Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Brainstorming Game for Kids

Idea

           My intention is to create a game that will entertain my 22 month old son. His mind seems to be going a million miles a minute and I would like to give him something that will entertain him and maybe help him learn and grow at the same time. I have seen him play with games and videos and he is more reactive to something that incorporates his interaction with music. Of course the game should be colorful and I am thinking that the animation should be large items rather than small. 

            What I would like to do is have a scene with clouds that have letters or numbers. When my son selects one of these clouds a nice little jingle or an audible voice saying the letter or the number. Of course my son will be bored with this rather quickly, so there should be other settings like a farm scene that has animals and when he selects the animals and audible voice is heard with the name of the animal.

Platform

          My son has become very capable with our smart phones and out Galaxy tab. He can very easily navigate thru the pages and apps to find what he wants, so I think this game would be best for him if it could be played as a mobil app. 2D with touch screen.

More to follow....

6 comments:

  1. Two years old is so young but his mind is absorbing everything in site so why not entertain his mind with something useful. Having a nice audible and colors will keep his attention but not for too long like you said. Having different scenes is a good idea maybe incorporate animals with their sounds.

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  2. My 7, 3 and 3 year old sons just love playing with tablet computers. I have a couple of old ipads and a android tablet, and I have installed a whole selection of kid related games on there. Some of the ones I like the most are the ones that teach Japanese words and character writing. However what I notice about all three boys is that they won't play any one game for long, they basically like to play for 2 minutes or less and then switch. Particularly the three year olds. The seven year old will play some games like 'Angry Birds' or this other dragon breeding game for longer, but even so he still switches pretty fast. Some of the things that get them frustrated are over use of text, so like you have two butons and it's not clear which will move you forward from just the size and shape. Icon design is really important for the younger kids. There are some great lego games that allow you to play with simple lego bricks and things. Just type kids in google play or the app store and try out some of the highest rated items. Actually what I'd really love to see is something that would scaffold interaction between the three boys so that they were interacting with each other rather than just the computer - something that allowed them to trade with each other would be cool - sorry going off on one there :-)

    For your 2 year old I think the key is making things completely touch oriented and avoiding the need for any sort of navigation other then the completely obvious touching arrow kind ...

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    Replies
    1. I agree Dr. Joseph. I am currently finishing up my degree, next fall I will be able to further what I learned in the game programming class. One of the things I would like to learn is mobile game applications. It would be great to personally develop some of the games my child plays.

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  3. I like how you motivate yourself; of course it is very good thing and fascinating for you to crate something educational for your son :) this is what I come up with with regard to completely touch-oriented game and at the same time, educational: so you have scenes for this game: sea, sky, landscape, etc and your son can tap those very broad nature in the scene and then animals, plants or any kinds of things living in those nature can be appeared. e.g. so if your son taps the sea, then nextly some fish and seaweed appear with some voice interaction, etc. Anyhow, i like your idea since your idea can be broaden in many ways!

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, that is a great Idea. My son can basically determine the setting / portal he wants. Thanks!!

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