Robotex

A robot stands on a grid and has to reach a marked destination, except you never steer it directly. You lay out a sequence first, forward, turn left, forward again, and then press start. It carries out every step exactly as written with no chance to intervene.

That structure gives failure a different shape from most games. You do not lose because your hands were slow or a press came late; you lose because the thinking was wrong before anything moved. Watching your own plan march confidently into a wall is a blunt lesson and it sticks longer than any explanation would.

This is the core of programming rendered playable: write the steps in advance, run them, see what happens. A child who plays this becomes comfortable with sequential thinking well before meeting an actual programming language, and that comfort converts into confidence later.