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eBooks for kids take a step backward in 3-Little Pigs
The field of interactive children's eBooks has become quite sophisticated over the last number of months. Products from Oceanhouse Media and My Black Dog Books are quite impressive and offer children four years and up a satisfying interactive experience as they traverse their way through well-designed stories with lots of animation and variations to keep things interesting. It's become the norm that when a child taps on something in one of these books, he or she gets immediate feedback on the item of interest. 3-Little Pigs (US$3.99) for the iPad is a major step backward in a field that has been constantly improving. When I first downloaded it a few days ago, the price was $6.99 and quickly dropped. Even at $3.99 I consider it too expensive by half. What you get looks like a very rough first draft of what could be a good eBook. A good example of the rawness of the app is that when you launch it, you have no idea what to do next. I contacted the publishers and was told that you need to tap on the bottom right corner of the screen and that this problem will be fixed in the next revision. That's fine, but I'm reviewing the current version and kids would be left frustrated and unhappy with not knowing what to do. How hard would it have been to add a graphic telling the kids where to tap? The instructions are given on the second page, using the standard tap right to progress, tap left to go back and tap on objects to interact. Double tapping on the bottom brings up a ribbon allowing you to go to any particular page. Options are given to turn the music on or off, and to have the words appear in either English or Slovak. The English needed a decent proofread, since if you're teaching a child to read, text like "I want to build a house my- self." is not helpful. It's also not very helpful that the app only runs in portrait mode.
GDC08: Six things to take from Game Developers Rant: The Little Prince
5. "We don't need more three little pigs games, we need something like The Little Prince. Makes you try to think about your life"Jenova Chen (flOw) took the stage next, explaining that he can't just rant as a designer but also as a gamer, one who has been playing less as the years go by and is losing interest in trying the games. Fifteen years ago, he said, he was excited to playing racing games or kill Nazis (e.g. Wolfenstein 3D). Nowadays, though, there's not much interest and what he learns now is not much more than he does from a set of wooden blocks."We never say its too old to read books or watch movies or play sports. so whats the difference with games?" Chen notes that books are considered intellectual, movies emotional and sports social. "As grown up gamers, I don't want to see them abandoned because I'm too old." He specifies that there's not much more mature content "for people like us who still want to play games." He notes that he doesn't mean "mature" games like DOAX2 and Manhunt 2. ("We all know who cares about that," he quips, flashing a picture of hyperactive teen gamers.)Given the average age of gamers is 33, Chen said he wants games more emotional, social and intellectual. Focusing on intellectual, Chen said, "We don't need more three little pigs games, we need something like The Little Prince. Makes you try to think about your life" Next: Wonderful!
