In addition to the similar games listed above, which have been linked to this game specifically in the database, you may find games with a similar theme to Big Hops in the following lists:
Fidget spinners burst into the hands of children a number of years ago. While that initial trend subsided, the interest and enjoyment of tactile objects to fiddle with are very much with us.
Fidget toys are like the yo-yo or Rubik's cube but without the focus on skill. The enjoyment comes from doing something that isn't learning or achieving anything. It's no surprise that there are a number of video games that have picked up on this style of play.
Some games, like
The Longing,
Animal Crossing and
Adopt Me, simple slow down the need to progress, so all you do is check-in, fiddle around with the game world and then leave. Then there are other games, like
Townscaper and
Pok Pok Playroom, that let you craft your own structures but with none of the usual video game emphasis on score and winning. Other games, like
Everything and
Proteus, offer a huge world to poke and prod without getting embroiled with progression.
Even games that do offer a strong sense of story and development often include post-game play or side-quest distractions that are simply there for you to spend time fiddling with rather than winning or losing. Games like
A Short Hike,
Alba A Wildlife Adventure or even
No Man's Sky.
The games in this section have been selected because they get players doing absurd activities and chuckling together. It’s tongue-in-cheek entertainment with challenges that don’t take themselves too seriously – not seriously at all, in fact. Video games have their roots in fun and play. This makes them an excellent way to forget the worries of the day and dive into some silly fun together.
Whether it's the crazy puzzles in
Baba is You or Twister-like contortions of
Fru or stomach churningly difficulty of walking in
Octodad Deadliest Catch, these are games that will make you shriek and laugh together. Then there are silly multiplayer games like
Super Pole Riders,
Heave Ho or
Wii Party where parents, carers and children take on bizarre or precarious challenges. The play often descends into giggling and laughter.
The Digital Futures Commission's
A Vision of Free Play in a Digital World report that outlines the key qualities of "free play" for what "good" looks like in a digital world. The team from 5 Rights Foundation and Digital Futures LSE set out ambitious expectations for children’s free play in all contexts. To claim the label ‘Playful by Design’, digital products and services should adopt seven principles:
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Be Welcoming: Prioritise digital features that are inclusive, sociable and welcoming to all, reducing hateful communication and forms of exclusion and reflecting multiple identities.
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Enhance Imagination: Prioritise creative resources and imaginative, open ended play over pre-determined pathways built on popularity metrics or driven by advertising or other commercial pressures.
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Enable Open-Ended Play: Provide and enhance features that offer easy-to use pathways, flexibility and variety as these support children’s agency and encourage their imaginative, stimulating and open-ended play.
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No commercial exploitation: Reduce compulsive features designed to prolong user engagement or cultivate dependency on games, apps or platforms, so children’s immersive play is intrinsically motivated and freely chosen.
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Ensure safety: Ensure children’s play in online spaces is safe, including by giving them control over who can contact them and supplying help when needed.
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Allow for experimentation: Recognise that exploration, invention and a degree of risk taking is important in children’s play and that the burden should not fall on them always to be cautious or anxious, or to follow rules set by others.
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Be age-appropriate: Respect the needs of children of different ages by providing age-appropriate opportunities for play, while also allowing for safe intergenerational play.
I asked Sonia Livingstone, lead researcher and report author, whether there were many games that already met this criteria. "Children bring a lot to their play that for them is imaginative and sociable. Where it's more difficult is in the voluntary and intrinsically motivated play. Games very rarely leave children to play at their own pace and rate. The freedom for risk taking is sometimes present but here, children themselves take on the safety burden from society at large and limit play themselves."
Inspired and challenged by the report, we searched our database to identify games that came closest to meeting these high standards. Like the report, this aims to concentrate energy on identifying opportunities for free play that should be enriched and expanded to make play online more child-centred.
In the report, children identify their need to play in ways that perhaps adults don’t understand or that some digital designs deny. They don't want a completely "whole-food experience", nor to turn back the clock to an offline world. They want digital products designed to enhance the qualities of play and at the same time want those aspects of design that are exploitative or invasive to be dialled down.
Examples on this list include playful offline video games. Games like
Lonely Mountains Downhill and
Microsoft Flight Simulator offer open-ended play where you can go where you want and make your own fun.
Spelunky 2,
Mini Metro and
Teardown enable free-play that is intrinsically and experimentally motivated without commercial exploitation. Then games like
A Short Hike and
Wilmot's Warehouse offer play that is welcoming for newcomers and specifically age appropriate. Risk taking and rule breaking play that doesn't become a burden on the child is found in games like
Untitled Goose Game and
The Longing.
Examples on this list also include playful online video games. Games like
Journey and
One Hour One Life offer a welcoming experience by encouraging (in some cases requiring) other players to help newcomers.
Phantom Abyss offers an unusual competitive play space that celebrates experimentation and is safe by design through minimal communication.
Sea of Thieves and
Valheim offer age appropriate play for older teenagers that is built around experimentation and discovery through risk taking that is lead by imagination.
Stormworks combines open ended play like
Minecraft, but offers a context more age appropriate to ambitious teenagers through its float-mechanics and boat design.
Sky Children of the Light combines many of the criteria, offering a welcoming experience for newcomers, imaginative play. It subverts the commercial feel of other app games by focusing purchases on items that are primarily to give away to other players.
Video games and toys are two separate things in a child's life. Online and in stores they are sold separately. At home, however, children will move from toys to video games without such strong distinctions. This list draws together all the games that cross over with toys in this way.
Very young players are often drawn to games with toy-like play. Whether
Toca Boca or
Sago Mini offer video game interactions but without missions, tasks or scores. They are games that create space, characters, locations and items for children to make up their own fun.
Then there are games that import physical toys into the play-process of the game. Sometimes this is to have a figure unlock items and save progress like in
Skylanders or sometimes this is to create new ways to interact like
Tori, Hotwheels id or
Anki.
These games offer worlds you explore in unusual ways. Maybe it’s hard to put one foot in front of the other, or maybe you get a chance to climb and jump athletically. These games put you in touch what it’s like to move more easily or more difficulty than real life.
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