Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
old fluff will do. It won't. Kids can't tell the difference between good acting and
bad acting, and they aren't experienced enough to recognize clichéd plot lines, but
they won't put up with just anything. Walt Disney realized this, and so do the writ-
ers and animators who continue his work; Disney movies are multilayered even
though they are for children. So, too, are the best children's topics. Meaningful
content will keep a child's attention longer than trivial content.
Death Kiss #4: Always play it safe!
This is a variant of the “sweet” Death Kiss.
Some people, in an effort to avoid violent or controversial content, go overboard
and try to eliminate anything that might frighten or disturb a child or even raise
her pulse. This inevitably results in bland, dull entertainment. Again, look at
Disney films for good counter-examples: Dumbo's separation from his mother;
Snow White's terrified flight through the forest; the outright murder of Simba's
father in
The Lion King
. These are not happy things, and that's OK. Gerard Jones
argues in his important treatment of the subject
Killing Monsters: Why Children Need
Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence
(Jones, 2002) that learning to deal
with threatening situations constitutes an important part of growing up.
Death Kiss #5: All kids are created equal.
There's no such thing as a single
children's market. Kids' interests and abilities change too quickly to lump them all
into a single category. If you're planning to make a game for ages 6 to 10 and the
publishers decide they want a game for ages 8 to 12, you'll have to redesign the
game. One-size-fits-all definitely doesn't work with kids.
Death Kiss #6: Explain everything.
Kids are much happier with trial-and-error
than adults are, and they don't want long introductions explaining how to play the
game. They want to dive in and play. Above all, avoid talking heads with a lot of
jabber. Adults naturally tend to assume that kids need things explained to them,
but it's not true of video game worlds in which they can't hurt themselves or any-
thing else. Keep exposition—and especially anything that smacks of teaching
them—to a minimum.
Death Kiss #7: Be sure your characters are wholesome!
Wholesome equals
boring. We wouldn't put up with bland white-bread characters in entertainment for
adults; why should we make children do it? You don't have to introduce serial kill-
ers, but create real characters with their own personal foibles.
Sesame Street
famously offered a variety of characters, many specifically designed to represent
moods or attitudes familiar to young children: greedy, grouchy, helpful, and so on.
Games for Girls
The game industry has always been overwhelmingly dominated by men, and male
developers have tended to design games that they themselves would like (or would
have liked when they were boys). Whether for societal or genetic reasons, boys' and
girls' interests diverge more widely from one another than men's and women's do;
on their respective bell-shaped curves, the means are farther apart. At certain ages,
