Editor’s note: I had no idea that four-year-old girls even played games, so I really enjoyed this look into the gaming life of Toby’s daughter. – Aaron
Bitmob already has plenty of discussion about Fat Princess and “games as art,” so I thought I’d touch on a slightly different topic. I’ve mentioned my daughter a few times in previous posts, but I want to share as gamer and a parent, how proud I am that she’s just four years old, yet already playing games (after she does at least one-page of her Pre-K workbook, of course) with no help from mom and dad.
“But Toby, what games could a four-year-old girl possibly play?” you might ask. I’ll show you.
First up is My Sims for the Wii. She’ll sit there and do everything by herself. Yes, this might be a simple sim-game, but she still completes the tasks at hand. She’s a natural, too. I haven’t really seen her look down at the controller while I’ve watched her play.
Next is Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise. The “just for fun” mode is perfect for her. Even on this easy setting she doesn’t need help doing any of the chores like watering, fertilizing, or tinkering. When she gets stuck she matches what’s onscreen with what’s in the strategy guide with no help from me or my wife.
Her new craze is Build-A-Bear, which you can check out for yourself at www.buildabear.com (go ahead and look; I’ll wait for you). She has had hours of fun in Build-A-Bear-Ville. She hasn’t really gotten a hang of the minigames just yet. Her big sister helps her out with those and then my four-year-old will spend all the money on her own place.
Like Build-A-Bear, McDonalds has its own web portal (www.McWorld.com) just for kids. Now I realize that McDonalds’ food sucks, but McWorld is actually kind of neat. You may not know this if you don’t have children, but with every kids meal comes a piece of paper that has a code that can be redeemed on the website for in-game content. Once online, you can create a custom avatar, play minigames, and interact in a whole virtual world.
Noggin.com is the web home of Nick Jr. games, and is pretty similar to McWorld and Build-A-Bear. If you want to sample the Noggin experience go play SportsCandy Sprint and save LazyTown by finding all of the sports candy. Although these games may be easy and only require the space bar and arrow keys, she can play (and beat) them without even looking down at the keyboard.
While these are the games she plays now, she already has her eyes set on other games. Lately she has been asking to play “The House Game” (actually A Kingdom for Keflings), “The Bear Game” (Banjo-Kazooie on XBLA), and “The Airplane Game” (which you might know as WarHawk). We tell her “not until you are older,” but at her current pace it might not be too long before she’s ready to tackle some of her daddy’s games.
They grow up so fast.