Pushing Buttons: Finally, I've found a game I can actually enjoy playing with my child

I am delighted to report that with the release of Super Mario Wonder, almost seven years into my parenting career, I have finally played a video game all the way through with one of my children. It was a journey that began with me hopefully playing Let's Go Pikachu! in 2018 (which my then-toddler hated so much that he would memorably shout "No, no, Pikachu!" at the screen), and now it has finally yielded genuine moments of joy as we worked our way through Wonder's madcap worlds. I was Mario, he played as Yoshi, a character designed for younger/less-experienced players, invulnerable to enemies and blessed with a helpfully generous flutter-jump. Initially this caused problems, because Yoshi cannot transform charmingly into an elephant or shoot bubbles from his hands with the appropriate power-up like Mario can – but once my kid realised that he could give me a ride across chasms on his back, giggling at Yoshi's expression of extreme consternation at having to bear the weight of an elephant, he was happy with the trade-off. We worked together through the levels, and for all the times I took the lead on tricky jumps or platforming challenges, he rescued me just as often when I fell foul of a Piranha Plant.