What should high schoolers play in the summer?

We'd like to write that it's soccer or basketball, but let's be realistic. The longest vacations of the year give kids a lot of free time, and most often they spend it on their gadgets. And adults do not always have the opportunity to follow what their child sees on the screen - who knows what kind of nasty stuff might be on there. It is better for parents to offer their child an interesting entertainment with the assurance that there is nothing bad there. Especially for such cases we have chosen free games without violence and scary monsters, but with multiplayer, so that even in summer children can keep in touch with friends. The selection also includes projects that allow you to learn something new or develop your creative skills.

Fishing simulator, of course, will not replace real sitting on the shore with a fishing rod. But it will become a training, because from Fishing Planet you can learn where and what kind of fish is found, what is suitable as bait for this or that species, and also the gamer will begin to understand the gear. Here are 170 species of fish and 25 picturesque bodies of water from around the world with three modes - float, spinning and bottom fishing. You can organize an online competition with friends, who will catch more or get the most weighty trophy. And in the process no one will be bitten by mosquitoes, there is no risk of falling into the water from the boat, and no one will have to wade home with empty buckets - the nibble is guaranteed to everyone.

What is also remarkable in the simulator is the change of fishing conditions. Nothing prevents you to heat up the excitement by swimming to the middle of the lake in the rain, to organize night fishing under the stars, or even to go with a rod on a frozen body of water. According to the authors of the game, there are thousands of combinations of tackle and baits with unique physical and hydrodynamic properties. Boats are presented as motorized and ordinary, on oars, and the water varies in the strength of the current and depth, so that a big role in the process plays a competent choice of equipment. In general, even the free version of Fishing Planet offers a lot of things, but if you want for money you can get a cool spinning rod or open the season of shark fishing to show off in front of your classmates.

And here is a great reason to pass the evening for fans of sports racing. It is sports racing, not some kind of underground racing, with police chases and drifting on sleeping streets. That is, the races are held on special tracks and according to the rules, the violation of which is subject to a fine. At the same time participants have an opportunity to race in official series - such as DTM, WTCR, WTCC and ADAC GT Masters. And the cars here are of real brands. You can drive a BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Chevrolet, Ford, McLaren, Pagani, RUF, Radical or Volvo. There's nothing stopping you from decorating your favorite car before hitting the track - and standing out in a competition with your online friends. Each race, by the way, can have 24 participants.

As in any other serious simulator, RaceRoom Racing Experience has a physically accurate model of control with gear shifting, and also accurately copied the sound of different engines. Beginners will appreciate the single-player mode, where you can prepare for tests in multiplayer. It is divided into three levels of difficulty and offers several training tracks, where the artificial intelligence adjusts itself to the abilities of the gamer. Although the game is free, the presence of VR-headset and game steering wheel will be a plus. But it is worth remembering that the races will bring pleasure and without additional equipment. Only one nuance can be written in the disadvantages - there is no Russian language support.

A selection of free online games would be incomplete without virtual soccer. But where to get it for free? It turns out that Electronic Arts has a multiplayer version of the famous FIFA series, for which you do not have to pay a ruble. Earlier it was called FIFA Online 4, and now - EA Sports FC Online. All the main modes are available here, including competitions against AI, as well as famous teams and athletes - you can, for example, meet Maradona, Ronaldo, Messi and Lev Yashin on the field. So there's nothing stopping you from making a dream team of sports stars and then fighting in the same stadium with some of your friends. With your father or brother, if they are into soccer, is also an option.

It's easy to pump up your coaching skills. In addition to recruiting a team of free, earned or purchased characters, you can make substitutions, assign roles on the field, improve performance and monitor the chemistry of your charges. Each of them has a level with no upper limit - sports legends here easily exceed a hundred. But the success in the match is still determined by the skill of the gamer and the level of the whole club, not its individual members. Special coach's points and profit from matches at the home stadium act as resources for improving the heroes in FC Online, i.e. you need to please the fans in addition to everything else. In general, the game is not only beautiful and free, but also multifaceted.

A construction set can be an aid to developing creative skills and engineering ingenuity. And if it allows you to create robots and then test them on the battlefield, what schoolboy would refuse such a thing? In conditionally free Robocraft players assemble machines from cubes, each of which has its own functions - some of them give the construction strength, others supply energy, and others set everything in motion. So it won't be hard to build a flying, driving or walking tank to challenge your rivals online. There are more than 250 different types of parts in the game, and new ones are constantly being released with the next DLC.

Although the age of the action movie is solid (it was released back in 2017), it's not difficult to find rivals on the servers, especially if your friends join your session, because here you can run a dedicated server specifically for your company. Someone might compare Robocraft with another similar "constructor" - Crossout. Of course, both games are good, but this one has lower system requirements, so even an outdated PC will be able to play it. And the set of modes is the envy of any modern hit: there are matches against bots and humans, battles by squads for a point and a set of points, competitions on the principle of "every man for himself" and, of course, a series of training missions to get a good hand before multiplayer.

Many games are devoted to the marine theme - just think of "World of Ships" or War Thunder. But for a boy who is fond of books by Robert Stevenson and Rafael Sabatini, a real gift will be an adventure under sail. World of Sea Battle offers not only to enjoy the battles of wooden ships of XVI-XIX centuries, but also teaches the history of the fleet. Here you can learn how the masts, guns and equipment were called, learn to count speed by knots and distinguish a galleon from a karakka, and also see copies of legendary ships drawn from real models. In the game, for example, there is a copy of the frigate "Queen Anne's Revenge", commanded by the famous pirate Edward Teach, nicknamed Blackbeard, and the "Victoria" - Admiral Nelson's flagship.

The strategic part of the gameplay is also interesting - with trade, geographical discoveries and, where without it, piracy. Taking the role of a captain, you get into the open ocean with small islands and bays scattered across it, and then you can go with your friends to bosses, participate in alliances, transport goods, figuring out where to sell the most profitable goods, or compete with other players in PvP mode. And although it will take some time to grasp the basics of gameplay, the ship control itself is relatively simple - unlike, for example, Naval Action. Even a child (if he/she is already 12 years old) can cope with the conquest of the abyss.

Let's move from the sea to the land, and from the age of sailing ships to the age of steam engines. Rail Nation also has a historical grain: you can find out where and when the locomotives that influenced the development of railroading were built. But in general, the game is about something else. It's a "taikun" type strategy, where you have to lead a company and develop a whole railroad network from scratch - with all the stations, depots, factories, banks, resource sources and other buildings. You can open restaurants, hotels or markets along the road to attract more passengers, but to improve the quality of service you need to constantly upgrade the tracks and trains. For this you will have to open a laboratory and invest in engineering.

You will have to wiggle your brain to figure out where to send which train, how to make the right schedule and organize communications with all the farms, sawmills and mines from where goods are transported. And on the map it will be done not only by you, but also by other users. Also the game allows you to watch how the equipment gradually develops - you move from old Prussian steam locomotives to modern locomotives. So those who are interested in the railroad theme will spend many entertaining hours playing Rail Nation. You can do it for free, and in addition, you do not need a powerful computer, because the strategy is launched directly in the browser.

What do we imagine when we think of MMORPGs? Endless wars, raids on monsters, gloomy worlds that have been taken over by evil forces. But there are some pleasant exceptions among such games - for example, Sky: Children of the Light. In it you will find neither horror, nor suffering, nor even PvP-battles, typical for the genre. This is a calm and light adventure, where you have to fly, admire the surrounding beauty and solve simple tasks to return the stars to the sky and give hope to the creatures chained in stone. Everything is designed to be enjoyed by people of all ages and cultures, and it's also available for free and doesn't extort money for some legendary armor.

Weapons will not be needed here at all. You play as a hero traveling between worlds with the help of a cape - it also acts as wings. You can take a break from flying in a virtual house, which you are allowed to furnish to your liking. At the same time, the pumping is reduced to adding points and levels to the cape, rather than improving the strength of the blow or spells. The character can't die, but if he gets into a bind, the game simply removes those points and rolls back progress. Everything in Sky is simple, beautifully designed, and also sounds great, as communication here is mostly tied to gestures and sounds rather than chat lines. But nothing prevents you from exchanging a few words with your friends, sitting down with them on a bench. It's hard to think of a more suitable MMORPG for the younger age.

Strategies are considered the smartest genre for a reason. And with an unusual entourage, they can also be very entertaining. Hades' Star is a free online strategy game about space, free of ugly alien faces and fantasies on the theme of "Alien" by Ridley Scott. Here you have to colonize worlds and develop a starfleet, watching from hundreds of kilometers away. Though the game came to computers from mobile devices, gameplay in it is serious: you get the space around the yellow star, where you build the first colonies and fleet, make the first steps in economic development, and also set the rules for those gamers who wish to look into your possessions. After all, there are exactly the same systems with other players around.

In the Hades galaxy there are also less stable red and blue stars - no one lives around them, but there are important events and resources useful for development. The trick is that some of these luminaries do not live long - and in 5-15 minutes after they are detected, they turn into supernovae, destroying everything around them. That's why there's a scramble for resources around them. There are also alien ships traveling through space - they oppose all users. To survive among the hostile environment, players can create corporations and explore the most interesting systems together. In general, to achieve success here you need not only to think, but also to communicate.