Children’s adventures

Is Learning Fun?

The category of “edutainment” was purportedly born of a successful fusion of education and entertainment, wherein the child learns a little something but not at the expense of fun; hopefully in addition to. I don’t disagree with the notion, but I think that it can only be pulled off successfully as long as it’s not sneaky, or invasive. It’s not that easy of a thing to do. Try explaining the process of photosynthesis to a child without being technical, and keeping his attention. You’ll get the idea.

That’s the ultimate question with edutainment, the fun to learning ratio. Kids always prefer more jelly than peanut butter, of course, and though sometimes gullible, perceptive kids can usually smell a fraud a mile away. They can always tell the difference between cookies made with Splenda and those made with sugar. So they will tire easily of games that promise a really cool premise, yet tax their noggin without any kind of practical rewards. That’s an aftertaste they remember.

Besides the aforementioned, Knowledge Adventure is a company that clearly comes to mind as a successful edutainment developer, published now by Vivendi Universal Games and better known, at least to parents, for their excellent Jump Start series.

For those a little older, the Nancy Drew series, graciously capitalized in the form of true adventure games by Her Interactive, has garnered much acclaim. Amy Janas, marketing manager for HI, with over ten years in the console game and PC software industry, believes that children’s use of computer and video games leads to the adoption of other technologies and builds confidence in their use of computers. An addendum to that might be that these children, if so encouraged, may also turn out to be our future game developers.

What Can We Give Them?

So what is the future of children’s adventure games?

I talked briefly with Linda Weal, media coordinator for Viva Media, formerly Tivola – known for quality edutainment titles for kids of all ages, including the excellent science adventure series: Bioscopia, Physicus, and Chemicus. When asked what she thought could contribute to better adventure games for children, she commented, “There should be more of them! More varied themes. Kid’s gaming is a tiny sub-sector of the whole industry, and it seems to me there are a lot of kids. I think there is a lot of room for this market to grow and diversify.” Certainly as much room to grow as the children who would play them.

Personally, I have seen the future of children’s adventure games, and that future is Great Journey, by Rebelmind Studios. CEO Darek Rusin has created a gem in this pure adventure for children. If you haven’t checked out the preview, do so now. What I say next will have much more meaning if you do. This games features, design, and entertainment value are so kid-smart, that it makes you wonder why there aren’t more like this title to chose from.

The answer of course, is that it isn’t as easy as it sounds, and yet Rebelmind has set an impressive bar, using feedback from actual children to gauge the game’s playability and credibility. Perhaps this is one answer for better quality games – more kid beta testing.

What about more kid-friendly logic? They don’t always want puzzles that have to do with words, numbers, letters, and state capitols. Critical thinking can be very situational. Piglet’s Big Game is an adventure game for kids that’s an excellent example of this. Piglet is placed in various situations in his friend’s dreams wherein he has to muddle his way out by accomplishing certain tasks, finding his brave face along the way.

Remember when you were a kid and you used to wonder why your parents insisted you wash your hands before eating a bowl of cereal, protesting “But I’m using a spoon!” Or you were shocked to learn one day that your teachers didn’t live at school? You have to love childish logic like that. So a return to real world kid logic would be something that could be expounded on in future adventure games. There’s certainly no lack of source material. Most publishers will be deciding their projects shortly after the New Year, and we would hope they would consider the significant need for well-made adventure games for children.

We will hope that in their consideration, they take note of the need for those games that are well-designed, have strong help features, intuitive interfaces, frustration-free challenges, true replayability, and enough options and difficulty levels to create personalized experiences for all impressionable minds.