It’s a short-ish campaign told in LEGO dioramas, as you make paths for a little brick man and his son to follow, and we’d recommend you sit down with your child and follow it to its end. These are all bricks that you could buy in a shop. Our first impression was that everything looked so real and gorgeously lit, and – unlike other LEGO games – there are no faked bricks here. It’s a wistful, beautiful game, and – as the best kids’ games are – could be played and enjoyed by absolutely everyone. Arriving on Xbox after a successful run on Apple Arcade, LEGO Builders’ Journey absolutely charmed our socks off. We may have been starved of mainline LEGO games ( LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is due next year), but our best kids game of the year was still made from those charming plastic bricks. This is a generous little platformer that you won’t regret picking up. Wear propeller boxes and spin to higher platforms. Gather frog boxes and lick the other player.

The stacking mechanics are lovely, and Pile-Up! keeps adding new ways to take advantage of the mechanic. If someone gets stuck, just jump on top of the other player and let them do it for you. You can stack on top of each other’s heads and play through a large 3D platforming campaign together. But the joy is in the co-op: this was made to be played two-player, ideally with a parent and a child. Everything is made from cardboard and textiles, giving it a homely feel. This is a hugely characterful and gorgeous little platformer that takes a leaf out of Little Big Planet’s book and makes the world tactile. We had little hope for it, mainly because the idea of a platformer where you play a cardboard box seemed lazy and unappealing. One of the real surprises this year was Pile Up!: Box by Box.

Xbox one games for 5 year olds