Let them play!

I started playing videogames in simpler times. Left, right, jump, maybe a shoot button if you were lucky. I may have been just knee-high to a grasshopper but I had no problems understanding what I was supposed to be doing or how to do it. Nowadays, twenty five years later, videogames are almost unrecognisable from those early steps.

Now there are games for everybody. From personal trainers, taking gaming beyond simple entertainment, simulation games, offering mature experiences for adult games players, and the oddball games that provide an experience unlike any other. Just take a look at any of the Katamari games. Sometimes though it seems that with all of this variety videogame developers have forgotten how to make games for their original audience: kids.

That's not to say that the developers aren't making games for younger players but often they make some small but critical errors in the game design which can ruin their experience. For example, one game my son was playing, a high profile film tie-in, the first option after starting up the game is not 'Continue' or even 'Load Game' it is 'Start Game' surely better labelled 'Start New Game and Save Over Your Old Game.' You certainly can't tell an excited five year old to slow down and read the small print when he's been waiting all day to play his favourite game. At least he liked the game enough that he didn't mind playing through the first three levels again.

Another game we enjoy playing together likes to triple-check every decision we make. After telling it to save your game it asks, "Are you sure you want to save your game?" Yes. "Saving now will overwrite previous save, continue?" Yes! Then when we try to quit out of the game it asks, "Quitting now will lose unsaved progress. Continue?" Erm, is that continue playing or continue quitting? If I can't figure it out what chance do the kids who are supposed to be playing it have?

I thought modern classic Little Big Planet would be safe. Left, Right, Jump and Grab... bliss. If you don't know Little Big Planet is a two-dimensional platformer that looks like it was made by the Blue Peter team. Like Mario but with more soul. Stephen Fry's soul as it happens. Ten levels in though and we were stuck. This joyous dreamland adventure turns out to be bloody hard work. Giving up on progress through the story mode we turned our attentions to the level creator thinking that if we couldn't play their levels we would make our own! Turns out though that you need to play through the main game to get the bits to build your levels. It was like being given a wheelie bin full of Lego only to find it contains nothing more than blue 2x2s...

What makes it so frustrating is that so many of these problems could be fixed with a little thought, I realise that things like menu options and difficulty checks have to be done last when the deadlines are starting to loom but surely it is worth spending a few days making sure that kids can actually play games that appear to be directed at them? Maybe you should get some five year olds in to test out the games before you send them off.

I doubt they would mind.

Brian.