Your Guide to March’s Family Friendly Video Games
Oh no, are my children about to fight over Princess Peach all over again?
Reminder: Crossplay is on sale until the end of next week, knocking 25% off the price for both monthly and annual subs. Choosing to back, or continuing to back, Crossplay means that I’m able to develop this into a more ambitious project. You can take advantage of the sale here!
There’s a surprising amount on the horizon, and that’s before realizing Bluey: The Videogame is coming to Game Pass. It’s all hands on deck here for Princess Peach: Showtime!, though. Thankfully, that arrives while we’re still at Disneyland, which means I can punt on the sibling fighting about who gets to play first/next until later.
If there’s a game missing from this list, please let me know!
If you represent these games and have a potentially interesting story to share about how these games consider kids as part of their audience, please get in touch with me!
Quilts and Cats of Calico (PC, Mac) – March 5
Description: Quilts & Cats of Calico is a wholesome, award-winning complex puzzle game for 1 to 4 players. Meet adorable cats and sew the coziest quilts. Compete with other players in multiplayer mode, play solo, or delve into the story of a quilter sewing their way through the city of cats.
Rating: TBA
Price: TBA
I’m excited to use my children as an excuse to get into/buy board games. For now, my board game time is my seven-year-old drawing inventing ones where she wins, I lose, and she eats candy. Respect. The board game this is based on appears well-liked!
Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley (PC, PS5, NS, XSX) – March 7
Description: Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley is a story-rich musical adventure game about Snufkin restoring the valley and helping the quirky and memorable characters and critters who call it home. A series of hideous parks have cropped up in Moominvalley, disrupting the landscape and its harmonious nature. As Snufkin you will distract police officers, pull out signs, and knock over misplaced statues as you vigorously try to restore nature and the inhabitants’ home while putting an end to the industrious Park Keeper’s plans…
Rating: E
Price: $19.99
Excuse me, Sigur Rós is on the soundtrack? I’m not familiar with Moomin, but dang, maybe I need to find out more ASAP. This looks like a great play-with-a-kid- game.
Crayola Adventures (Apple Arcade) — March 7
Description: Color, draw, paint, and craft your way through unique worlds: Real Life, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and more. Create your own one-of-a-kind characters, personalize their journey, customize the scenes with your art, and determine how the narrative unfolds. Build your dream treehouse, fill your bookshelf with stories you write, collect trophies from your adventures, and unlock new rooms and items to tell even more tales! What will your adventures bring?
Rating: 4+
Price: $6.99/month
My youngest is a huge color-er right now. Is color-er a word? Last night, her wind down activity was coloring, and demanded to not only pick out every marker I had to use, but pick out what section of the drawing I’d use it on. Exhausting, but far worse ways to spend your time. I’d love if this could string together a drawing adventure.
Bloons TD Battles 2+ (Apple Arcade) — March 7
Description: The ultimate head to head tower defense game is now here! Featuring powerful Heroes, epic Monkey Towers and new dynamic Maps. Plus there are now even more ways to play Bloon bustin’ battles, including the brand new offline Hero Challenge mode.
Rating: 9+
Price: $6.99/month
This is another example of Apple plucking a popular game, stripping the microtransactions, and releasing it through Apple Arcade. This came in 2021, and is popular on places like Steam, where there are reviews as “cant sex the monke,” “I’d let wizard monkey get me pregnant,” and “yes.” So, do with that what you will, I guess?
Unicorn Overlord (PS4/5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch) – March 8
Description: Unicorn Overlord combines the timeless tactical RPG genre with overworld exploration and innovative battle system for a unique epic fantasy experience in the iconic Vanillaware style.
Rating: T
Price: $59.99
This is not meant for children, but I do chuckle at the idea of hyping a kid for a game called “Unicorn Overlord,” and then handing them a dense tactical role-playing game.
WWE 2K24 (PS4/5, Xbox Series X/S/One, PC) – March 8
Description: WWE 2K24 boasts a star-studded roster featuring WWE Legends like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Undertaker, and Andre the Giant, alongside current WWE Superstars like “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes, John Cena, Rhea Ripley, and Roman Reigns, whose larger-than-life entrances and signature moves are heightened by ultra-realistic graphics.
Rating: T
Price: $59.99
A hilariously cursed outcome would be my daughters getting deeply into wrestling, unlikely as it seems. A Game Informer hands-on preview with the game was optimistic, saying “WWE 2K games are dense packages filled with modes and features, so it’s impossible to get a complete sense of their quality in small slices such as this.”
Passing By - A Tailwind Journey (Switch, PC) – March 12
Description: Set in a beautiful and whimsical world of floating isles and a never-ceasing west wind, Passing By - A Tailwind Journey allows you to embark on a memorable voyage as Curly, a young balloonist, who is tasked with delivering a mysterious letter.
Rating: TBA
Price: TBA
Seems nifty, though I can’t find many impressions of it. These folks seemed high on it.
Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection (PS4/5, Xbox Series X/S/One, Switch, PC) – March 14
Description: Play the classic STAR WARS Battlefront games on modern consoles, online and offline in this complete classic collection.
Rating: T
Price: $34.99
These games passed me by during their era! The IGN review from 2004 reads like ChatGTP wrote it, though: “There's a very likable, very direct approach to its combat. It uses high quality visuals and sounds to implant a legitimately Star Wars experience into our heads, but it's careful to never beat us with the franchise. There are large, epic battles. There is a great emphasis on cooperation, and it's a very intuitive game.”
What the Golf? (PS4/5) – March 14
Description: Packed with humor, puns and goofy parodies, this game will make you question everything you thought you knew about golf! It is a silly physics-based golf parody where each level is a new surprising type of golf. Some brilliant or hilarious, others so absurd you will ask yourself: WHAT THE GOLF?
Rating: E10+
Price: TBA
Every game in this series is fantastic. One of the first pieces I wrote for Crossplay was about What the Car. Even the VR take, What the Bat?, is worth tracking down.
Hi-Fi Rush (PS5) – March 19
Description: Feel the beat as wannabe rockstar Chai and his ragtag team fight against an evil megacorp in a world that syncs to the music.
Rating: T
Price: $29.99
This was my Game of the Year in 2023, so I’ll happily just quote myself praising this game: “If you’re wondering how a top-tier, once-in-a-lifetime survival horror game doesn’t end up at the top of Patrick’s list, here’s your answer. Just about the only thing that could topple such a stacked prospect is Hi-Fi Rush, a remarkable music rhythm game thrown into an action game with a dash of platforming. There are games that speak to you, and then games made for you. Hi-Fi Rush even reminded people that Zwan’s single album was good. Truly, what more can you ask from a video game?”
Lightyear Frontier (PC, Xbox Series X/S) – March 19
Description: Lightyear Frontier is a peaceful open-world farming adventure on a planet at the far edge of the galaxy. Climb into your versatile mech and start your new home on a distant planet with up to 3 friends as you farm alien crops, build your own homestead, and explore the untamed wilderness of the world.
Rating: TBA
Price: $24.99
It’s kinda shocking how many games riff on building and survival and immediately get super popular. It’s probably the most out of touch I feel with modern gaming; I crave structure and progress and a story with an end credits. But PC Gamer enjoyed the game’s demo, saying “it's all very low pressure in a way that makes me believe it will be an ideal Game Pass game, especially when it has four-player co-op at launch.”
Dragon's Dogma 2 (PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC) – March 22
Description: Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a single player, narrative driven action-RPG that challenges the players to choose their own experience – from the appearance of their Arisen, their vocation, their party, how to approach different situations and more - in a truly immersive fantasy world.
Rating: M
Price: $69.99
Children yearn for the mines, and children should learn to play Dragon’s Dogma 2.
Princess Peach: Showtime! (Switch) – March 22
Description: Take the stage as Peach Help Peach save the Sparkle Theater from the wicked Grape and the Sour Bunch, who have set the stage for the ultimate tragedy. Joined by Stella, the theater’s guardian, Peach is ready to save the day!
Rating: E10+
Price: $59.99
This is the main event in the Klepek household next month. There will be fighting over who gets to play first, and there will be fighting over who gets to play next. I can sense it. There’s a decent chance that even know Nintendo will send me a copy of this game, and yet, I will have to purchase a second copy of this game. Thankfully, recent previews of it sound good, with Nintendo Life saying: “Princess Peach: Showtime! is shaping up to be a bit of a gem on the Switch, albeit one that is clearly designed with as broad an audience as possible in mind, which some may find a turn-off.”
Planet Zoo: Console Edition (PS5, Xbox Series X/S) – March 26
Description: Build a world for wildlife with Planet Zoo: Console Edition. From the developers of Planet Coaster and Zoo Tycoon, the ultimate zoo simulation is arriving on console. Planet Zoo brings controller support that puts powerful creative tools at your fingertips and includes years’ worth of features, content, and animals from the celebrated PC video game’s free updates.
Rating: E10+
Price: $49.99
If it’s up your alley, Planet Zoo seems good, with IGN calling the PC version a great way to pass the time: “I can see myself sinking dozens more hours into this rich sim… if I can ever force myself to put the bottom line before the silk-lined giraffe beds.”
South Park: Snow Day! (PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC) – March 26
Description: From South Park Digital Studios comes the next chapter in the journey of the New Kid. A massive blizzard has thrown the town into chaos and, more importantly, cancelled school.
Rating: M
Price: $29.99
It’s unclear to me who is playing South Park-based video games these days. Is it young kids discovering South Park’s faux edginess all over again, or nostalgic millennials?
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Bluey is on Game Pass now! My 8 year old has already 'beat' the handful of episodes that make up the story, and is pretty proud she beat a game before Dad could for once!
Is there any way to re-up my annual subscription early to take advantage of the discount? (Even up here in Canada, medical school is expensive with two kids to feed...)