Also Machinarium and Lilly Looking Through might be suitable.

Botanicala - my kids love it too, but I don't know about the black live-sucking bad guys... could be a little scary.

Definitely Chuchel too.

Race the Sun (with the Sunrise DLC it can be very relaxing too)

The Bit-Trip games, esp. Runner and Void.

I just noticed that this game is delisted from GOG store.

when he's a little older you could show him Pajama Sam :^)

https://www.gog.com/game/pajama_sam_vol_1

https://www.gog.com/game/pajama_sam_vol_2

Gaming with toddlers. :D


And no hissing! I'm sure the kid was okay! :P

These are games I have played with my little ones ages 1 to 6, and they have enjoyed:
RiME
ABZU
the Artifex Mundi Jack and the Beanstalk HOG
various other non-horror themed HOGs
Hamilton's Great Adventure
The Last Tinker
Submerged
Don't Starve

Also one more game I forgot: Moorhuhn Kart 2

Extremely enjoyable and relatively simple racing game. Moorhuhn Kart 1 and 3 are much worse and not worth it IMHO.

Thanks everyone. I've added a good eight games to my wishlist based on this thread, and will be sure to try some of them with him as I buy them. I've marked every response that I considered useful with a + sign.

Based on the specifications I mentioned in the question, I think that the suggestions from d3adb01t, Dreaganos, and Gekko_Dekko were great. I did try the Tux racer already, but sadly it didn't work very well with my laptop (resolution problems). I'll look for a non-steam version of the Sonic racing games, and I have already wishlisted Wacky Wheels .

However, I'm marking Oddeus answer as the solution because it seems to offer the most potential for development. Although none of the games mentioned are racing games, I expect my son would be able to take to them.

While going outside etc. is also important, I don't expect toddlers to spend all their waking time outside, especially here in Finland during autumn and winter. They would die out there in the middle of winter. One can let their toddlers and young children to do both: go outside, and play videogames with their parents.

That said, apparently it IS important for kids to play outside too. At least here it was just in the newspapers that according to some new studies, lots of people all over the world become nearsighted because they read or watch small screens nearby too much as small kids. It was even predicted that in the future most people, already in their 20s or so, will be nearsighted and need glasses. (The common example used is how awfully many nearsighted people there seem to be in China nowadays, it seems as if all university students in China are wearing glasses for nearsightedness).

The current theory is that if a kid has to sharpen their vision near lots and lots every day (be it reading too many books or staring at a phone or tablet near them for hours and hours), their body tries to compensate to that by starting to GROW the eyeballs so that they become longer, which in itself causes nearsightedness (and certain other potential problems to the retina etc.). :-O

So all those teen comedies which depict nerds always having glasses were right after all: the nerds need glasses BECAUSE they read so much as kids, while the sportjocks don't become nearsighted because they stare at distant objects outside like the football and girls on the bench. It was also surmised that the sunlight might prevent nearsightedness.

If there is any truth to those findings, I now feel bad whenever I see kids staring at tiny phones near their face. And all this VR frenzy, putting VR goggles right in front of your eyes, will make it even worse.

I guess I am "lucky" in that sense because I've always been rather the opposite, ie. long-sighted, just like my father. Apparently my eyeball is shorter than normal, so I haven't become shortsighted even though I played lots of computer games already as a kid. On the downside, I tend to need reading glasses nowadays if I want to read small text nearby... but I guess I rather see clearly far than near. More useful that way, when driving or shooting at incoming enemies. Who cares if I can't read the fine-print then?

I played Outlaws, DooM, Rise of the Triad and Jedi Knight Dark Forces II with my dad since I was 3. Still good choices if you ask me (<- totally biased, though :P)

Ha, and the doctors told me it weren´t good to be retarded!

deleted

GOG needs a search filter by PEGI,
or some GOG Mix at least.

Try Lumino City.