This episode is late, very late
We auctioned this topic choice for charity over a year ago
And it was supposed to come out in December
But between some production hitches on our side
And James needing more time to research
Here we are with it now
We're sorry Rob
Your generosity to others made this happen
So i'm sorry we kept you waiting but here it is at last
An episode on the challenges of designing games for kids
This is a topic which is becoming increasingly important in our industry
And one which is too often ignored
Surprisingly in an industry that has for years been labled 'Just for kids'
Most of the products we put out aimed at kids
Clearly haven't had a lot of thought put in to how to approach creating games for young people
Unfortunatly for years many of the quote, unquote 'Kid's games' out there were licensed titles
And these games relied on the idea that the parent buying them wouldn't know anything about games
And so wouldn't know a good game from a bad one
The expectation was that the parent would walk into the video game isle in their local Toys R Us
And before them would stretch a sea of colorful boxes that meant nothing to them
Then they'd see one with Spiderman or G.I. Joe on it and they'd think
'Hey I know what that is, my kid likes that show, I'll get them that'
This, unfortunately meant that a company could sell almost as many titles of a licensed kids game
By kicking it out the door as cheaply as possible
As they would by creating something actually engaging and good
Thus often kids game production became about lowering production costs
rather than raising quaility
In fact this is a big part of why licensed titles in our industry have such a bad rap today
Luckily this has been changing,
Now that many people who grew up with games in their homes when they were kids are having kids of their own
Games for children can no longer sell on box art and ignorance alone
Today these games have to better cater to their audience
And thats on of the most difficult things when creating games for kids
You see we often mentally lump ages 14 and up as one group when creating games
Most of the games you play probably fall into this category
People in this range may fall into many different demographics or target audiences
And they may have vastly different underlying things which appeal to them
But age specifically isn't usually considered a huge differentiator beyond 14
If fact its only been in the last few years that we've started creating games specifically for the 25 and up audience
Because most of the time a great game is equally appealing if your 14 or 45
But that's much less true for an audience under 14
In general you have to break them up into dramatically different demographics
based on age alone
Generally its broken down as ages 4 through 6
7 to 9
10 and 11
And twelve to 14
And with even a moments reflection you can see how wildly different those groups are
A game that's great for a 4 years old
May not be very good for a 7 year old
And is almost certainly gonna be a total miss for someone who is 12 or older
There are exceptions ofcourse
Like Minecraft, which is catching on with kids of nearly every age
But games like that are pretty rare
Which makes understanding these age demographics essential to the creation of quality childrens games
Understanding things like the fact that in the youngst demographic
You can't guarantee that your audiance will know how to read
Or that the oldest group is much more socially aware than children just a few years younger than them
Knowing stuff like that is essential to targeting your game
This turns out to be easier said than done
As many developers I've known originally
Thought they were creating a game for one age group
Only to find out they aimed too high or too low
And that is fatal to a project if not discovered early
Good childrens games also build in multiple levels of succes from the outset
You need your game to be easy enough that any child can play on their own, with or without a parent
But you also need to provide a broad enough experiance that you're not talking down to the child with your gameplay
This is actually one of the keys to the success of things like Angry Birds or even Skylanders
Any child can play them just by mashing buttons or tapping on the screen
But a child who thinks through the mechanics and understands the game is rewarded for doing so
For thinking more deeply
Additionally you have to be more aware of the different ways human beings learn when building games for kids
We touched on this a little in one of the episodes about how to build a good tutorial
And in fact we could and probably should dedicate a a whole episode to the theories around different types of learning
Because while by teens we've been trained to learn in ways that have become standard in our society
What will stick with or make sense to a younger child is much more vague
Actually just to go on a quick tangent
There's a lot of debate around the idea of learning styles in education
I'm kind of hand waving it here but if we do a full episode on learning methods in games later
We'll go into some of this, and how learning styles relate to games
The short version is
You should teach the player in every unobtrusive way possible
And where you need to a few obtrusive ones too
While I don't know about the breakdown or efficacy of any given learning style for people
I do know that games that use more of them
Tends to get more people to understand what they're trying to teach
Who knows, maybe that's because people learn differently
Or maybe it's just a repetition thing
But this is one of the few universally things James can say about the games he's worked on
Anyway back on topic
The last difficulty in making games for kids that I want to bring up
Is the idea of not talking down to them
Not only in your mechanics, but in every aspect of your game
We seem to have this societal bias
That children can only handle pablum, benal or pural things
And that's absolutely false
Everything to Spongebob to Wall-E has shown us that children can appriciate challenging ideas and humor
The best children books we have don't shy away from leaving the child with something to think about
So the games we make for them should take up this mantle as well
Here James has only one piece of advice
It's what works for him
Perhaps it's just what helps put him in the right headspace, and it won't make sense to anyone else
But when James works on experiences for children
And in fact in general when dealing with younger people
He simply thinks of them as adults with a lot less experience
If you can build that ramp that goes from things that children already understand
To the concepts you want to explore with them
I think you'll find that children are capable of quite a lot
Everything from Winnie the Pooh to the little prince, Toy Story to the Lego Movie do this
And games are perhaps even more capable of allowing children the opportunity to explore and ponder new things by bridging that gap
So I hope that helps some of you get a sense of the pitfalls of designing for a younger audience
The original question was
What are some of the difficulties designers encounter when creating for children
Of course there's a much larger question to be asked of how to actually design a good game for kids
Wich is something I'm not sure we could tackle
But hopefully this will serve as a start
Just remember how much a small difference in age can change things
And how much value there is in having different levels of success in your games
So kids can grow with it
And kids of different skill levels and attention spans can all have something to play
Beyond that it's just a matter of not talking down to your audience
And as easy as that is to say, that may be the hardest thing of all
Good luck and good creating