I'm embarking on a similar hands-on exercise with my own 5 year old son called "let's make an iPhone game". I'm letting him completely define the plot, the characters, the actions, and overall requirements no matter how nonsensical it all seems, I don't debate his choices, I just take requirements as is. I have him involved with every step from designing the artwork, the music, the sounds, the actions, and he is quite obsessed with working on this project continuaously. I don't expect he'll know all the details of how the game works but I want to demonstrate that he can create fun things using a computer.
The refreshing part of getting software requirements from a child is there's no tedious debate about implementation details, timelines, and business value. "The cowboy is only on level 2 and level 4 because his friend is the mosquitto." OK, whatever, nonsense but perhaps no more ridiculous than Pac Man.
"OK, whatever, nonsense but perhaps no more ridiculous than Pac Man."
Love it. Break down Super Mario Bros. sometime. "So there's this guy, he's a plumber and has a huge mustache, he runs left to right and jumps on enemy mushrooms, but if he eats different ones (which he gets by hitting floating blocks with question marks on them) he gets bigger. Eating flowers lets him shoot fireballs, which kills anything that doesn't have a shell, except for the hammer brothers and Bowser. When he eats stars (that he's extracted out of the more floating question mark blocks) he becomes invincible for a short period of time. At the end of every level he sees how high up a flag pole he can jump. Oh and there's a princess you are saving or something who's always in a different castle then the one you are in. Every living thing in the world is pretty much made of poison since you die as soon as you touch pretty much anything. Oh, and some turtles can fly."
Thankyou. I cant read the article from work as we block anything with the word games in the meta tags. But your post gave me most of the gist as well as making me smile with what you are doing. My hats off to you.
hey yassim, my workplace does that as well. I usually circumvent that by adding 'cache:' in front of the web address to pull the google cache (This might only be applicable on Google chrome, though)
Incidentally, the game in question (Edge) is part of the current Humble Bundle, including a version for Android devices. I've already had quite a bit of fun with it on my way to work. :)
In the beginning when I saw the pictures, I thought that you could build levels for a 2D platform game with Lego and the game automatically reads them in via Webcam or so and you could play them.
I thought the same thing! The next generation of toys gets me really excited. I hope things like that become a reality. I can't wait to play.... err get them for my kids. ;)
Why can't we just put a computer in every lego piece with inputs and output on the "pegs" and holes, and have the pieces figure out on their own how they're put together? Then we just need a USB-to-lego adapter to export to the computer.
Isn't that what indie game development is all about? That the developers actually care.
At least that's a lot of why I like indie games. They often do awesome things. They usually don't just develop games to make money, but to make people happy. I think that's a lot about why they are more creative and not just another implementation of the same boring game with better graphics.
Unfortunately, they need to license his level; and if it is sold with the official game, they arguably should pay him.
This issue wouldn't occur if they coded his map for him as an independent modder's map - but a big part of the coolness of this gift is that it's part of the official game. (I mean, when I was 7, such a gift would be like becoming a god - legal issues, even money, would only diminish that).
My daughter plays the same games (e.g. Minecraft) as the boys. She plays with the same Lego bricks as the boys. It's not that she doesn't see the differences, especially at school - it's that we don't make the differences seem like anything to worry about at this point.
By the time those differences matter more, I hope to have her self-confidence to the point where she'll kick those boys' butts.
While I don't argue that the majority of lego sets are geared towards boys they still run the Lego City line as well as the Harry Potter line which does seem to be relatively popular with girls. (My Ex-gf played with legos and loved the Harry Potter Stuff.)
Lego sets may be geared towards boys for the most part but plain lego bricks are about the most gender neutral toy you could possibly find. And it seems that kids of either gender (and any age!) appreciate them equally.
This makes me sad. As a father of two girls, I'm always available to build blocks, legos, and castles. I've even introduced the older one to my own HTML5 games. She's great at using the mouse now and can even use Chrome's auto-complete to get to her gaming web site by herself (we're working on full urls, but the alphabet comes first).
However, come xmas and birthdays, the family continues to shower them with traditional girl toys (dolls, stuffed animals, kitchen sets, pink toys, pink blocks, pink legos). Whenever she opens a present, and it's pink, my stomach churns. It's almost to the point where you feel like giving in. I certainly wouldn't take away their girl toys that they enjoy, simply for the sake of gender. They should be free to play with what they choose. I just wish society (the older generation and especially marketers), would be less insistent on specific gender toys.
I don't think it would require a great "many extraordinary coincidences" for this to happen to a little girl. All it takes is for her parents to encourage it.
Certainly, as she grows, the overriding influence of her parents declines, but for a long time parents can be the primary driver in what a child determines to be appropriate.
Saying that "many extraordinary coincidences" are required for a little girl to like a puzzle game or legos or whatever else is entirely hyperbolic. All it takes is parents who encourage that behavior.
>All it takes is for her parents to encourage it. //
Or just allow for her parents to allow it?
Our 2yo wanted a tea-set for christmas. The most non-barbified one we could find (ie no latent advertising and as non-pink as possible, I really hate lurid pink ... except that one shirt ...) so we got him the cherry red set with the pink bows.
Am I encouraging him to develop a liking for picnics and fancy tea-ware? Not particularly. That's just what he wanted.
Apologies for the meta comment but this is the thread with the highest points/comments ratio I've seen in HN. Almost six hundred readers upvoted it but less than 10% posted a comment, which is pretty unusual. I'm guessing it's the overwhelming "this is amazingly cool/touching/lovely but other than I don't really have anything to add to the discussion" feeling.
Well done to the game devs to support their fans/players like this ... they deserve all the exposure they will no doubt get for their game because of this story ...
The refreshing part of getting software requirements from a child is there's no tedious debate about implementation details, timelines, and business value. "The cowboy is only on level 2 and level 4 because his friend is the mosquitto." OK, whatever, nonsense but perhaps no more ridiculous than Pac Man.