Can you play video games when you have a newborn baby?
One of the toughest things you will have to do in the first few months of having a child is you will need to stay awake when your body is telling you you should not be awake and that it would really rather not be awake right now. One excellent way to fight sleep is with the assistance of video games, but which games can you play when you have a newborn?
You might find you’re not in the right frame of mind to play anything when you’re in the first couple of weeks, but this is a short list of video games that I tried when I was still on paternity leave that maybe helped me keep it together.
1. Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes
I’m not always a fan of mobile games as I find there’s not enough content to keep me engaged for long enough and that the game itself is very shallow. Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes was almost a lifesaver in terms of keeping my brain ticking over.
You collect Star Wars characters, assemble them into a team and fight other teams, some of which have been put together by other players but many of which are purely computer controlled. Each fight gives you a bit more experience or equipment and you can unlock more characters if you play for long enough and check in on a regular basis.
The format of this will be familiar to mobile gaming veterans – I believe there are similar games with a Marvel heroes skin on it, a WWE version and at a guess probably DC comics, Transformers, The Simpsons and My Little Pony. It’s not massively original, it’s not something I’m still playing, but I like Star Wars and five minutes of this every now and then gave me enough of a break to keep me refreshed.
There was the background nagging from the game that it wanted me to pay real money for something every now and then, but I was perfectly capable of ignoring it and it wasn’t overly pushy about it.
2. Steve Jackson’s Sorcery!
Another game playable on mobile, Sorcery! and its sequels are a pure translation of a choose-your-own-adventure book, right down to the fact you can turn back to any previous page you’ve been to, just like you would do in an actual choose-your-own-adventure-book.
This is something that’s incredibly easy to dip in and out of and has just the amount of reading to keep you engaged without swamping you with complicated rules and concepts. The magic system even allows a little bit of creativity if you’re feeling up to it.
The sign that this one is a strong contender is that I still dip into this from time to time.
3. Euro Truck Simulator 2
Managing to focus for long tedious stretches of time and juggling just enough sleep to keep you focused so you don’t do something terrible whilst maximising your time awake. I found parallels between this long-haul truck driving game and what I was doing in real life with my baby.
The downside to this is that it is a PC game so does need you to be sat at your computer which might not work out if you’re looking after the baby. I found a way to play this with my daughter sleeping on my chest as I slouched in an office chair, but normally I saved this for the rare occasions that she stayed down in her moses basket.
Get a lorry, get a contract to transport some goods from one part of Europe to another, and go for a drive. Euro Truck Simulator 2 is definitely one of those games where you frequently ask yourself “am I having fun?” but I found myself thinking about it quite a bit.
I liked it a lot, right up until the point that my character practically fell asleep at the wheel and I needed to make an unscheduled stop to sleep in the game. I was so jealous of this virtual truck driver actually getting some sleep that I quit and never went back.
The main reason I mention this is that I can imagine other driving games being incredibly effective things to zone out to.
4. Rogue Legacy
This was the most action intensive game that I could manage and to be clear, I’ve never done very well with it, especially when suffering from sleep deprivation.
Two dimensional randomly generated castle with a semi-randomly generated character that when you die, you start again and carry a little bit of what you earned before through to the next session so you can upgrade your character and give them a slightly better chance.
I love Rogue Legacy and still fire it up occasionally when I can’t think of what I really want to play but have half an hour to spare. Almost endless replayability and each time you break past a skill ceiling there’s more to discover.
5. Honourable Mention: Almost anything on a 3DS and anything on a PS Vita
Time to cheat – I had neither a 3DS or a PS Vita when my daughter was born, but I wish I had. Something handheld that I could have poked away at when she was sleeping on my chest would have been ideal, and something chunky like Pokémon X or Y, a Fire Emblem game or something from the Persona series would have been ideal.
The great thing about these handhelds is that you can close them up and put them away instantly as soon as you need to. In the same way you can snap a 3DS shut when you realise you’ve become completely absorbed by Monster Hunter and almost missed your stop on the train, you can put the system to sleep as soon as your baby has topped being asleep.
6. Honourable Mention: Hay Day
I am not a fan of Hay Day, but I played it a bit whilst my daughter was young and it is basically fine. This is another mobile game, but one where you tend to a virtual farm.
Once again, not a massively innovative concept – this has been done before – but it’s nicely polished and has its good points.
The main reason I mention it is because my wife is still playing it 18 months later, to the point if I see her on her phone, there is a very good chance she is harvesting some virtual crops or feeding some virtual chickens. There is definitely something here and it’s not even that pushy with the microtransactions.
Pick games that you can dip in and out of
If you tell people that you play games whilst looking after your newborn child, they will recall half-remembered tales of neglect with babies being locked in cupboards whilst their parents play with their online friends on some time-sink of an MMO.
Excellent games writer Keza MacDonald is spot on by talking about picking games that you can pause, games that you don’t need to concentrate too much on or that won’t tax your emotional reserves, and games that you don’t need to show up to a specific place at a specific time in order to play.
If you’re a fan of something like World of Warcraft, Destiny, DOTA 2 or anything that has a highly social online component to it, then you’re going to need to find something else, at least until your little one is a bit older and has a regular bedtime.
There’s nothing to say you can’t continue to spend some time playing games whilst you’re looking after your baby. After all, it won’t be long before you will be able to share this passion with them properly.
Want to read more stuff a bit like this? Check out David Hing’s blog about video games.
