Difficult For Kids?

[Polimer Jones]

Hey all, sorry if this was asked somewhere already. I was thinking of buying for my 7yo son and I to play together. Is this too hard for younger audience? Is it a good multiplayer experience where I could help if he gets stuck? Thanks in advance!

[jeremism30]

This game is too hard for many adults. You can just use items off the workshop and learn the other stuff slowly. It's an engineering sand box. Multiplayer requires the host to have a very fast computer.

[Sirvel]

The multiplayer isn't the most amazing, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but it should still be playable.

I don't think the game is meant for a younger audience, to properly learn the building mechanics takes a lot of time and effort. I got the game when I was 10 and 4 years later with nearly 3500 hours I'm still learning new things. There's quite a lot more content now than there was back then so it might be a bit overwhelming when you want to build something simple and suddenly you have hundreds of different parts to choose from.

If you don't intend on building however and just want to enjoy the game, there's thousands upon thousands of creations on the Steam workshop for pretty much any purpose. Some are definitely more complicated than others but it's not as complicated as trying to learn the building mechanics from the ground up.

To sum it up, the multiplayer isn't amazing but it should work well enough, building can be overwhelming but with time it'll make more sense and there's more stuff to try out on the workshop than it's possible to get through. I wouldn't recommend the game for someone who is 7 but it should be fine if you give them some help.

[ShizNator]

Honestly ain't nothing better than this game for building things and learning how to use logic and basic lua.

It's hard at first for a lot but once you get the hang of it you start doing things with ease.

There's a few good guides in the guide section and there's youtube videos to learn some of the basic things.

You can also reverse engineer workshop builds so you can understand how they did certain things.

And then there's always the discussion boards here where myself and quite a few others are always happy to help out where we can. :)

[Woodspeople]

Best I could describe it as is 'playable', although I haven't been in mp in a while. It's really the only game in it's niche though so if it looks interesting go for it. You'll get over the initial confusion about some of the game's more bizarre mechanics eventually.

[Cassian]

There is 0 in game info, not even a legend on the map! In the esc menu the game points to some 2 year old youtube tutorials but it doesnt even explain the very basics anywhere like how to refuel or use a rope, winch. Not even a hint towards the game plot. Nothing. Your just dropped in.

It is without a doubt the very worst new player experience of any game I have ever played. I would not even consider giving this game to any kid. You will spend far more time watching videos and reading guides then you will playing, No kid will enjoy that!

[Woodspeople]

Originally posted by Cassian:

[It is without a doubt the very worst new player experience of any game I have ever played. I would not even consider giving this game to any kid. You will spend far more time watching videos and reading guides then you will playing, No kid will enjoy that!

This makes a good point. I'd suggest if you do decide to get it, become familiar with the basic mechanics before trying to have your kid play it, that way you'll be able to help. As far as I know there really has been no effort from the devs to make a usable tutorial, or any information at all apart from mrnjersy's youtube. (technically official tutorials, but... meh.)

[NiceGuy]

No it's not for a 7 year old, just as simple as that.

[Phil]

Building something in this game would be better left to 15yo and older. Otherwise use vehicles from the workshop and for multiplayer better just stay in LAN with not too big vehicles for a decent experience.

[ShizNator]

Originally posted by Cassian:

There is 0 in game info, not even a legend on the map! In the esc menu the game points to some 2 year old youtube tutorials but it doesnt even explain the very basics anywhere like how to refuel or use a rope, winch. Not even a hint towards the game plot. Nothing. Your just dropped in.

It is without a doubt the very worst new player experience of any game I have ever played. I would not even consider giving this game to any kid. You will spend far more time watching videos and reading guides then you will playing, No kid will enjoy that!

Yeah you have to go watch some of the pre 1.0 videos too because a lot of those videos are still valid info today the link from the game is just the 1.0 ones.

[☁ .alau07. ☁]

If you're kid is a nerd and likes computery stuff and understands the basics of combustion I think they'll be fine lmao

[Martell]

It's good when he is a little older. But, speaking as an engineer, this game is far too complicated to really be enjoyed by a child. It's often enough even hard for adults to understand what the devs thought when they implemented certain elements in the game...

[Ra-Ra-Rasputin]

If your kid can do lego technic without too much help, he can build stuff in this game.

For someone who's about 7 years old though, i'd rather suggest titles like Main Assembly and RoboCo that are significantly easier to understand before moving onto Stormworks though.

[Brygun]

There is several ways to play this game, or perhaps better even to say use it.

The play mode, of doing rescues, is fairly manageable for different ages.

Tweaking existing designs from stock, download or "daddy made" is manageable.

He good for instance ask for "make the boat now do this" and you make the edits or download one or download then modify.

The game is a gateway to mechanics and circuits. It may spark his interest and skills in those. That could be a good thing.

A classic stormworks question is whether to use the stock engines small/medium/large or "open the flood gates" on using modular engines. The modulars have a lot of options and complexity. However the stock engines do work for a lot of vehicle situations. Again you could download a vehicle with modular engines or a modular engine controller.

Also for the price... being able to play even a bit with daddy is gonna be cool.

I was once promoting the game to teachers as a rescue-not-killing game which I stopped once the weapons DLC came out. Like the modular engines you can skip over the weapons or limit them.

[Sampak]

I have a 9 y/o who is quite clever and loves making all kinds of vehicles in Space Engineers and especially Kerbal Space program since he was 6 or 7. That said, I haven't been able to spend time explaining enough of the science behind those games and Stormworks is more so complex for him.

However, building is something he's ok with. It's the logic (setting up a vehicle engines/steering/etc. for basic WASD controls for example) he's still rusty on but learning. Right now he's enjoying building boats and land vehicles. And some ridiculous ones with guns. 😄

Multiplayer is totally possible for us due to using our LAN connection. I host the game on my PC which is essentially a 6 year old setup:
Cpu - AMD Ryzen 1600
Gpu - MAD RX480 8GB
Ram - 16 gb DDR4
WINDOWS 10 PRO/ultra/super/dufus edition.

Downside to this game besides the occasional bugs is the same thing that makes it fun - the heavy physics simulation. Larger vehicles (think cruise ships) or multiple medium sized creations will bring it to a slo-mo crawl, even if your fps is at 60+.

As others above I'll stress that the building part of the game is quite interesting and while some components are heavily game-fied, it lets you do almost anything your imagination or mechanical or logistics inclination would want.

[Xuild]

assuming the 7 year old is a camodo viewer, yes this game is perfect if you want to feel like a youtuber with amazing setups that a tutorial can help with

edit: with a good computer you can still run massive creations like a halo carrier frigate (which is so big it cant fit in the hangar and instead needs to be spawned in a dock)