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Hating on Candyland: Why most games for kids are awful

kidsdungeonadventure.com

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Re: Hating on Candyland: Why most games for kids are awful

#31

Post by Fargren »

burgerbrain wrote: post #7

I've got to say, I find even Monopoly to be a terrible game. My strategy for the game can be summed up as: "buy the property if I can, otherwise pay rent if I have to". I almost never stray from that strategy, and even when I do, it's not like those exceptions make the game any more interesting.

Full disclosure: I abhor Monopoly.

The "fun" part of Monopoly is trading with other players. It's actually a pretty acceptable game as far as diplomacy goes. The worst problem with the game is that it very quickly devolves into a situation where two players have a decent chance to win, everyone else is royally screwed, and the game still has about an hour to go. Also, it's terribly reliant on luck: while it is possible to actually be good at Monopoly(i.e. there are strategies and skills that will seriously increase your chances of winning), a few bad rolls and/or a player adamant about not selling X property or trading Y player (this happens a lot IME) can leave you completely out of the game.

Re: Hating on Candyland: Why most games for kids are awful

#32

Post by TillE »

geraldalewis wrote: post #16

In `A Theory of Fun` , Raph Koster writes about games being learning and teaching tools. When my brother and I would play 'soldiers' growing up, we were safely simulating, and learning from, what it would be like to be a warrior (evolutionarily, a useful identity). I always like the idea that Candyland was a game game -- it's a game to teach kids how to play games. It's a really spectacular book; I learned a lot from…

Raph Koster is one of a few remarkably unique minds in game design. He "gets" virtual worlds like almost nobody else does; dig around on raphkoster.com for some of his writing on the subject.

Ultima Online in 1997 was so far ahead of its time, nothing quite like it has been made since. Some games have fumbled around with elements of UO, like open PvP or player housing or crafting, but nothing has ever captured its real essence: feeling like a living world with a wide variety of people, not just fantasy hero cutouts.

You could spend months in the world without killing a single monster, just mining and blacksmithing and selling your wares to make money to buy a house. And it was fun! You could wear clothes just for aesthetic reasons, not because they gave you +1 dexterity. They got so many subtle details so right. It makes me sad that "immersion" now basically just means "pretty 3D world".

Re: Hating on Candyland: Why most games for kids are awful

#33

Post by LordBodak »

raganwald wrote: post #29
burgerbrain wrote: post #7

I've got to say, I find even Monopoly to be a terrible game. My strategy for the game can be summed up as: "buy the property if I can, otherwise pay rent if I have to". I almost never stray from that strategy, and even when I do, it's not like those exceptions make the game any more interesting.

Oh? Mine, at least until people cotton onto it, is to be a "Slum Landlord." I buy and trade for the cheapest sets I can find, and then I put four houses on each property. Remember, they're slums, so you don't expect hotels. If I can corner the market on houses[1], no matter what the other players do, they can't bankrupt me with rents because they can't improve their properties. This doesn't work in a game where peopl…

The limitation on housing is the key to the game's structure. Most people don't seem to play it this way (letting players build hotels if they have the money, regardless of the number of actual plastic houses remaining), and it screws the game up. Not to mention house rules like "free parking" artificially adding money to the game.

Re: Hating on Candyland: Why most games for kids are awful

#34

Post by bostonvaulter2 »

raganwald wrote: post #29
burgerbrain wrote: post #7

I've got to say, I find even Monopoly to be a terrible game. My strategy for the game can be summed up as: "buy the property if I can, otherwise pay rent if I have to". I almost never stray from that strategy, and even when I do, it's not like those exceptions make the game any more interesting.

Oh? Mine, at least until people cotton onto it, is to be a "Slum Landlord." I buy and trade for the cheapest sets I can find, and then I put four houses on each property. Remember, they're slums, so you don't expect hotels. If I can corner the market on houses[1], no matter what the other players do, they can't bankrupt me with rents because they can't improve their properties. This doesn't work in a game where peopl…

Whenever I play people almost never want to trade with me, especially for a set.

Re: Hating on Candyland: Why most games for kids are awful

#35

Post by dfranke »

raganwald wrote: post #27
jerf wrote: post #2

The purpose of Candyland is to play a game, without playing a game. It's for toddlers to learn to take turns, to accept negative or positive outcomes without stomping off in a huff, and to play a game with a level playing field between the adults and children... and at the level we are talking about, if there is a meaningful choice at all , then the child, or perhaps rather toddler , will simply lose. It's more than…

Meaningful is not strictly equivalent to influencing the outcome. Imagine a typical "racing" game where players advance along a track. The track could incorporate forks such that mathematically, all choices are equivalent. But the entertainment value of the forks may differ. Some children may want to cut through the "garden," others through the "playground."

If they're all perfectly equivalent then even very young kids will catch on to that quickly. Here's an improvement: make the choices equal in EV but different in variance. That adds a little bit of strategy: take the predictable choices when you're ahead and the risky ones when you're behind. Nonetheless, a child with no concept of this strategy can sometimes win against an adult who plays optimally.

N.B.: I was home-schooled through preschool. My mother designed a bunch of board games that she used to teach me basic math. Then I got to kindergarten and got introduced to Chutes & Ladders. I saw through it immediately and got into arguments with my classmates about what a stupid game it was.

Re: Hating on Candyland: Why most games for kids are awful

#36

Post by jberryman »

hugh3 wrote: post #23
jerf wrote: post #2

The purpose of Candyland is to play a game, without playing a game. It's for toddlers to learn to take turns, to accept negative or positive outcomes without stomping off in a huff, and to play a game with a level playing field between the adults and children... and at the level we are talking about, if there is a meaningful choice at all , then the child, or perhaps rather toddler , will simply lose. It's more than…

Your comment reminds me of when I used to play Trivial Pursuit with my family (all much older) when I was eight or so. Of course I hardly knew anything at the time, but quickly cottoned on to the fact that "Hitler" seemed to be the answer more often than anything else, so I'd just answer "Hitler" to anything I didn't know.

Trivial Pursuit is candyland for grownups.

Re: Hating on Candyland: Why most games for kids are awful

#37

Post by bengarvey »

hugh3 wrote: post #23
jerf wrote: post #2

The purpose of Candyland is to play a game, without playing a game. It's for toddlers to learn to take turns, to accept negative or positive outcomes without stomping off in a huff, and to play a game with a level playing field between the adults and children... and at the level we are talking about, if there is a meaningful choice at all , then the child, or perhaps rather toddler , will simply lose. It's more than…

Your comment reminds me of when I used to play Trivial Pursuit with my family (all much older) when I was eight or so. Of course I hardly knew anything at the time, but quickly cottoned on to the fact that "Hitler" seemed to be the answer more often than anything else, so I'd just answer "Hitler" to anything I didn't know.

Definitely my favorite comment on the article.

Re: Hating on Candyland: Why most games for kids are awful

#38

Post by bengarvey »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #22
jerf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you plan on addressing the problem of the result of the game being a forgone conclusion if you include meaningful choices, pretty much by definition of "meaningful"? That's the core of my point, not really the learning or discipline bits, and there's a certain mathematical inevitability about it; choices -> adults winning against young children. Or having to throw the game, and kids aren't dumb, they notice th…

Don't play as adversaries, then. The original article suggests a simplified role-playing game, where the adult effectively just implements the game mechanics and acts as a GM. You don't have to structure it like an RPG, but any game with meaningful choices that remains balanced will have a similar structure: the adult implementing a game for the kid. That's not "throwing the game", that's redefining the idea of the g…

Josh nails it here. The whole reason I created Dungeon Adventure was because I didn't like the "no choice" games and the adversarial choice games couldn't engage both of us. Connect4 against a 4 year old is fun a few times, but then gets old.

My simple RPG allowed me to have fun building the dungeon and setting up the scenario and my daughter has a blast smashing the monsters, collecting the treasures and saving the day. Kids that age really respond to following a story, which isn't available in any board game I've come across.

As far as decisions, there are tons even without introducing extra things. You have to: 1. Decide which hero attacks which monster (gang up vs spread attacks out strategies) 2. Decide which paths to take through the dungeon 3. Decide which heroes get which items you find. 4. Decide when to buy and use food

Could we fix Candyland? I would give the kid 4 cards to hold in their deck and let them choose a card to play each turn. At the end of each turn you draw another from the top so you always have 4. You'll learn all about taking turns and following directions while seeing how your choices affect the game.

I just fixed Candyland. You're welcome, Hasbro.

Re: Hating on Candyland: Why most games for kids are awful

#39

Post by Alex3917 »

jberryman wrote: post #36
hugh3 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reminds me of when I used to play Trivial Pursuit with my family (all much older) when I was eight or so. Of course I hardly knew anything at the time, but quickly cottoned on to the fact that "Hitler" seemed to be the answer more often than anything else, so I'd just answer "Hitler" to anything I didn't know.

Trivial Pursuit is candyland for grownups.

I've never understood trivial pursuit. Every single science question can be easily answered by anyone with a fourth grade education could answer, and yet all the other categories involve things like obscure B movies from the 1930s that no one has ever heard of.

Re: Hating on Candyland: Why most games for kids are awful

#40

Post by JoshTriplett »

bengarvey wrote: post #38
JoshTriplett wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't play as adversaries, then. The original article suggests a simplified role-playing game, where the adult effectively just implements the game mechanics and acts as a GM. You don't have to structure it like an RPG, but any game with meaningful choices that remains balanced will have a similar structure: the adult implementing a game for the kid. That's not "throwing the game", that's redefining the idea of the g…

Josh nails it here. The whole reason I created Dungeon Adventure was because I didn't like the "no choice" games and the adversarial choice games couldn't engage both of us. Connect4 against a 4 year old is fun a few times, but then gets old. My simple RPG allowed me to have fun building the dungeon and setting up the scenario and my daughter has a blast smashing the monsters, collecting the treasures and saving the…

The game "Sorry" has a similar variant in the manual, listed as "for adults": instead of drawing a card and immediately using it, you keep a hand of cards and draw one and play one each turn. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorry!_%28game%29#Variations . Doing the same with Candyland would make sense once the players know how to play the basic game.
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