Exploring indie games through the eyes of my six-year-old

As a parent, there’s nothing I love more than knowing I’ve passed on one of my passions to my daughter, and as it turns out, I’ve passed on more than one, because she’s turning into a miniature version of her mother. One of our favorite things to do together is play demos of new indie games and find new ones to look forward to. 

It has been just shy of a year since I last took a deep dive into a bunch of demos with her and asked for her short reviews afterward. She’s six now, and her gaming skills have improved at a staggering rate over the last year, so I think it’s about time to make that one-off article a yearly tradition. If nothing else, it makes a nice list of indie games that kids can enjoy.

Here are the games we’ve played so far in 2026, and what Shortstack has to say about them.

Seina: A Tale of Spirits

Seina: A Tale of Spirits is a charming game about Mika on a journey through a spirit realm to find her lost cat. Everywhere you look, there’s a new adorable creature, and if there’s anything that’s going to win Shortstack over, it’s adorable creatures. Her favorites were the owls and the otters, and she took great pride in helping them overcome their differences.

She managed to play the majority of the demo completely without assistance; I only had to step in to help with the gliding parts, because apparently “hold down the A button” translated to “repeatedly slap the A button” in her head. Which is understandable, really, considering the fact that she’s very familiar with double jump mechanics in other games. 

Shortstack’s opinion:

Likes: “I really like all the things”

Dislikes: “Can you just write that, because I don’t dislike anything!”

Hungry Horrors

“Mummy, can we play Hungry Horrors?” will go down in history as the most repeated phrase in our house during the summer holidays of 2026, and while most repeated phrases eventually start to grate on even the most patient of parents, this one somehow never gets old. I love that she has adopted this gorgeous indie deckbuilder as “her game”, even if it means my run is no longer my own. 

Admittedly, this one took a little more input from me initially. I needed to explain the craving system a few times before it began to sink in, but she eventually got it. She’s also taken to leaving the princess to her own devices purely to trigger the idle animations, which make her giggle maniacally. And now she’s discovered that she can go fishing in the Bog biome, which is where we spend most of our time. 

Shortstack’s opinion:

Likes: “I like how the princess dances and throws the potato and throws the hat!”

Dislikes: “That we need to fight. Mummy does the scary bosses.”

Big Walk

Big Walk was always going to be a hit with Shortstack, especially when we discovered that she could literally be carried like cargo around the entire map. My two-person adventure with my fiancé quickly got abandoned and turned into the big family hike, complete with a soundtrack provided by Shortstack and her completely non-negotiable cowbell. 

I will admit that Shortstack is not the most helpful when it comes to completing the puzzles, and she is very easily distracted. Whenever she was in control of herself rather than being carried, one of us had to be on her tail at all times, one of us had to be on her tail at all times to make sure she didn’t wander off and get lost in pursuit of something shiny. Still, that does make the whole “big family hike” thing more realistic, even if we’ll never get to the end on that save file. 

Shortstack’s opinion:

Likes: “I enjoyed the red things.” (I think she means the babies?)

Dislikes: “Having to walk.”

Kittycat Couture

As a kid, I loved paper dolls, and apparently that’s a hereditary trait because Shortstack has discovered the joy of them without me ever showing her. So when I first saw Kittycat Couture, I immediately knew that I could never play it without her, because nobody wants to face the wrath of a six-year-old who missed out on something cool because their parent got there first. 

If any game can keep Shortstack occupied for hours, it's Kittycat Couture. She will happily dress up these cats and learn their stories repeatedly, rapidly unlocking every costume available in the demo’s shops and earning all of the quest rewards to get even more clothes. When we completed the demo for the first time, she immediately ordered me to start a new game so she could do it all over again. 

Shortstack’s opinion:

Likes: “I like dressing up the cats because they’re cute.”

Dislikes: “Nothing; everything is so cute!”

Shallow Pond

Shallow Pond is a nostalgic platformer reminiscent of the games I used to lose hours to in my own childhood, so I knew what I was getting into when I plonked Shortstack down on the sofa with a controller in hand. The cute and wobbly main character immediately won her over, and I got to marvel at the fact that she was inexplicably good at overcoming pretty much every obstacle the game threw at her.

There were a few moments when I suddenly found myself in possession of the controller while Shortstack covered her eyes, like when enemies appeared and she panicked, but she was soon laughing while I bounced around on their heads. She also experienced her first adorable “gamer rage” moment when she flew over a platform she was meant to land on, but she was giggling the entire time, so I think we’re okay. 

Shortstack’s opinion:

Likes: “I liked doing the fights!” (I did them all, but she enjoyed watching me do them!)

Dislikes: “To be honest, I didn’t like them attacking us…”

Toffee Cats

I’ll be honest, Toffee Cats wasn’t one of the games that I originally intended to include on this list, but Shortstack has a laser focus for anything involving cats, and she demanded to play this when she spotted it in my Steam library, so here we are. And I’m glad we did play, because it turns out she seems to have an eye for cats, butts, and figuring out how to connect the two. 

While playing Toffee Cats, which is essentially a pipe game where you have to link up cats' heads to their butts while filling the grid, Shortstack spotted some cats in boxes. They’re designed to be obstacles, but they have since become main characters purely because Shortstack decided they were. 

Shortstack’s opinion: 

Likes: “I like putting the butts to the cats, and the silly squished cat in the box.”

Dislikes: “I don’t like the miserable cat in the box.”

Sort Them Ducks

Sort Them Ducks is one of the river of sorting games available on Steam right now, but this one has rubber ducks going for it, so of course Shortstack immediately took to it like... Well, like a duck to water. And no, I'm not sorry for the overemphasis on ducks in this paragraph, because we're not taking ourselves too seriously here.

I have never in all of her life seen Shortstack as hyperfocused on anything as she is when she starts playing Sort Them Ducks. Annoyingly, even though I completed the game before she ever played and reset my progress for her, she independently came up with a more aesthetically pleasing organization system. If only she would apply her organizational skills to real life.

Shortstack's opinion:

Likes: "My favorite part is sorting the cute ducks."

Dislikes: "There are too many ducks, and I don't like upgrading."