Ask HN: Technology/creative books and games for my daughter (7 years)

Do try to use Java Minecraft if you can, because modded technical Minecraft will last forever. Once you’ve “beat” the base game move on to things like GregTech and it’ll never end.

Carcassone is great and there are a ton of games that are fun in that vein; check out boardgamegeek.

Whatever you do do NOT buy all the expansions at once! Only one at a time over time.

There are games like Agricola that even when you lose you feel you built something, which can be nice for overcompetitive types.

Time to introduce Myst!

My dad set me up with it + his notes from an incomplete attempt around age 5 or 6 and I probably didn't beat it until 7 or 8 (and continued like this for the next few games).

Here's my theory for a game like this vs something that's pure "learn to code/draw": Give her a world to explore that builds the -drive- to create.

I like Myst as a starter because:

1) It's unhurried. I wandered for a year learning what elements in each environment were interactive and slowly making sense of the puzzles. You -have- to simply explore and figure it out.

2) The worlds in it are masterpieces of art and creative thinking. Visually, it remains very engaging (the later games even more so) and you can tell it was a labor of love by a small team (particularly 2 brothers). Just as with books or nutrition, you want you and your children to be consistently exposed to the best of a given subject because that sets the imagination churning on what's possible and starts the process from a high bar.

3) It's a clever way to encourage familiarity and use of professional digital creative technologies (computer, mouse, etc.) rather than building additional affinity for touchscreens (which will happen naturally). Obviously you can create _a lot_ on a phone/tablet, but there's just more junk food around and it's easier to limit sources of temptation/mediocrity rather than fight them. I'd rather train my young child's willpower and self-regulation on easier opponents than modern apps, streaming, etc. :)

tl;dr- Anecdote of one: I consider the Myst series to be an important early step in my eventual journey into creative work and entrepreneurship (high school) and later a hybrid career in design/dev more broadly.

Link: https://www.gog.com/en/game/myst_masterpiece_edition (there are also newer 3D re-releases which retain most of the qualities of the original, but I think the values above are best expressed through the static scenes of the early editions and that, at 7, the new-shiny is missed less).

^ If you skim past the whatever was up with the Win7 reviews, you'll see my sentiments echoed -a lot- in the reviews. :)

That's unleash a discussion on whether electrical engineering toys (usually they are like Arduino but more childish) fits to a girl or girls are better to be kind of social-oriented persons. Personally my take is that it is perfectly OK to learn electronics for 7 y.o. girl but no game can unleash child's interest in any topic.

Science spreading must be similar to religion spreading. There are neither Christian/Muslim/whatever games nor books but new believers are keep appearing. Please observe/research their attitude, religious adepts of every religion are very interesting subject of learning.

It's interesting to observe how controvert is my root comment based on rate change, now it has a low rate but when the topic was new it used to be appreciated.

That is so sad :/