I want a game to play together with my young kids (nonviolent, cooperative, easy controls) but that isn't mind-numbingly boring to play as an adult. Not only a large sandbox to explore, but one that feels alive with NPCs to interact with, like a "baby's first MMO" without grind/fetch quests. It's a game I'm building in my spare time.
I'd like this also, but taken one step farther by adding in some edutainment aspects and then scaling it with the intent that once children have emotionally bought into the game, it incentivizes them to learn real-world facts and knowledge in order to make further progress (if they're still holding onto their Pokemon and their Minecraft world after 5-6 years, I'd hope some future edutainment game could match that). e.g.
+ fill in a personal database device (see: Pokedex, mobiglass) to collect knowledge of and record 'sightings' of real plants, real animals, elements, chemicals, reactions, etc.
+ NPCs/locations with trivia challenges/minigames (main character name in Moby Dick, years during which the first world war occurred, etc.), plus a library to look stuff up in
+ type in what you want to do (ala certain early adventure games) like "heal forearm cut", "fish for walleye", "search for raspberries" = typing practice, spelling {although since almost no games seem to do this anymore, maybe it's just obnoxious and poor design}
Interesting ideas. I've been focusing aiding early reading (sight words, cvc's, emojis next to words for association, etc) but didn't go much beyond that yet. I was planning on collection aspects like animal crossing mentioned below, put (real) things in the museum and get them explained.
There's a balance between fun and education like you see in kids shows, for example the main characters might be working through how to free a frozen monkey with something hot, while they just flew from their hometown to antarctica in mere seconds. I have to figure out how to show "this is true" and "this is fun".
A game that was great fun to play with my grandma, parents and young cousins at the same time was LittleBigPlanet. We only played LBP1 and 2 so don't have experience with the newer games.
It's not really what you're asking for, but IMO it's lots of fun and young ones can get very creative in the level editor.
That's an inspiration for sure. Language and controls need modified for a younger audience, and I have other ideas to increase the interactivity with NPCs.
