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Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

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Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#21

Post by sillysaurus3 »

opportune wrote: post #16
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #4

Touring the worlds that my son has settled over the last couple of years, I find a lot of the imagery one might expect from a kid his age. Throughout are standard fantasies like living in a treehouse or on a boat. The dominant themes vary as I pass through time: trains in his earliest worlds, then robots, a long streak of pyramids. Pirate ships, particularly half-sunken ones with treasure chests, remain a constant. I…

I hate to tell you this now after all those years, but you most likely were not cybering with actual women

I'm bi, so I don't mind. :) But it really was a small part of the game.

I fell in love there once. We spent a lovely summer canoeing down a river. When she had to board the plane home, we both cried for an hour leading up to it.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#22

Post by DiThi »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #7

>He loves extreme symmetry, varying bands of bright colors, and elaborate lighting comprised of dozens of fixtures. Um I'm pretty sure if you don't go overboard on the lighting monsters spawn. This is more of an in-game thing than a preference thing.

To avoid monsters, one torch covers a radius of about 7 or 8 blocks (in Manhattan distance). But judging by that bedroom screenshot, he's being really overboard.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#23

Post by DiThi »

gqg wrote: post #20
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #4

Touring the worlds that my son has settled over the last couple of years, I find a lot of the imagery one might expect from a kid his age. Throughout are standard fantasies like living in a treehouse or on a boat. The dominant themes vary as I pass through time: trains in his earliest worlds, then robots, a long streak of pyramids. Pirate ships, particularly half-sunken ones with treasure chests, remain a constant. I…

Are you aware of any currently active multiplayer games which require that level of commitment to character?

A long time ago I played http://www.sindome.org but my English was not very good back then. Out of character talking was allowed but with a particular marking (I think it was double parentheses). I guess you can filter OOC talk.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#24

Post by c3534l »

bwang29 wrote: post #15

I definitely feel games like Sims and Simcity changed my perception of resource safety as a child. I played Sims/Simcity2000~3000/Civs for hundreds of hours as a kid, and I loved the "realistic" feels and setups of these games. When I started to play I always had later stage trouble when I'm overspending on building fancy roads and bridges in SimCity or buying expensive items up front. I slowly learned the way of set…

Even something like Civilization can be expressive and educational. I mean, I also loved Mortal Kombat as a kid, before my parents figured out it was a game where you could punch a man so hard you could pull his beating heart out of his chest. But I also remember learning about ecology from SimEarth, and learning how to balance a budge from Theme Park.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#25

Post by katastic »

>How to Raise a Boy is a weeklong series centered around this urgent question in the era of Parkland, President Trump, and #MeToo.

HAHAHA.

Why is this here? Citing #MeToo implies that somehow, after #MeToo, you're supposed to do something different in raising your boys. As-if teaching your boys to respect women is some magical new idea, or, that telling your boys to walk around with collective guilt for crimes they haven't committed, is somehow going to set them up for a better for life.

>Parkland

Gun shootings are down. Meanwhile, traffic accidents kill scores every year. Why are there no #RespectRedLights movements?

>President Trump

Yeah, sure sucks when the people who actually bother to vote, win an election. Imagine if conservatives "don't get their way" next election (which will likely go Blue, right?), and then they resort to the tactics the left has? Like burning down neighborhoods [1] and blacklisting speakers [2], dumping bottles of water on disabled veterans in wheelchairs, [3] and threatening to lock people in a church and burn it down. [4] You better pray to whatever deity you believe in that right-wingers are more respectful of the next election, or it's gonna be a straight-up bloodbath.

[1] https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2014/11/25/1347311/--Why-do...

[2] http://theweek.com/articles/452629/liberals-new-tactic-black...

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/6wzb2y/anti...

[4] > one protester yelled “lock ‘em in and burn it down.” The comment was met with applause.

http://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2018-03-06/news/jordan-pet...

But hey, at least they won't live in San Franisco and complain about the "burden" of having to look at homeless people on their drive to work.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/17/san-franc...

Downvotes for sourced comment in 3.. 2... 1... BOOYA

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#26

Post by reificator »

pasabagi wrote: post #14
ekianjo wrote: post #5

> But those games are about stretching and challenging him to fit the mold of the game’s demands. When we play Minecraft together, the direction of his development, and thus our relationship, is reversed: He converts the world into expressions of his own fantasies and dreams. And by letting me enter and explore those dream worlds with him, I come to understand him in a way that the games from my childhood do not. Is…

I played a lot of red alert as a kid, and flight simulators, but honestly, calling the first 'creative', and the second 'open world' is ridiculous. They were nice games - but if you play them today, you'll see how far games have come. You can literally build a computer in Minecraft. I don't like the game, don't like that the developer ripped off the idea, and find the art obnoxious - but you have to admit, it's basic…

> don't like that the developer ripped off the idea

Minecraft and Infiniminer are two very different games, similar in superficial visuals and technological implementation but completely different in terms of gameplay.

Besides, if you enjoy a game and then development of that game stops, what's wrong with making your own?

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#27

Post by ctoestreich »

On the Switch playing Mario Kart 8 with a 5 and 3 year old is everything I wanted. It can both be cooperative and competitive. We have also ventured coop through Mario Odyssey. I think Minecraft is fun, but you definitely have whole bunch of games you should explore with the kids.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#28

Post by sdfin »

bwang29 wrote: post #15

I definitely feel games like Sims and Simcity changed my perception of resource safety as a child. I played Sims/Simcity2000~3000/Civs for hundreds of hours as a kid, and I loved the "realistic" feels and setups of these games. When I started to play I always had later stage trouble when I'm overspending on building fancy roads and bridges in SimCity or buying expensive items up front. I slowly learned the way of set…

Resource management in video games is a skill that I'm sure transfers to real world resource management. Apart from the simulators you mention strategy games like age of empires and red alert also teach about it.

Some weeks ago a co-worker told me something similar to what you share, how he learned about resources while playing SimCity. He also said his younger sister asked him "If people doesn't have money, why doesn't the government print money and gives it to people?". He said that playing SimCity would have prevented his sister from asking such a naive question.

I also would love so see the results of research about these games on kids. Maybe someday kids will play Sim City and AoE at elementary school or similar games designed for schools.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#29

Post by reificator »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #7

>He loves extreme symmetry, varying bands of bright colors, and elaborate lighting comprised of dozens of fixtures. Um I'm pretty sure if you don't go overboard on the lighting monsters spawn. This is more of an in-game thing than a preference thing.

That's my biggest problem with Minecraft as a game, I think there are a lot more options to handle this that don't force aesthetic choices on the player.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#30

Post by reificator »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #10

Playing with my son has gone from me beating him and feeling bad, to him beating me and feeling bad. Damn those teenage reflexes.

That only happened because you were willing to beat him instead of going easy. You did good.
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