Motivation:

*I want* a destination online where my godson and his little brother can grow up. A place where, I trust, they are engaging in relatively freeform play with other children, an electronic playground. I want it to give them creative play options, not bugsmashing. They''re kids, and I think they''re the leading cause of progress.

Briefly:

It''s a four-year-old''s MMORPG. Everybody gets a cool toy, and every cool toy is intelligent enough to play with every other cool toy. Like the ultimate wet-dream version of The Incredible Machine, reimagined for your bouncing baby nerd, this place allows kids to build devices out of the bits they collect. The graphics and soundscapes are bright, energetic, but not cynic-pop. You can go into Jungle world and collect exotic pets, then build an amazing zoo or circus with your friends; in TechTown, you get a spring, or a light bulb, or a...something, and you spend hours building the craziest machines anyone''s ever seen. Most importantly, you spend time with friends in a safe, friendly online environment as you grow up. In the interests of relative brevity, I stop here. Thoughts? ld Who''s exhausted his two "great ideas" in one night Doesn''t say a lot about me as a designer, does it?

liquiddark,

Sounds like fun in theory, and your intent is surely unimpeachable... However your description is a bit vague, and I'm having trouble envisioning this game in my mind as a result. Could you give an example of play, to illustrate what you have in mind? You don't need to be detailed on interface or mechanics or whatever - just tell us what you want a typical player to be able to do.

Also, I'd like to have some idea of how you would make an MMORPG safe for kids. I am of the opinion that no public forum can be entirely safe for children without adult supervision. Now if you want to say that you want to make a game that children can play with their parents, without insulting the intelligence of either, then I'd consider it somewhat more feasible (although still quite challenging).

---------------------------------------------------
-SpittingTrashcan

You can't have "civilization" without "civil".

Edited by - SpittingTrashcan on January 18, 2002 1:54:21 AM

I like the idea but it would have to progress as a series of games for it to work. A game that a four year old finds fun would be rejected by a six year old. Certainly by eight very few children are gong to want to play a game aimed at fours.

However children develop at different rates. What you need is some sort of system so that when the child feels that he / she has had enough of Game 1 it can move into game 2 and so on. That way the child will stay in your area.

Perhaps you need "adverts" for game 2 as part of game 1, so that the child is aware that there is something else to go for. Mind you if I was the child I''d probably race through all the games just cos they were there

quote: Original post by SpittingTrashcan
Sounds like fun in theory, and your intent is surely unimpeachable... However your description is a bit vague, and I''m having trouble envisioning this game in my mind as a result. Could you give an example of play, to illustrate what you have in mind? You don''t need to be detailed on interface or mechanics or whatever - just tell us what you want a typical player to be able to do.

This one''s not a well-defined design, really. I''m looking for input in the most desperate way. However, I shall try:

We have a group of kids in, say, Machine World. Kid1 has a FlashingLight(Red), Kid2 has a TootingWhistle(High), Kid3 has a BangingHammer(Big). Kid1 sets down the FlashingLight, Kid2 sets down the TootingWhistle, and Kid3 sets down the BouncingBall. Behind the scenes, they communicate a rhythym to one another, and suddenly you have a flashing, tooting, banging machine. The kids each get a new toy as a reward, and their machine becomes part of Machine World for a while, a toy for anyone to play with and a base for other playgroups to build on.

quote:
Also, I''d like to have some idea of how you would make an MMORPG safe for kids. I am of the opinion that no public forum can be entirely safe for children without adult supervision. Now if you want to say that you want to make a game that children can play with their parents, without insulting the intelligence of either, then I''d consider it somewhat more feasible (although still quite challenging).

Incentives. Everybody loves ''em. You cut the cost of monthly subscription by, say, 50% if the parent agrees to put an ICQ-style messenger on their machine and intervene when an automated monitor requests their aid. You employ your own human "guides" to fill in the gaps. My worry is that the parent can become fascist about their child''s playtime, and in this situation they are not dealing solely with their own child. I don''t know how I''d deal with that problem, but I''m working on it.


Crydee:
I like the idea of "adverts". I had a thought very much like this for that level of play at which the child would be ready to leave the game entirely - there could be "hooks" introduced into the play area gradually, leading into real-world sources of information. These hooks or adverts could populate the whole game, constantly reminding the child of what lies just ahead.

The more I thnk about this, the more I like it. It''s like the Narnian idea of deeper, richer worlds-within-worlds.

I think that a "series of games" is a misstatement. I definitely think that there would have to be multiple levels of play embedded into the world, starting at the totally freeform play outlined above and moving up, eventually, into a quest system. But if I were designing it, I''d probably throw them all into the same structure and let the children decide where they want to play.


thank you,
ld