Security Blanket: Lego Harry Potter for iPad

Well, I had intended, in advance of our family's recent vacation in western Ontario (where, I was warned by my in-laws, Internet service might be spotty at best), to bank a number of posts to be automatically posted while I was gone. But amid the frenetic planning that always precedes family vacations, those intentions fell by the wayside, and the result has been a long gap between posts, even by my fairly laid-back standards.

So I'm going to be posting a little more frequently than usual for what remains of July, to try to make up for that (as well as to get my total posts for the month in the column on the right to a slightly less embarrassing number). I'll plunge into the new stuff—of which there's plenty to catch up on—a little later this week, but today I'd like to simply express my gratitude to a video game.

You see, thanks to the joint efforts of our original major airline (which canceled our 6 a.m. flight at about 11 p.m. the night before, well after we'd gone to bed in preparation for a very early trip to the airport, and thus too late to notify us in time to prevent us from getting up at 3 a.m.) and the other major airline we were then transferred to (which, after several hours of weather-related delays, boarded us onto a plane that, as the pilots discovered while taxiing to the runway, had a mechanical problem that required another couple of hours to fix, and apparently had no other planes on hand that could be substituted for it), we spent a bit over 10 hours in the Minneapolis airport before finally taking off in a functioning aircraft. (I leave the major carriers nameless because, let's face it, these days it could have happened—does happen, routinely—on any of them.)

All of which, with a seven-year-old and a three-year-old in tow, could have been a complete nightmare—but for my iPad and the LEGO Harry Potter game I'd loaded onto it a while back, for just such occasions. It kept our older son mesmerized for most of those hours, and our younger one (mostly just watching!) for a decent number of them as well. It was still not exactly a fun day, of course, for any of us, but it could have—and not that long ago would have—been far worse. And for that, makers of Lego Harry Potter (ooh, I see the second game in the series has come to iOS now as well!), we cannot thank you enough.

[Image courtesy of TT Games]

Posted with Blogsy

New Games: Pixy Cubes

It's tempting, especially when parenthood is brand-new, to jump at every beautifully designed kids' toy you see. Then, after a few months (or, uh, years…), you realize that your son hasn't touched that gorgeous recycled-wood horse since the day it was unwrapped, and that what you have here is a very small piece of shelf art—and a present you bought, as it turns out, for yourself.

And hey, that's fine. But we do want to get toys and games our children actually enjoy, too—and yet, it would be nice if they weren't all Lightning McQueen-themed, wouldn't it? That's where Blue Orange Games comes in. For years now, the company has been making board games with lovely design and craftsmanship that are also a lot of fun to play. Most of them to this point—like most really good board games, period—have been for older kids, tweens at the youngest. But its latest, which is not, in fact, a board game, is happily for ages six and up.

One of those simple-yet-complex sorts of games, Pixy Cubes are a set of 16 cubes featuring varied designs (solids, diagonal halves, crescent shapes) in various colors (red, green, yellow, blue) on their faces. There are various ways to play, too: In the "speed" game, players race to match their cubes to a pattern on a "Challenge Card"; in the "memory" option, they have 10 seconds to memorize a card's pattern before trying to become the first to reproduce it with a combination of cubes. There are scaled levels of difficulty, and nearly endless possibilities. (The less competitive-minded may well enjoy the creativity of designing their own patterns and combinations with the cube faces.)

There's a developmental/educational aspect here as well, of course—Pixy Cubes are aimed at helping with young kids' color and shape recognition, and, obviously, memory skills and creativity. But those feel more like side effects than the main agenda. And since Blue Orange wisely made the cubes not merely attractive and fun, but also small, light, and extremely portable (not to mention quite reasonably priced at $16), Pixy Cubes are really a perfect travel game, too.

[Photo: Whitney Webster]

Roundup: iPad Games

I've owned an iPad for almost a year now, and I'm a complete convert: I use it to read books and magazines, to watch movies, and to research and write these very posts. But I've been reluctant to let my kids get their grubby little paws on it, mostly, I think, out of bad emotions like selfishness ("It's my precious...") and fear ("Omigod, what if they break it?). Beyond teasing them with occasional looks at the stunning Star Walk app—which uses the device's GPS to give you a full, accurate view of the night sky that you can hold up to identify stars, planets, and even satellites, and may represent the best three dollars I’ve ever spent—I've kept the iPad firmly out of their reach.

Which means that beyind being a cruel parent, I know next to nothing about the burgeoning world of iPad games for kids. I have resolved to change, on both fronts, but each passing day makes the prospect of entering that world more daunting, as another umpteen games hit the market. How on earth does a moderately late adapter figure out which are the good ones and which ones are crap?

Luckily, I have a trump card: Ian Smith, CEO of Freeverse Software, which makes many a fine app of its own, is an old and dear friend. Even more luckily, Ian has two boys of his own, and far less selfishness and fear than I do. (Or maybe he just has more than one iPad?)

Anyway, Ian was gracious enough to give me not only some excellent kids' game recommendations for the iPad, but a few security tips for the wary parent on putting one's precious into child hands.

First, his “pro tips for parents—both pretty important to safe kid iPad gaming,” as he says:

1. Click on Settings. The third setting is “Notifications”; turn them off for all the games your kids download and then annoy you with. This will prevent “Your Smurfs are hungry!” from popping up on your screen in the middle of that important Keynote presentation at the office.

2. Also in Settings, under “General,” then “Restrictions”: Turn off “In-app purchases” to avoid unwanted headaches. Ian again: “My son dropped a decent amount of cash on Zombie Farm before I did this. Apple did refund it, but why not just sidestep the issue entirely?”

Now, the fun part: the games:

Top pick: Let's Create! Pottery ($2.99, or $4.99 for the HD version). Half-game, half zen activity, and lots of fun, this app lets you pinch and touch a spinning pottery wheel to create your own. “It’s amazing. Get it and let your kids have at it. And your spouse. And yourself.”

Other good choices: Battleheart (a mild fantasy game, with combat; $2.99), Pocket Frogs (in which you breed, well, frogs—surprisingly addictive, and free!), and Puzzle Planet (just what it sounds like: jigsaw puzzles, with an iPad twist; also free!).

Ian’s kids’ faves: Solomon's Keep (think Harry Potter mixed with D&D, in a simple app; $0.99), LEGO Harry Potter (the real thing, except in LEGOs—four movies’ worth of plot and levels, all incredibly habit-forming; $4.99), Cut the Rope (a very clever and original puzzle game; $0.99), and of course Freeverse’s own Parachute Ninja (a flying adventure/story-driven game; $0.99).

Obligatory edu-pick: Math Ninja ($1.99). Kids hone their math skills while defending a tree house against a villainous tomato and its army. “Actually, pretty fun!”

Getting-in-deep pick: Battle for Wesnoth. “An open-source Warlords-type game. Tons of content, enough to keep them going for days on end, if not the greatest user interface.”

[Let’s Create: Pottery image courtesy of Infinite Dreams, Inc.]

New Games: Loopz

I remember my own parents looking at the early-computer-technology games I had when I was a kid and commenting, a little uncomfortably, about how much games had changed since their youth. Of course, they were talking about Mattel Electronic Football and Merlin, so by now I know exactly how they felt.

But every now and then I see a toy or game that magically melds parental nostalgia with somewhat more modern technology. Mattel’s new Loopz has something in common with one of my generation’s old favorites, Simon, but—as a good modern toy should and must—goes way beyond it, too. In several different directions.

As you can see in the image above, Loopz looks sort of like a set of plastic horseshoes stuck together (well, plastic horseshoes from the rec room of the starship Enterprise). Within each of the four arches—I suppose I should really call them “loops,” huh?—there’s a pair of small sensors, one at the top and one at the bottom. When you break through the invisible line between them, you trigger a light and a sound. (After a little practice, I found that the most effective and efficient way to do this was to stick my hands in each arch with a little lift, like a magician or someone playing water glasses. That may just be me, though...the chipper kids in the demos on Mattel’s site use a more direct style.)

That’s the basic concept, but Mattel has found a variety of ways to turn it into game play and ... just regular play. The first is the old Simon one, a memory game: Loopz plays an ever-increasing series of sounds and lights, and the player has to repeat after it. Then there’s a reflex game, in which you try to put your hand in the loop with the flashing light before it goes out, at accelerating speeds. And there are several music games, including one called Freestyle DJ that lets kids “mix” the preprogrammed songs on the Loopz machine by using the loops to turn tracks on and off. Finally, kids can just play their own music in a 10-note scale on the machine. (I was wondering at first how you get 10 notes from four loops, but of course the answer is combinations—for each of the higher notes, you simply trigger two loops simultaneously.)

Both my five-year-old and my two-year-old were instantly fascinated, in that way only young kids can be, at their first sight of the modernistic-looking machine with flashing lights that was making weird noises. But a lot of toys create that effect initially, and then the novelty wears off. Loopz, with its variety of options, and particularly with the freestyle music one, is proving to have real staying power, which makes the investment (the machine retails for about $30) seem worthwhile.

I don’t, however, quite think we’re going to reach this stage of expertise for a while yet:

[Photo courtesy of Mattel.]

New Games: Sound Bingo

This time of year, vacations loom (pleasantly, of course). And so does the need for portable entertainment, both for use during travel itself and for whiling away the hours spent at houses not one’s own. A few favorite books and videos used to suffice for us, when our oldest child (now five) was still very young, but these days, the need for a wide variety of options becomes ever clearer. Since my younger son is not quite two years old, though, it can be hard to find games we can all play together; for the most part, I think, we’ll just have to wait another year or so.

But we have found one game that’s simple enough for Griffin to at least be engaged in (with extreme parental help, but hey) and yet not too dull for Dash to enjoy: Sound Bingo. The concept is, well, bingo, and the execution is simplicity itself: The boxes you fill with your bingo chips contain images that correspond to sounds on the included CD. Each player gets a board and some chips, then stick the CD in the player and put it on “Random.” You then hear a series of sounds—a rooster crowing, an alarm clock ringing, a train whistling, etc.—and if your board contains the image the sound goes with, you put a chip in it.

From there, it’s regular old bingo rules; first one to fill four boxes in a row, in any direction, is the winner. It’s a really easy game to teach very young kids, and while Griff is really too young to learn any game yet, he enjoys following along and hearing the sounds. (The little chips are considered choking hazards, so parental involvement is a definite necessity when he’s involved.)

Dash, meanwhile, is thrilled to be able to really master all the rules of a game. Board games in general still being pretty new to him, we’ve also been using Sound Bingo to teach him good sportsmanship. I must shamefacedly admit, however, that watching him actually get upset at losing a round of such an entirely random game forced me to suppress some laughter for a moment. (I got my serious teaching face on quickly, I promise.)

It did occur to me that this game is so simple that you could create a version for yourself pretty easily…but it also occurred to me that that’s one of the many, many wonderful ideas Whitney and I are extremely unlikely to ever get around to, especially right before a vacation. Being able to pick up a prefab version for $15 or so that we can use for the week we’re away from home is well worth it. I suppose if it turns out to be a favorite, we could create add-on versions, but the boys would have to be almost alarmingly enthusiastic about the game for that to happen, to be honest. In the meantime, I’m grateful to have a play-ready game served up to me on a platter.

[Images courtesy of Chronicle Books.]

New Games: Woody’s Run-Around Roundup

The San Francisco–based toy and game company Wild Planet has a niche to itself, comfortably between the designers of expensive, high-end tech-y toys you’re afraid to give your young kids for fear they’ll break them, and the producers of cheap, disposable toys you expect your kids to break instantly. Its products are well-made enough to last a while under the high stress our kids put toys through, but also generally come in at a reasonable price point. I’ve long been a fan of the company’s remote-control SpyGear vehicles, several versions of which—it can now be told—terrorized the halls of the Cookie art department a few years ago. (The responsible party or parties remain at large.)

Parents will also appreciate the Wild Planet’s focus on active games for pretty much all ages—most welcome when you’re trying to find ways to pry your children away from DVDs for an afternoon or two. Its latest of these is Woody’s Run-Around Roundup, branded to the upcoming Toy Story 3 movie. The game features five pieces: one large handheld “tagger,” shaped like Woody from the movie, and four character “targets,” in the form of Buzz Lightyear, Jessie, Hamm, and Rex. The tagger shouts out  instructions (in Woody’s voice), telling a player to tag the character whose name begins with R, for instance, or the one wearing a white spacesuit; that player must then “tag” the correct character with the Woody figure to advance to the next question. (Embedded microchips allow the “tagger” to recognize automatically when someone has made the right or wrong call and respond accordingly, with either encouragement to try again or a new character to tag.)

The game has several modes—solo and multiplayer timed games, in which you’re trying to get through a set number of questions in the fastest time; a memory game, in which you have to remember a sequence of challenges as it builds up; and a hide-and-seek treasure-hunt game. You can set up the four target characters just about anywhere kids can get to, and thus make the timed games quite exerting in a decent-size backyard—but the games can also be played indoors on a rainy day, in one room or spread throughout a house. Parents can join in and play with the kids (depending on how much sleep you’ve been getting, you may or may not have to ease up on them) for a whole-family game, but it’s also simple enough for kids age three and up to play on their own. In short, you have lots of options.

And if you’re not into the branding (which in the case of my son did provide a little extra help in getting him away from the TV), never fear: This is in fact a variant on a previously existing Wild Planet game, Animal Scramble, in which the characters are simply various animals—a monkey, an elephant, a giraffe, and so on. (Both the branded and unbranded versions require three AA battteries.)

It’s not super-high-tech, but all in all, you and your kids end up with quite a lot for your 25 bucks or so. Which is precisely what I’ve always appreciated about Wild Planet.

[Photo courtesy of Wild Planet]