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Get Children Talking

It can seem that all children do these days is stare at their screens and play video games. We worry about screen time and what violence, addiction and gambling are doing to their brains.

However, along with screen time comes many other things we can celebrate. All kids do these days is talk to each other. All kids do these days is learn the skills of rhetoric and debating. All kids do these days is develop their social confidence.

It sounds a little far-fetched, but watching my kids play the new “hit” game Among Us, I’ve realised these are exactly the sorts of things they are really developing when they are sat staring at their screens.

Here are some great examples of where you need to talk and talk intelligently and intelligibly, to do well in the game.

This list includes 50 games from the last 26 years, with 1,064 likes. They come from a range of different genres and play-styles and are all good games if you want to rediscover the art of conversation.

List Details

PEGI Ratings: PEGI 3 to PEGI 18
ESRB Ratings: ESRB EVERYONE to ESRB MATURE 17+
Australian Ratings: G to MA 15+
Genres: Action, Adventure, Brain Game, Collecting, Communication, Creative, Fighting, Narrative, Physically Active, Platform, Point-and-Click, Puzzle, Race, Rhythm, Role-Play, Sequencing, Shooting, Simulation, Sports, Stealth, Strategy, Traversal and World Building
Total Likes: 1,064

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Among Us

Release Date: 16/11/2018, updated in 2020

Platforms: Android, PC, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Hand-Made

Among Us is a strategy game where crew-mates prepare their spaceship for launch by completing tasks. However, one of the players is an impostor intent on sabotaging the ship and killing the crew. As the game progresses in real-time the impostor...

Conduct Together

Conduct Together (Series)

Release Date: 06/12/2018

Platforms: Android, Mac, PC, Switch and iOS

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Cartoon

Conduct Together is a strategy game where you control toy trains along the overlapping train tracks. Each train can be started and stopped with a specific button. Other buttons change different points. The aim is to transport the people from one station...

That's You!

Release Date: 04/07/2017

Platforms: PS4

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On

That's You! is a family quiz game played on the PlayStation using Android or iOS phones/tablets as controllers. The game displays a challenge on the main TV screen that each player tries to complete on the device in their hand.

Wilmot's Warehouse

Release Date: 29/08/2019

Platforms: Mac, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On

Wilmot's Warehouse is a game for people who like to organise things. You are in charge of a warehouse and must manage 100s of items of stock. These identical square boxes are labelled with rudimentary icons. On your own or with another player, you must...

Under Leaves

Release Date: 27/04/2017

Platforms: Android, Mac, PC and iOS

Skill Rating: 2+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made

Under Leaves is a puzzle game where you search for colour-filled hidden objects in scenes made of flora and fauna. Each one is a hand-drawn watercolour illustrations and accompanied with a soothing soundscape. It's a game about observation and attention...

Overcooked! All You Can Eat

Overcooked! All You Can Eat (Series)

Release Date: 07/08/2018, updated in 2018

Platforms: Mac, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

Overcooked, Overcooked 2 and Overcooked! All You Can Eat are collaborative cooking games for up to 4 players. You must keep talking to other players to coordinate the various elements of the dishes. It starts simply enough but soon gets more complicated...

Royale High

Royale High (Roblox)

Release Date: 04/10/2017

Platforms: Android, GBA, Mac, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and iOS

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

Royale High Roblox is a role-play game about a fantasy school. You dress up, visit differently themed realms collect items and interact with other people. It draws inspiration from the pageantry world and integrates it with different locations to...

Storyteller

Release Date: 23/03/2023

Platforms: Mac, PC and Switch

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made

Storyteller is a puzzle game about building stories. You use a set of icons to match what is happening in each frame of the story. It's a simple challenge that gets the mind-stretching as you construct some of history’s greatest stories using building...

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

Release Date: 13/10/2016

Platforms: Android, Mac, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

In Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes you’re confronted with a bomb on the screen that has to be defused, requiring a series of modules to be disarmed. The bomb defuser player can see and operate the bomb but the other players, who have the defuse...

Chuchel

Release Date: 07/03/2018

Platforms: Android, Mac, PC and iOS

Skill Rating: 2+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made

Chuchel is a comedy adventure game. You play hairy hero Chuchel and his rival Kekel to solve simple puzzles and challenges in their quest to retrieve the precious cherry. It looks like a children's storybook animation with strange, peculiar creatures.

Bonkies

Release Date: 29/01/2021

Platforms: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Cartoon

Bonkies is a co-operative building game where you construct buildings from different blocks. With a jetpack and a grab-arm you work with other players to manoeuvre the blocks into place. It starts quite simply but soon gets everyone shouting.

Get Together

Release Date: 14/10/2021

Platforms: Android, PC and iOS

Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made

Get Together is a puzzle adventure where you and a friend explore a strange world to solve mysteries and discover an ancient story. What's unusual is that you play on two separate devices and need to talk to each other to solve the puzzles.

Hogwash

Release Date: 22/11/2019

Platforms: Apple TV, Mac and iOS

Components: 3D Third-Person

Hogwash is an action battle game where you play as the farmer or as one of three pigs. The farmer's goal is to capture the pigs while the pigs aim to cause mayhem and get three specific areas on the farm covered with mud.

Tick Tock: A Tale For Two

Release Date: 07/03/2019

Platforms: Android, Mac, PC, Switch and iOS

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On

Tick Tock: A Tale For Two is a narrative-driven puzzle game played simultaneously with a friend, where you must escape an eerie world created by a clockmaker. It's unusual because each player's game is slightly different and must be combined to solve...

Dwarf Fortress

Release Date: 08/08/2006, updated in 2022

Platforms: PC

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Day and Night, Grid, Open World and Pixels

Dwarf Fortress is a longstanding strategy game set in a fantasy world where you control a group of dwarves wanting to construct a wealthy fortress. It's unusual not only for it's text-based appearance but for it's expansive scope, and intricately...

The Past Within

Release Date: 02/11/2022

Platforms: Android, PC and iOS

Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On

The Past Within is a co-operative puzzle game where you solve a mystery by communicating with the past. You play the game with another person, either in the same room or elsewhere, by communicating what your different times and perspectives reveal.

Dépanneur Nocturne

Release Date: 26/05/2020

Platforms: PC

Components: 2D Side-On

Dépanneur Nocturne (which means Nighttime Convenience Store) is a short narrative adventure about the value of conversation and local shops. You explore a store late at night, to find a gift for your partner. What unfolds is a gentle search-and-suggest...

Escape Simulator

Release Date: 19/10/2021

Platforms: Mac and PC

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person

Escape Simulator is a puzzle game where you try and escape a series of rooms. Like a real escape room, you look in drawers, read books, and solve riddles to provide the tools you need to escape. It stands out for the quality of the environments and head...

Rescue: Mayday

Release Date: 15/09/2021

Platforms: Mac and PC

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Pixels

Rescue: Mayday is a helicopter adventure where you are putting out fires and rescuing civilians. You play the game in a team of two, each on your own device. The Pilot player flies the helicopter but has no visibility and must use information from the...

Am I The Baddie?

Release Date: 05/10/2021

Platforms: PC, Web and iOS

Skill Rating: 2+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

Am I The Baddie? is a running and collecting game of hide and seek where you control a character on a simple maze of streets. Up to five people compete on separate devices or computers. One person is the baddie who tries to collect the clues without...

Frog's Princess

Release Date: 09/12/2020

Platforms: Android, Mac and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made

Frog's Princess is a narrative game about a kingdom surrounded by evil. You play a young princess who must save her kingdom. Along the way, you encounter a frog prince on a quest to rescue his bodyguard and find your plans overturned.

Heavenly Bodies

Release Date: 07/12/2021

Platforms: Mac, PC, PS4 and PS5

Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made

Heavenly Bodies is a puzzle exploration game about cosmonauts working in space. You use one controller stick for each arm and a button for each leg. In this way, you navigate around the space station and complete tasks that would be relatively simple if...

Orwell: Keeping an Eye On You

Release Date: 27/10/2016

Platforms: Android, Mac, PC and iOS

Components: 2D Side-On and Text

Orwell is narrative game where you play a fictional research using a surveillance program called Orwell. Through a series of episodes you are tasked with using Orwell to help solve mysteries like the bombing of a public plaza. To do this you trawl...

Rescue: Under Pressure

Release Date: 15/09/2020

Platforms: Mac and PC

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Pixels

Rescue: Under Pressure is an adventure exploration game. Your task is to explore the sea and find treasure in the dark. But to do this you need the help of another player on the sonar to guide you. It's a game designed to work for players with mixed...

Triple Agent

Release Date: 20/07/2017, updated in 2019

Platforms: Android and iOS

Components: 2D Side-On

Triple Agent is a parlour-style game that uses one device passed between 5-9 players, assigning them either an agent or double-agent role as the game starts. There are tip-offs from the game about other players, the discussion around the table with each...

Vokabulantis

Release Date: Coming soon

Platforms: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made

Vokabulantis is a puppet-animated running and jumping game about two children, Karla and Kurt, who have fallen in love. Just as they find each other though, the world starts falling apart and they discover they can’t speak to each other because their...

Baldo: The Guardian Owls

Release Date: 27/08/2021, updated in 2022

Platforms: Apple TV, Mac, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Cartoon

Baldo: The Guardian Owls is an adventure into a magical world. You explore intricately puzzling dungeons, discover new towns, fight ferocious foes and locate hidden temples. It's a game that wants you to discover things for yourself rather than hold...

Koala Boutique

Release Date: 23/09/2021

Platforms: Android and PC

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Pixels

Koala Boutique is a strategy game about running a shop on the brink of bankruptcy. Unusually, it's a game designed for two players to play distinct roles. You don't have to play at the same time, but work together to progress as a team. The Adventurer...

Operation: Tango

Release Date: 28/08/2020, updated in 2021

Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

Operation: Tango is an espionage-themed cooperative adventure where two people play as agent or hacker. The agent explores the world while the hacker provides information and checks out the systems you encounter. You must communicate clearly to work...

Rivals

Release Date: 21/09/2020

Platforms: PC

Components: 2D Side-On

Rivals is a puzzle game where you piece together the story of Josh and Luke and the breakup of their band. Playing detective, similarly to Return of the Obra Dinn, but rather than murder it's musical betrayal you are sleuthing here. You inspect sources,...

Khan Academy Kids

Release Date: 12/08/2018

Platforms: Amazon Fire, Android and iOS

Skill Rating: 2+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Cartoon

Khan Academy Kids is a free series of game activities staring bright animal characters. Matching animals and photos, solving maths, social scenarios or enjoying some art time, Khan Academy Kids provides a playful framework.

Spaceteam

Spaceteam (Series)

Release Date: 01/12/2012

Platforms: Android and iOS

Components: 2D Side-On and Text

Players pilot a spaceship, each with their own control panel on their smartphone or tablet screen. The switches, dials, sliders and levers are labelled with randomly-generated peculiar names: ‘Astral Synth’, ‘Gripvent’, ‘Starmesh’,...

Tied Together

Release Date: 19/10/2018

Platforms: Switch

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On

Tied Together is a platform game for two to four players tied together. Like a three-legged-race you have to co-ordinate how you move. But here you are negotiating jumps and enemies too. Any player can grab the ground and act as a fixed point for...

Despelote

Release Date: Coming soon

Platforms: PC

Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person and Hand-Made

Despolete is a sports adventure where you play a child in school in Ecuador. All you want to do is play football. But you have to wait for the day to be over before you can play. The game is set in 2001, and Ecuador is within reach of qualifying for the...

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure

Release Date: 16/10/1997, updated in 2020

Platforms: PC, PS4 and Switch

Components: 2D Overhead, Day and Night and Pixels

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure is a role-play adventure set inside another role-playing game where "the hero" has wreaked destruction, killing hundreds of creatures and looting homes. Unusually, you play a supporting character in the game who tries to undo...

Unmaze

Release Date: 21/06/2021

Platforms: Android and iOS

Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Day and Night

Unmaze is a mix of puzzle game and graphic novel. Inspired by the myth of the Minotaur, you help Asterion and Theseus to guide them out of the maze. However, you can only help one at a time. Using the phone's camera the game lets you help Asterion when...

Beat! Talk!

Release Date: 11/11/2021

Platforms: Switch

Components: 2D Side-On

Beat! Talk! is a rhythm game where you press buttons while speaking out loud to learn the syncopation and tempo of speaking English, with supported languages being Japanese, Korean and Chinese. As if that wasn't unusual enough, in the game you are...

Cinco Paus

Release Date: 25/12/2017, updated in 2021

Platforms: iOS

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

Cinco Paus is a puzzle game where you try and get through 5 rooms picking up treasure as you go. What makes it unusual are the magic wands that help you do this. What appears to be a maze game turns out to be a challenge to discover the effects of each...

Heads Up!

Release Date: 16/10/2013

Platforms: Android and iOS

Skill Rating: 4+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Text

Heads Up! is a word-guessing game where one person holds the tablet or smartphone on their forehead and guesses the word it displays from clues given by the other players. The others confirm if they got it right or wrong and they flip the smartphone up...

Hell Let Loose

Release Date: 27/07/2021, updated in 2021

Platforms: PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S

Components: 3D First-Person

Hell Let Loose is a tactical shooting game set during the battles of the Western and Eastern Fronts of World War 2. It focuses on the structure of warfare with large numbers of troops through chain of command communication. You must work with other...

Curated lists:
Game genre:
Style of Play:
Components:

How long to play:
User-generated content:	No
Accessibility features:	Yes

Controls
Gamepad:
Mouse And Keyboard:
Touchscreen:
Motion:	Motion Aiming Motion Pointing Motion Tilting Motion Gesture Motion Camera
Remap Controls:
Button Combinations:	Holding Down Buttons Optional Rapid Repeated Pressing Optional No Simultaneous Buttons
Controller Vibration:
Sensitivity:

Getting Started
Onboarding Before Play:
Assistance Getting Starting:	Tutorials Practice Area View Control Mapping Assistance With Controls Reaction-Time Not Critical Low Pressure Adjust Speed No Jump Scares
Assistance For Progressing:	Guaranteed Progress With God Mode Bank Progress With Frequent Checkpoints Assisted Progress With Boosts Assisted Progress With Hints Assisted Recall for Characters Assisted Recall for Narrative and Dialogue Save Progress Anytime

Reading
Reading Level:
Text Visibility:	Large Clear Text High Contrast Text
Subtitles:
Captions:
Voice Acted:

Navigation
Clarity:
Head-Up Display:
Menu Navigation:

Visual
Contrast:
Interactive Elements:
Visual Distractions:
Audio Cues for Visual Events:
Narration for Visual Elements:
	Motion Sickness Friendly
Colour Options:
Play Without Sight:
Violence:

Audio
	Balance Audio Levels
Audio Events:
	Play Without Hearing

Communication
Player-to-Player Online Communication:
Online Communication Assistance:

Difficulty
Difficulty Options:	Simple and Full Version No Memorisation Advantage No Hidden Information No Deceit Advantage No Colour Advantage No Mathematics Advantage No Weighing Decisions

Getting Started
Assistance Getting Started:	Clear Manual Electronic Version of Manual Electronic Version of Manual for Screen Readers Getting Started Video Digital Version Reference Aid
Assistance Progressing:	Play Order Tokens (Or play order doesn’t change) Reaction-Time Not Critical Low Pressure Low Impact Catch Up Rule

Reading
Reading Level:
Necessary Text Visibility:	Large Clear Text on Board (Or no text required) Large Clear Text on Cards (Or no text required) High Contrast Text (Or no text required) QR Code For Text (Or no text required) Primary and Secondary Text Distinguishable (Or no text required) Information Orientation Clear Icons

Physical
Pieces:	Components are Distinguishable by Touch Components are Replaceable No Non-Standard Dice (Or No Dice) No Tiny Pieces No Paper Money No Sprawl
Cards:	Large Card Size Standard Card Shape Limited Hand Management No Excessive Card Shuffling No Right-Handed Advantage
Placement:	No Unbound Placement Player Components Not Shared No Fiddly Placement Easily Verbalised Actions

Visual
Printed Visibility:	Colour Blind Friendly Design Double-Coding Colour High Contrast Colours
Component Identifiability:	Outline Key Elements No Busy Backgrounds Easily Verbalised Game State No Close Inspection Disadvantage Playable Without Sight

Audio
Communication:	Audio Cues Mirrored Visually (Or no critical audio signals) No Pressured Reveals No Pressured Communication Playable Without Hearing

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