
Hating on Candyland: Why most games for kids are awful - bengarvey
http://kidsdungeonadventure.com/hating-on-candyland-why-most-games-for-kids-are-awful/
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jerf
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 just "following directions", it's
the whole set of skills necessary to play a game.

This is why family games have a gradient to them, gradually trading chances
for decisions, and gradually expanding the state space, until the game player
is ready to join the adults fully with something like Scrabble in the early
teens or so. The mentioned Connect 4, for instance, is relatively simple and
can be effectively "solved" by an 8 or 9 year old, for instance, so a 8yo and
an adult are still not separated by such a large gulf that the game is a joke.
Children are actually pretty good at figuring out that they are being "let"
win.

If you replace Candyland with something that has any choices at all, you've
replaced something other than Candyland.

That said, I'm not saying the progression is optimal as it stands, but if you
don't understand the reasons for the enduring popularity of the "standard game
loadout", which hasn't seem to have hardly changed in 50 years, you're not
going to improve on it properly. And I'd say most of the flaws are on the
higher end and solved with things like Settlers of Catan and such, not the
children's part of the progression.

~~~
hugh3
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.

~~~
jberryman
Trivial Pursuit is candyland for grownups.

~~~
Alex3917
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.

~~~
hugh3
Well then, it's possible that your distribution of knowledge is atypical.

Besides, most people have forgotten most of what they knew in fourth-grade
science, unfortunately. I recently gave a talk about planetary science to a
classroom full of seven-year-olds, and was astonished how many random facts
some of them seemed to know.

Kid: "How many moons does Jupiter have?"

Me: "Well, there's four large ones, and quite a number of smaller ones. We're
still discovering new ones, and the smallest ones are only a kilometer or so
in diamet..."

Kid: "Sixty-three!"

I checked when I got home, and damn, he was right, there are currently 63
known moons of Jupiter. I research Jupiter for a living and I didn't know
that, but this seven-year-old kid did.

------
geraldalewis
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 it despite not being a
game designer: [http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-
Koster/dp/1932...](http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-
Koster/dp/1932111972)

~~~
TillE
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".

------
impendia
Ah, but you can make decisions in these games.

Years ago I was teaching English in Japan to a 6-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a
3-year-old. We were playing some utterly moronic game where the kids took
turns drawing cards, having me read the letter of the alphabet they drew, and
then moving their pawn as appropriate.

It was really more for the younger kids, so the 6-year-old made a decision: he
attempted to cheat! He simply moved his pawn forward ten squares or so when he
guessed we weren't looking.

Regrettably for him, we were indeed all looking at the board. He offered to
move his pawn back the ten spaces, but no, it was back to the beginning for
him.

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burgerbrain
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.

~~~
raganwald
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 people ignore the housing shortage rule, of
course. But If you toss that rule out, I don't think you're playing Monopoly
any more.

[1]: There are 32 houses, so if you own 21 houses, it is impossible for anyone
else to upgrade a three property group to hotels. If you own 25 houses, no
other player can upgrade any group. It's fairly easy for two players to
control the property market and kill the other players off.

~~~
LordBodak
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.

~~~
ars
I think they play it that way because the houses always get lost, so you never
know how many there really are supposed to be. So you use stand-in pieces,
with no limit.

~~~
LordBodak
Well, every set I've ever had came with extras, and the number you're supposed
to use is printed right there in the instructions.

~~~
ars
Assuming you didn't loose the instructions too......

~~~
bengarvey
Monopoly's instructions are printed on cardboard and are part of the box. Hard
to lose unless you are loose with that sort of thing.

~~~
ars
Not in mine. Mine came on a tiny booklet.

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daeken
This is off the topic of the actual post, but the concept of Kids Dungeon
Adventure is just _awesome_. I'm getting this to play with a friend of mine
and her 5 year old daughter -- we play games whenever I'm in town, but I've
never felt they tapped into her (mindblowingly amazing) creativity and
imagination. Great job, Ben; we need more of this!

~~~
bengarvey
Thanks and I hope you like it! Send me the pics of your dungeon and I'll post
them up on the blog.

~~~
daeken
Absolutely will do. Gonna head out there in a couple weeks and give it a try.
Can't wait to try it -- brings me back to the days of sitting around with
friends in elementary school and creating our own little RPGs.

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sliverstorm
What's wrong with 'terrible' games like Candyland existing? Choices are not
things that ONLY happen in games. When kids are ready, they'll move up.

When I was a kid, I _chose_ not to play Candyland. I _chose_ to play
Battleship and Stratego and Checkers and Chess and (much later) Magic.

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midnightmonster
Really excited about Dungeon Adventure. Going to have to sort out how to make
it run well with multiple children controlling the heroes. Mostly, how not to
be biased in dealing out monster attacks to the heroes. Possible monster
'strategy': attack whoever just attacked you. If you weren't attacked, attack
whoever dealt the most damage to your monster buddies in the last roll. For
when the monsters have initiative, make the order of the heroes walking
through the dungeon significant--whoever's in the lead gets attacked first,
giving them the opportunity to collectively decide to put the healthiest guy
in the front, or let one person keep the protection ring in exchange for
always taking the lead, or put the weakest in front to watch him die (or trade
him out for a new hero) or whatever.

~~~
bengarvey
Great! Make sure you send me a pic of the dungeon you guys create. I'm always
looking for new ideas.

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xiaoma
Tom Vasel, of Dice Tower, reviewed Candyland. After reviewing 999 other games,
his daughters pretty much bullied him into doing a video for Candyland. He
panned it and rightfully so, but he also spent some time on what makes it so
appealing to children. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tas5aCeNgEU>

Other than the hundreds of other kids games that offer better alternatives, he
also suggested letting each player draw four cards and choose which one to
play. This way, there's still a lot of luck and the kids will still win
sometimes, but it's not completely passive.

I have to agree with Tom. It's hard like a game that gives kids no choices. In
life people _do_ have choices.

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cubicle67
warning: paypal gripe ahead

looks like a great idea (his game) so I decide for $6 it's worth a shot. My
only payment choice is cc via PayPal, but PayPal are demanding my home address
("Please note we do not accept PO Boxes. If we are unable to match your
address against Australia Post records, we may ask you to verify it by
providing documentation."), full name and valid home phone number.

Sorry, but they're not getting them. I'm still interested in the game though.

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chuckfouts
My family has found Gamewright to be one of a handful of companies that have
games that both children and adults can enjoy. <http://amzn.to/gIh8gU>

We still own the "traditional" childhood games mentioned in the article but
rarely play them.

