inspired

Shouldn’t athletes expecting to medal just want to skip the competition and go straight to the podium? I mean, that’s the reward, right? It is pretty easy to come up with many other analogs where there is a reward/goal that would feel hollow without whatever experience precedes it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIK-q6JoOeU

deleted by creator

Some of these might be a little more like 8 than 5 because they have storybook-scary but still mentioning for you to have a look and decide.

Lost Words - Beyond the Page
Unpacking
Epistory - Typing Chronicles
One Step from Eden
Wargroove
Tsioque

Technically not female lead but kinda close and definitely age-appropriate:

Chicory - From creators on Wandersong + Celeste. Not positive your character is canonically female but let’s just call it very plausible and you are filling in for the titular character who is called “she”.
Donut County (technically the male racoon is the main character but the only human and next-most important character is female)
Journey (likely canonically no specific gender but great game, no dialog and could easily interpret as female if you choose)

Not what you asked for but maybe consider:

Beglitched - No human characters other than the player, puzzle game with pink and purple hacker aesthetic.
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime - Androgynous animals and humans pilot a wacky ship in 4 player co-op lots of hearts.

I like some of the other suggestions better than this but if you’ve already tried communicating about it and other things haven’t worked, I wonder if for some cases you could convince him to take a video or a picture. Like, if it’s a cool thing he wants you to see instead of interrupting you record it and share it when you’re available instead of right now, interrupting you. Again, I think the other proposals are better but I wonder… if you’re right about the motivation at least sometimes being just wanting to share something it might be worth attempting.