I know you wouldn’t think it of your mild-mannered blogger but I love horror movies. Scary ones, cheesy ones, gory ones. I declare October Halloween month and use it as an excuse to watch every horror movie there is and I trust I won’t get committed because, well, it’s Halloween month. So imagine my delight when we had a Talking Tech event entitled: What Left For Dead Can Teach Us About Kids’ Games. Could it be that my affection for horror could actually help my career in children’s media? Turns out, it just might…at least when it comes to video games.
Our wonderful presenters were Carla Engelbrecht Fisher and Anne Richards (no relation) from No Crusts Interactive.
First, Carla and Anne gave us some insight into how various age groups approach game playing differently. Preschoolers are literal and egocentric, they have trouble understanding the relationship between the mouse and the screen which his why iPads and touch screens are so appealing to them. 6-8 year olds are still pretty literal but they’re refining their motor skills. 9-12 year olds are getting into abstract thinking and this is the age where gaming splits with girls becoming more interested in social games and boys getting into first person shooters. For a STEM curriculum, game makers are looking to showcase cooperative play, play that encourages sharing ideas and constructive criticism, trial and error, the collecting and visualization of data and exploration and discovery. Surprise, surprise some of your adult games model these principles perfectly. Like Left For Dead, you can play it alone but it’s hard to solve unless you play cooperatively. Lots of communication is needed to play the game so the core of the game is good for kids even if all the blood and zombies are not. Same with Slice, a game that had all of us absolutely terrified that somehow someone was actually going to get hurt (even though that’s impossible) and reminded yours truly that I really need to catch up on my Dexter.
There are also great examples of intergenerational games, not necessarily geared toward kids but everyone can enjoy them like Rock Band. Cooperative play and trial and error! This I can attest to as I watched my 4-year-old nephew “sing” “Eye of the Tiger” in perfect pitch and score way more than the rest of us playing instruments. I guess Rock Band could care less if you sing actual words. Weird. Me? I sing the right words in the way wrong pitch. It’s a talent, really. Even Angry Birds is all about trial and error and finding more than one solution to a problem.
So now you know you can play violent games and still write them off on your tax returns (Just kidding, Big Brother – don’t send me for re-education!) but if you are making video games for kids now you know what kind of interactions work best for them. But what about what works from a narrative perspective?
I’m glad you asked, cause I totally took notes on that. 2-5 year olds need game playing that’s physically obvious, there has to be a consequence to actions instead of a motivation. They’re not going to hang in for getting to the princess in level a billion, they will hang in there for immediate cause and effect in game playing. Like popping balloons or collecting coins or winning a race. They tend to recall isolated moments instead of overall plot. This age group also doesn’t understand conventions that we take for granted like flashbacks, instant replay or dream sequences. 5-8 year olds have great plot recognition and their understanding of motivation improves (they just might rescue that princess). 8-12 year olds get all of the plot and can have much richer experiences. They describe others less in terms of external characteristics so you can really get into personalities of the characters in the games they play. Like the Night Circus game, which is based on a book, you need to read the book to play the game – awesome. Or LA Noire, which has an element of looking at the characters on screen and trying to understand their motivations and emotions. Sophisticated stuff, just like this age group.
Since I most likely didn’t do the event justice (I’m still trying to stop the nightmares about Splice), check out the Kids Got Game blog on Kidscreen.com. You won’t regret it.
Main Takeaway: Everything is educational, even zombies and first person shooters. The trick is to recognize those elements that are educational for kids and then make them kid appropriate. DO NOT LET YOUR KID PLAY LEFT FOR DEAD or they just may turn out like me. Fully functional but actually, truly afraid of zombies. I’ve crossed the street to avoid a potential zombie attack. I mean, that guy might have just been drunk but I’m not taking any chances.
Personal Takeaway: I did not know this. If you measure out the same amount of water in two glasses of equal size and show this to a preschooler they will say the glasses have the same amount of water. If you then pour one of the glasses into a bigger glass, the kid will tell you that the smaller glass has more water. Even though the kid just saw that they have the same amount of water! So interesting. Try it with a little one of your own, I’m not joking!
