had to solve open-ended puzzles with text-based prompts and a few clues. No dark patterns, no in-game purchases (except for maybe a beer at Lefty's), no slot-machine sounds with flashing lights directly targeting dopamine receptors, no browsing to TikTok or YouTube for "walkthroughs" or even worse, to watch other people play the game. It was just me helping Larry look for love in all the wrong places.

"No dark patterns, no in-game purchases, no slot-machine sounds with flashing lights directly targeting dopamine receptors."

OK, to be clear, I wouldn't let my kids anywhere near LSL if it existed today, but my point is, the world has changed. A lot. And my job as a family protector is to keep my kids away from 99.999% of the content out there.

But I'm not all rain clouds. I've found a few games along the way that we've enjoyed together. Games that are slow, thoughtful, creative, without mature undertones or messaging, and void of most dark patterns.

Below is my list, and if you have others, I'm looking for a few more.

Lumino City

Lumino City is excellent and a fun one to play together. The storyline is simple: a girl (Lumi) searches for her granddad, the city's handyman, who disappears in the beginning leaving behind his manual. The game is a slow, point-and-click adventure that progresses scene by scene, with a beautiful world that was created physically out of paper and glue and motors, and then brought to life digitally. How cool is that?

"A beautiful world that was created physically out of paper and glue and motors, and then brought to life digitally."

Old Man's Journey

Old Man's Journey features another great storyline that starts with an old guy getting a letter, and then going on a long journey across land, sea, and air, to find the sender of the note, with bits and pieces of his story revealed along the way. This one does have a love story with the loss of a loved one at the end, so although it's not mature content, it is definitely emotion-evoking, but that's a small part of the game as the rest meets all my criteria above.

Machinarium

Machinarium is a cute'ish robot game where you start outside the city putting the robot back together, and then proceed to solve puzzles going back through the city to find out what happened. It does present a robot love story where my daughter called them "mommy and daddy robots", and the game is slightly darker than the others because the world seems sort of "fun post-apocalypse", but it still meets most of my criteria and we enjoyed playing it.

Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley is slightly different as it is a non-linear open-world farming simulator, but it's super fun and quite kid-friendly as you can farm, fish, ride horses, chop down trees, buy chickens, goats, pigs, and build houses and rooms and stuff. There are a few things that are a bit more mature like love stories and dark caves with scary skulls that scared the kids a bit, but all of that stuff is mostly avoidable.

"Games that are slow, thoughtful, creative, without mature undertones or messaging, and void of most dark patterns."

A Few Notable Ones

We did play Behind the Frame, which was a fun painting game with some mysteries along the way, but it got pretty weird and ended with what I think was the main character never forgetting her first love despite having a family. Too emo for me.

We also played Rival Stars Horse Racing because my daughter rides horses. It's kind of fun, but pretty advanced.

One of my sons is in love with tractors so we played Farming Simulator. Dude. I think it's easier to actually farm than play this simulator. When we actually got the tractor moving and stuff, he was over the moon.

That's mostly it on the computer front. As they get a bit older, I'll be exploring some basic circuits-type stuff, maybe super simple programming concepts, but with the same themes as above.

What do you think?