Things a Parent Thinks About Games #1

A couple of years ago, with Jeff Tidball's blessing, I wrote a few responses to his and Will Hindmarch's excellent book Things We Think About Games. More than responses, these were posts that reacted to statements in the book using a Tidball/Hindmarch aphorism as the starting point for discussion. Amateur blogging being what it is, these posts tapered off and I never continued the series. It's always kind of bothered me as the book itself is fantastic and because I keep picking it up to read as a catalyst for discussion with my friends or even to examine my own thoughts on games and game play. Since I rebranded this site "Advanced Dungeons and Parenting" a while back, I've seen an uptick in readership...even when there is a gap between posts due to graduate school. The posts that tend to do best are those about Savage Worlds and those about gaming generally, as opposed to those posts that are more of the "hey have you seen this new game" variety. Looking at the data, and combining it with my desire to write more about the Tidball/Hindmarch book, I've decided to add a semi-regular series of posts discussing Things from a parent's perspective. These will be reactions to the book as it applies to playing games with kids, in particular my own 6 year old twin daughters.

The player of any game has, at most, two hands.

Things begins with a very simple statement about a utilitarian design consideration, "are the components of your game conducive to actual play?" It's a vital question, especially when it comes to gaming with children. There has been a trend in Role Playing Games lately to design games that can be played with children. There are some very good games on the market Hero Kids, Little Wizards, and RpgKids to name but a few, but I keep thinking that they all have somehow missed out on the design lessons of existing children's' games and from the design lesson of Stan!'s Pokemon Jr. role playing game. Think about children's games for a second. 

What are the first two games that come to mind?

For me they are Candy Land (the link is to the Princess Version I might just order the twins for Christmas) and Hungry Hungry Hippos.

Image from Collider.com

What do all of these games - and Pokemon Jr. - have in common?

Toy factor and/or simplicity. You don't need to read rules to understand the intricacies of HHH or Candy Land. The game pretty much teaches you how to play. As a story telling game, Pokemon Jr. has the parents take the role of storyteller who prompts children into action. Little Wizards - and excellent game - does the same, but Pokemon has these really cool looking Poke-cards (Got 'em All) and the rules are only a couple of pages. Most of Stan!'s design in Jr. is the scripting of adventures to play with the kids. Candy Land uses colors and color matching as its signifier of movement. These games are easy to pick up and play and have "toy factor."

Our games need to do this as well. RpgKids has some pretty cool Crayon maps that add a nice Print-and-Play toy factor to the game, but the rule book has an odd cover. The drawings also eventually lose their appeal when compared to something like the Print-and-Use figures for Order of the Stick.

This or Pikachu?

Hero Kids has a more cartoony feel - and good graphic design with some "toy factor" - but its resolution mechanic is similar to that of Risk and the rule book is longer than that of Heroquest. In fact, in some ways the game is as complex as Heroquest...though Heroquest's dice are more intuitive when giving results. I think my twins might prefer to see swords and shields over seeing who has the highest number. They can calculate the highest number - and tell it to me in Japanese - but does it have the "toy factor" needed to keep play "playful?" I think it does to a certain degree, but I also think it would need more toy factor in a published product. It also needs more character types - though it has some good ones - and the standees need to be in color. They need to be in COLOR!

When designing RPGs for children, we need to think less about "how can we get them interested in playing rpgs when they are older?" and more about "what will they think is fun now?" We need RPGs that tell the same kinds of stories we are showing our children. Can I play "Avatar" type games? With Hero Kids yes, with the others?... Can I play Tinkerbell-esque adventures? Pokemon based? My Little Ponybased? And don't get me going on the Pathfinder Pony game. If you think I am introducing Pathfinder to 6 year olds, you are crazy.

The fact that I ranted a bit on making sure that the design is such that it appeals to kids and has graphic fun factor and toy factor may seem like I am criticizing the games I listed above. I am not. They are all good games and I am grateful to their designers. I am just saying they are the equivalent of Avalon Hill's Afrika Korps or Gettysburg. They are early designs in what I hope will become a growing genre.

 

Will Winnie the Pooh Be the First Film I See WIth My Daughters on the Big Screen?

Next summer Disney's newest version of Winnie the Pooh will make its appearance in theaters.   From the looks of the trailer, it appears that it will be a wonderful presentation of the classic children's character.  I cannot wait to see the film, and my twin girls should be ready to sit through an entire feature by next summer.  What a wonderful graduation present from my MBA a theater experience with all of my ladies would be.

Book Review: The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Wiffle: The Thing Beneath the Bed

Patrick Rothfuss, the fantasy author behind the excellent novel The Name of the Wind, has authored a new Fairy Tale picture book that boldly proclaims it is not a book for children. The book is entitled The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle: The Thing Beneath the Bed and is published by Subterranean Press.

Given the book's cover, it is perfectly natural that one might be surprised to read that the book claims that it isn't a book for children, but the dust cover explains the book as follows:

This is not a book for Children.
It looks like a children's book. It has pictures. It has a saccharine-sweet title. The main characters are a little girl and her teddy bear. But all of that is just protective coloration. The truth is, this is a book for adults with a sense of humor and an appreciation of old-school faerie tales.

There are three separate endings to the book. Depending on where you stop, you are left with an entirely different story. One ending is sweet, another is horrible. The last one is the true ending, the one with teeth in it.

The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle is a dark twist on the classic children's picture book. I think of it as Calvin and Hobbes meets Coraline, with some Edward Gorey mixed in.

Simply said: This is not a book for children.

If one were to look up in a fictitious dictionary of "Descriptions that Set Off Christian's Potentially Pretentious Schlock (PPS) Alarm," one would find the above paragraph under the third listing. For those of you who are wondering, the first listing is references to Neil Gaiman (which this violates) and the second deals with references to Alan Moore.

Given the book's description above, and acknowledging that it has set off my PPS alarm, I purchased the book in the hopes that Mr. Rothfuss -- who is quite a talented writer -- could deliver a quality tale in a genre where most of the work is drivel. That is to say, most darkly humorous "twists" on traditional children's tales are crap. Primarily because they focus so much on being "ironic" that they forget just how horrifying traditional children's stories can be and think that adding a "dark twist" improves upon -- or is ironically superior to -- a tried and true formula.

Classic Fairy Tales (or "faerie tales" depending on who is writing) can be quite horrible in their descriptions. Let's take Hans Christian Andersen's The Red Shoes as an example. The story is a wonderful tale of the dangers of materialism and the consequences of vanity. Andersen never holds back and the tale is horrifically gruesome at its climax:

“Don’t cut off my head!” said Karen, “for then I could not repent of my sin. But cut off my feet with the red shoes.”

And then she confessed all her sin, and the executioner struck off her feet with the red shoes; but the shoes danced away with the little feet across the field into the deep forest.

And he carved her a pair of wooden feet and some crutches, and taught her a psalm which is always sung by sinners; she kissed the hand that guided the axe, and went away over the heath.

Here we have one of the classic fairy tales, told by one of the masters of the "children's" tale, and the girl has her feet cut off and replaced with wooden feet. Not only that, she kisses the hand that removed her feet in thanks for the action. If this tale were to be translated into film, as written, it seems more a Guillermo Del Toro movie than a Disney one.

The old fairy tales were filled with gruesome imagery that many modern parents would think is inappropriate for children. I am not one of those parents and my children will receive the full brunt of Andersen's tales. These stories could be as dark as any "dark twist" story, but the classic stories were also rigid morality tales.

And this is where most "dark twist" stories differ from their inspiration. Most tales of the modern ironic "faerie tale" variety want the darkness without the morality tale, they are pretentiously cosmopolitan pieces that seek only to be either ironic, shocking, or funny. When they are merely ironic or "shocking," they are typically failures of narrative as the stories lack and underlying heart to them. When they are funny, they can be quite good. It isn't the lack of a morality tale that makes the "dark twist" tale fail -- when it fails -- it is the lack of love for the medium itself.

Now that I have expressed some of the reservations that Mr. Rothfuss's description awakened, how does The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle hold up?

It is clear from the beginning that Rothfuss loves children's stories. It is equally clear by page 10 that he is trying to write a humorous tale for those who like fairy tales. The pattern of event to joke that is established in the first 11 pages is the pattern for the final joke as well.

Let me repeat the statement above. This is a tale for those who like fairy tales, though not a tale for those who are just now being introduced to fairy tales. The big joke of the book works best if you have read many a fairy tale and are familiar with all the tropes of a fairy tale. It isn't that the book "isn't for children" in the sense that it would horrify them, or is inappropriate some how. It's just that the book's twist is intended to amuse someone who has read many a fairy tale.

The problem is that the joke, while initially amusing, doesn't live up to the hype. It is a chuckle joke and not a coca-cola squirting out the nostrils because it is so funny joke. It amuses, but lacks profundity. Which is too bad because the main narrative of the story, as well as the art work, is quite good. I found myself turning each page eagerly awaiting what new adventure the Princess and Mr. Whiffle would embark upon, or how they would deal with the monster under the bed.

Rothfuss is a magical storyteller throughout the book, but the twist falls flat.

The basic story is of a Princess who lives alone in a castle and has as a sole companion her teddy bear Mr. Wiffle. The two go on many imaginary journeys with one another during the day, but at night they fear the thing under the bed. The Princess's wild imagination speculates that the creature is horrible and terrible and...You'll have to read the book to find out the rest.

There are three ways that Rothfuss could have gone that would have made the book's ending work better for me.

First, he could have seriously tackled the horror of what is under the bed. Most children have feared things that go bump in the night and Rothfuss is a good enough storyteller to bring to the page that horror.

Second, he could have done a commentary on how cruel children can be when they leave their childhood companions behind. I have trouble reading the final Pooh tale because it makes me despise Christopher Robin. His abandonment of Pooh is quite cruel, as is the abandonment of Puff in that tale. When children abandon their childhood companions in the way that Christopher Robin does, they do more than leave childish things behind -- they leave their imagination and their souls as well. That would have been an interesting story that Rothfuss could easily have written.

Third, he could have gone a little bit further with the ending that he did write. We never learn the why of the castle, or the background story. Don't merely give me the joke, use it as an opportunity to continue the tale. Of course, Rothfuss could do this in a subsequent volume in the series and that would satisfy me. The fact that one of my complaints about the ending is that it opens up more questions that I desire answered is a benefit.

Overall, I think that the book falls somewhere between the two Kenneth Hite Lovecraftian Children's books (Where the Deep Ones Are and The Antarctic Express) in quality. It has the charm of Deep Ones, but drops the ball a little at the end like Antarctic.

Nate Taylor's artwork in the book is excellent, with the exception of the Princess's face from time to time. Her expressions sometimes venture into "anime" style, whereas the rest of the illustration in in a more traditional children's book illustration style. This is a minor quibble as the illustrations are quite fun. In particular illustrations on pages 11,46, and 67.

As the parent of two year-old twin daughters, I am always on the lookout for stories that I can share with them. This book makes the cut, for when they are six or so, but its ending prevents it from being in the same league as Jane Yolen's excellent How Do Dinosaurs series.

Rothfuss's story doesn't lack heart, but it does fail to answer the question "why?" Why does the twist happen? Just because it is ironic? That's not enough of an answer. I want a world that explains the why. Then we have a tale that can lead to interesting discussions.

As it is, we have a story of mild amusement that is well written and illustrated, but fizzles at the end.

Now on the iPhone: Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks -- WARLOCK OF FIRETOP MOUNTAIN

Searching my through my favorite interwebs sites the other day, I stopped by the Official Fighting Fantasy gamebooks website and discovered, much to my pleasure, that Wizard Books was releasing several of the Fighting Fantasy titles as iPhone applications. The first book in the series to see release was the classic Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the book that started the whole Fantasy Gamebook phenomenon back in the 1980s when I was a wee lad.

The Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks were a book series created by Games Workshop co-founders Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone (who are that rare breed in the gaming industry game designers and keen businessmen) that combined the reader interactivity of the Choose Your Own Adventure series of books with the game mechanics of early role playing games. Readers of Ian Livingstone's Dicing with Dragons (Signet), a book Livingstone wrote to introduce audiences to the role playing hobby, it comes clear that Livingstone was inspired by the solo adventures offered by Flying Buffalo in support of the Tunnels and Trolls role playing game.

Here's how Livingstone describes Tunnels and Trolls, one of four games he thought "worthy" of introducing neophytes to:

If Tunnels & Trolls (T&T) did not have one special feature (apart from the general ease of play), no doubt it would have achieved little in the way of popularity -- indeed, its author claims that it was originally designed purely for his own entertainment and that of his friends. Role-playing is generally a gregarious pastime -- one person is the referee and designer of the locations to be explored, and several more are needed as players. However, many people are keen to engage in role-playing but for one reason or another cannot participate in groups of like-minded enthusiasts. An isolated geographical location or lack of free time or transport, or work involving unsociable hours can all conspire to produce the solitaire role-player. In common with some other RPGs, Tunnels & Trolls has a considerable number of ready-to-use adventures, but, unlike most others, which are generally designed for normal group play, most of the Tunnels & Trolls adventures are specifically designed for solitaire play, and thus fill a distinct need in the role-playing market.

Emphasis mine.

Two things emerge from reading this paragraph. First, that Livingstone admires what St. Andre accomplished with T&T -- both in simplicity of rules and in innovation. Second, that Livingstone looks at role playing as an industry. That paragraph reads like part of a SWOT analysis someone might write as background for the introduction of a new product line. Livingstone and Jackson have always been at the forefront of new technologies when it came to integrating role playing and media. Interactive 900 line rpg adventures, video games, books, mass market paperbacks, board games, and miniatures war games are all in the line of products in which they have been directly involved. Now we can add to that long list -- iPhone application translations of their gamebooks.

While Livingstone and Jackson may have received inspiration from St. Andre's T&T both in the idea of a solo adventure market and the importance of simple rules, their Fantasy Gamebooks truly took T&T's solo adventures to the next level. Where the solo adventures by Flying Buffalo typically came in around 32 - 64 pages, the Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks were the size of full length paperback novels -- around 220+ pages -- something that enabled them to add greater narrative to the stories making for "deeper" interactive experiences.



Warlock of Firetop Mountain, which was drafted under the working title Magic Quest, was the first Fighting Fantasy Gamebook released into the market. It featured very simple rules, later products demonstrated how "deep" these simple rules were, and a relatively simple story. You were a warrior in search of wealth and glory who has climbed to the peak of Firetop Mountain in order to claim the treasure of the Warlock Zagor. You didn't have a very heroic motivation, and the world wasn't very well developed. The book was very much an early D&D style module translated into solo play. Go into a hole, kick down doors, kill things, and take their stuff. At least that's how it seems at first.

You see, there is only one real "solution" to the book -- other books in the series would have several possible solutions -- and it wasn't an easy solution to discover. You had to map your progress, especially considering there is a maze in the middle of the adventure. If you map it, the maze isn't complex, but if you don't...the frustration is substantive.



The latest application for the iPhone is a direct translation of this first gamebook -- a very good direct translation. I was able to use my old hand drawn map as I played through the encounters, and thus was able to find some nice enhancements and some minor glitches in the game.

I have to say that after playing one of these as an app, I'm going to buy whatever books they release in this format. It works better than flipping back and forth, and I can't cheat when fighting the battles -- it maximizes the play aspect by keeping track of all of the combat information and your equipment. The app limits your options to those you genuinely have available to you and you can't flip back and forth to see which choice is superior. You really have to play the game as it was designed.



I also appreciated the way that the app incorporated and enhanced the artwork from the original book. The app has the original line artwork from the book, but if you touch the images they get enlarged and become color images. The transformation from line art to color shaded art work makes for some very impressive images. The ghoul and the cyclops statue were two of my favorite images in the original, and they look even better in color.



As much as I loved playing through, I did notice two significant flaws -- likely corrected in the current updates. When I "lost a point of Skill" after looking into a portrait of the Warlock, I performed an action which should have returned the skill point to me -- in fact it should have returned up to two lost Skill -- but my skill remained at the lower rating. Additionally, when I acquired a magic sword, I was prompted to discard my current sword -- which was correct -- but the only sword listed in my inventory was the new magic sword and I had to discard it. This didn't affect game play, as the I still received the bonus for the magic sword even though I wasn't "technically" in possession of the weapon. These are two significant, but not overwhelming glitches in the game.

If you like Fantasy and want a fun application that is good for quite a few replays, you should purchase Warlock of Firetop Mountain for your iPhone. If you don't have an iPhone, you should buy the paperback which was re-released last September. On February 10th, the second Fighting Fantasy App Deathtrap Dungeon was released -- and bought by me.

Cthulhu Expert Kenneth Hite 's Stocking Stuffer Lovecraft -- Antarctic Express and Where the Deep Ones Are.

At the past two Gen Cons, Atlas Games has released a children's adaptation of a Cthulhu mythos story scripted by Cthulhu expert Kenneth Hite.

In 2008, Atlas Games release Where the Deep Ones Are written by Hite with art by Andy Hopp. Where the Deep Ones Are is a retelling of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" as transformed through the lens of Where the Wild Things Are.



In 2009, they released The Antarctic Express which took Lovecraft's classic At the Mountains of Madness and slightly changed the tale to match up with the recent holiday classic The Arctic Express. Express was illustrated by Christina Rodriguez.



The combination of Lovecraftian elements with children's stories is not one that would come naturally to the mind's of most people, but Kenneth Hite isn't most people. For years, Hite wrote a column entitled "Suppressed Transmission" ("Of course you know about the Suppressed Transmission") where he demonstrated both a vast catalog of knowledge and an ability to tie seemingly unrelated subjects together with a deft writing hand. When he ceased writing the column for Pyramid Online, the internet lost one of the best post-Fortean modern Fortean columns ever written. Hite is also a great advocate for the independent roleplaying game scene and a dyed in the wool Lovecraftian -- who apparently also shares a love of children's stories.

Hite is the only person I can think of who could have created Where the Deep Ones Are and The Antarctic Express to show us what you would get if you combined Charles Fort, H. P. Lovecraft, and Maurice Sendak.

I am of two minds with regard to what I think of the books themselves.

As a fan of Lovecraftania and products that combine nostalgia for ones childhood with geek elements, I think these books are magnificent. They certainly belong in the book case of any fan of H. P. Lovecraft, or of anyone who has a quirky/cynical sense of humor. Hite is quite a capable writer and Michelle Nephew (the editor) found the perfect illustrator's for each volume. Andy Hopp's surreal and slimy artwork -- which I first encountered in the Low Life setting for Savage Worlds -- fits naturally with a squamous and rugose transformation of "Wild Things." I am particularly impressed by Christina Rodriguez. Her ability to draw in the style of Polar Express while simultaneously drawing my favorite representations of Lovecraftian Shoggoths is quite a feat. Her representation of the Shoggoth is fantastic...best...Shoggoth...ever.

As a parent of 19 month old twin girls, I found the books to be a mixed bag.

Where the Deep Ones Are has found its way onto my daughters' bookshelves and will be read to them as a part of their regular rotation of bed time stories. In this book, Hite perfectly balances the yearning for adventure experienced by children with the Lovecraftian weird elements. Deep Ones never achieves the nihilistic horror of a true "weird tale," instead it errs on the side of wonder. This, combined with Hopp's entertaining and interesting illustrations, makes for an ideal childrens' book.

Antarctic Express has found its way onto MY bookshelf, right between The Moonstone and The Last Man. The book does capture a lot of the tone of Arctic Express, but it also perfectly captures the weird horror elements of Lovecraft's tale. The final page, where the title character is driven insane, is a bit out of place in a bed time story for 19 month old twins. Oh, and Rodriguez's penguins are downright creepy (much creepier than the Shoggoths) -- which is great, but adds to my "not for 19 month old twins" knee jerk reaction. The girls will have to wait before I read this book to them until I can explain madness to them, or at least until they are four or five years old. Hite's writing in this book is also very effective at capturing a nice horror tone. My thoughts are that Hite erred too much on the side of accurate translation and too little on the side of childhood adventure with this volume.

I hope that Hite continues to create volumes in this series, as they are a unique entry in the field of childrens' books. They aren't quite up to the over all quality level of Jane Yolen's "Dinosaur" series -- but then again, not much is.

Flames Rising Interviews Award Winning Author Kenneth Hite

The excellent game industry blog Flames Rising has an interview with Game Designer and Author Kenneth Hite on their website. Earlier this month, we mentioned one of Kenneth's award winning books "The Tour de Lovecraft." We believe this award winning book is an essential entry into any horror literature fan's library. We also argued that his excellent "Trail of Cthulhu" was the best Lovecraft inspired rpg to date.

What we didn't mention, but is mentioned in the excellent interview at Flames, is that Hite has also written two Lovecraft inspired children's books. The excellent "Where the Deep Ones Are" is already available and is a wonderful tribute to a classic children's book. Coming soon is "The Antarctic Express," his tribute to a more modern children's book...with a glimpse "At the Mountains of Madness." The 3D animation of the film "The Polar Express" nearly drove me insane, maybe this is just the last piece I need in order to drift into blissful madness.