Games for small children

The Sims. No reading required, no real storyline, they can just do what they want- They could dress their characters up all pretty like princesses then trap them in tiny enclosed spaces and kill them with fire!

 

goddammit
I was going to suggest Humongous Entertainment lol

Freddi Fish was my jam, you have no idea.
They're all great games that have aged really well. Biiiiig recommendations to those games

i-is this what you did as a kid, Lithy?

 

Final Fantasy (the first ten)

 

M-Maybe I would burn/drown the women and make the men woohoo... didn't everyone? Heh..heh.

 

The older one might enjoy pokemon. I know theres a good amount of reading in it, but its pretty easily ignorable and wont affect the game a whole lot from a 7 year old's perspective. Maybe one with cute starters like diamond/pearl.

 

this explains a lot

 

I'm liking most of the (serious) suggestions in here. <3

I just thought of one myself, if I could get my hands on it. I used to loooooooove Mixed Up Mother-Goose, but sadly my own copy is dead.

 

There's things like Jump Start, Humongous Entertainment (I grew up with those games), or even the simple arcade games on every computer. You'd be surprised how much Asteroids can distract a kid

 

Nostalgia incoming. Picking games with intuitive gameplay especially:

Digimon World (PS1)
Kingdom Hearts (PS2)
Spyro the Dragon (PS1)
Jak and Daxter (PS2)

 

I agree with MOST of these... but KH I think would be a bit much. You either have to scroll through a menu or hold down multiple buttons to heal, and especially at that age they'd probably have to heal a lot

 

Bad controls in KH1 is a valid complaint.

 

Wait I can't believe nobody has said Crash Bandicoot yet (EXCEPT THE TITAN GAMES AVOID THAT MESS LIKE THE PLAGUE). Other than that you're good yo

 

I'd go as far as to say mascot paltformers are a safe bet in general

 

gdi how did I forget the Humongous games?

Putt-Putt Travels Through Time was my favorite game, and remains a guilty pleasure of mine to this day (though I am probably a walking walkthrough despite all the random factors that change between playthroughs).
I also played the hell out of the Pajama Sam, Freddi Fish and Spy Fox demos. I've actually been going back and playing them all recently to see what I missed out on. The emulator for them is great and really easy to use.

 

I can't believe I overlooked crash...

also Ratchet and clank is another good option...and rayman...