Bluey: The Videogame

Bluey: The Videogame pulls kids in for the most direct reason a TV-licensed game ever does: it lets them spend time with characters they already know. The episodes recreated in the game (mini-games like Magic Xylophone, Keepy Uppy, and Chattermax Chase) come straight from the show, which means a Bluey-watching kid will recognize the structure of the play before they read any instructions.

For kids encountering the Bluey TV show for the first time, Bluey: The Videogame works as a slow on-ramp. The mini-game format means there's no long campaign to commit to and no narrative thread to lose. A kid can play for fifteen minutes, do one mini-game, and feel like they finished a thing.

Bluey: The Videogame is the kind of pick that doesn't require any active parental management once the game is loaded. There's no chat, no online play, no purchases inside the game, no surprises after launch. The decision a parent is making is upstream of the game itself: is the kid ready for a controller, and is Bluey the right tone for them right now.

The co-op design is the bigger thing to know about. Bluey: The Videogame supports up to four players locally on the same console. That makes it a strong pick for households with multiple kids, but it also means an older sibling can run roughshod over a younger one in shared mini-games. The game doesn't enforce difficulty parity between players. Worth watching for the first session or two.

Bluey: The Videogame's depth ceiling is low by design, which is what makes it a good pick at 4 to 6 and a bad one at 9 to 10. A kid who's already past Mario or Kirby in skill will move through it in an afternoon.

Bluey: The Videogame is structured as a small open hub (the Heeler family's Brisbane house and yard) with mini-games slotted into the world as activities the family can do together. Most mini-games are recreations of moments from specific episodes, which a Bluey-watching kid will catch immediately and a parent will not.

My kids really struggled with who got to play which character, even though you could have up to four players all as the same character. Classic sibling rivalry.

The mini-games in Bluey: The Videogame are short, around two to five minutes each. There's no fail state that ends a session; if a kid runs out of time on a mini-game, they restart it. That keeps the frustration floor low for the youngest players.

Bluey: The Videogame has no in-game tutorial that demands attention. Controls are explained as they come up, and most mini-games rely on one or two buttons. A 4-year-old can play with help; a 6-year-old can play independently.