A family adventure in gaming. :-) We're currently playing... P1 (Dad): Tiny Tina's Wonderland; P2 (Mum): Skyrim; P3 (Seb): Noclip VR. Written by P2 (Mum).
I can't imagine a world without Minecraft (PEGI-7). It has been everywhere for so long now. Our house has a LOT of Minecraft lego, foam weapons, plastic figures, plushies... And we've bought Minecraft four times (I think) - mobile, Vita, PS3 and PS4. Never on the PC. Though I suspect that might change... This might help explain why Minecraft has just become the top selling game of all time, overtaking Tetris!
We've spent days of our lives in Minecraft worlds, and yet we've never managed to get to the End and kill the Enderdragon. Somehow we get distracted by building castles, or treehouses, or massive defensive walls. Well, us grown ups do, Seb just likes to replicate other games he likes inside Minecraft. I think Geometry Dash parkour was one of his most interesting ones! And despite having some 'goals', like the Enderdragon, it's fun just to mine, and explore, and craft. It's a strange game, it has something for everyone. I suppose that's why it's still going strong, after 10 years.
We've watched a lot of YouTubers playing Minecraft, particularly Squid, Stampy and Sqaishey. Adventure maps, Cave Den, Stampy's Lovely World - Minecraft is probably the first thing we went onto YouTube for. (Now we sit down every day at least once and watch YouTube together.)
Now they've announced Minecraft Earth - I don't totally understand what this is, but I expect we'll find out soon enough! It sounds interesting. But much like non-console versions of Minecraft, I'm wary of it!!
I have to admit I haven't "liked" Minecraft as much since Microsoft took over, with their cross-platform version and their monetisation. Perhaps this is partly because it meant the end for Stampy's Minecraft videos. But things move on if they're going to survive, I suppose. If you don't own the "new" PC version of Minecraft, like us, it has 50% off as part of the birthday celebrations.
A few things then, that I will mention before I depart...
ThinkNoodles has been playing through all the old versions of Minecraft (there's a 'flashback' option in the Minecraft launcher):
This is interesting from a development/programming point of view, since it shows the evolution of the game from something that really NOT interesting at all. (The jumping Steves are pretty hilarious, though.)
This Cave Den made me laugh so much - it's the one where Stampy and Sqaishey "split up":
And if you haven't read it, you should read Keith Stuart's book "A Boy Made of Blocks". It's a BRILLIANT read, and shows how important Minecraft is to some kids. It's not just a game, it's a way of expressing themselves, of socialising within an understandable and controllable environment. Buy it and read it, it's awesome. :-)
I can hardly believe that it has been ten years since the first Plants vs. Zombies game!! (The 10 Year Anniversary was May 5th. Of course there's another big 10 Year Anniversary coming up next week, but more on that another time!)
Seb is a MASSIVE PvZ fan, as you can probably tell from our Instagram feed. He's recently got back into it in a big way, and he's been collecting plushies from eBay as fast as he can get the money to buy them... Whenever zombies (or plants) come in the post we all have to formally introduce ourselves to them. Then we have to play PvZ with them (Seb controls the game and we have to put the plants down).
Sometimes I feel like our lives are being taken over by zombies wandering around muttering 'brains' every few seconds. Our house is a zombie-filled madhouse. We're still playing PvZ 2. And we have a massive collection of plants and zombies that we've drawn and laminated, so that we can play with them. Oh, and Seb went to Comicon last year as a PvZ zombie. He's getting me to make a Royal Hypno Flower costume for this year - I have the weirdest mum jobs!
Anyway, onto the PvZ anniversary fun.
Zack Scott has done a (lengthy) interview with the game's creator, George Fan (who also created Octogeddon). Zack Scott has done a LOT of PvZ videos and he's kid friendly, so if you also have a PvZ obsessive in your house check him out! (They might not be super keen on the hour and a half interview video, though!)
One of our favourite YouTubers, Zebragamer, has started a celebratory series playing through PvZ 2, so that's also worth a look. He's great fun to watch, whatever he plays.
So whether it's PvZ (PEGI-7), PvZ 2 (PEGI-7), PvZ Heroes (PEGI-7). PvZ Garden Warfare (PEGI-7) or PvZ Garden Warfare 2 (also PEGI-7), why not play a bit of PvZ this week? If you haven't played the original games, you should. They're brilliant!
For a while now I've been thinking about writing about some UK game developers, and I thought I'd start here... I have a happy place in my heart for Revolution Games. One of my favourite games of all time is Beneath a Steel Sky, and I've bought Broken Sword games numerous times in different formats. (Who doesn't love an evil templar mystery?!) Admittedly, I didn't like the 3D adventures so much. It seems like it was a case of new technology being adopted just for the sake of it - it's a joy to me that traditional point and click adventures are having a bit of a comeback.
The studio came to mind again this week with the announcement that they were making a new game called Beyond a Steel Sky. The original game was created with Dave Gibbons, a comicbook artist famous for his work with Alan Moore on Watchmen, and he'll be working on the new game too.
Revolution Games is based in York, UK, and was set up in 1990 by Charles Cecil, Tony Warriner, David Sykes and Noirin Carmody, all of whom still work for the company. Their first game was Lure of the Temptress, which was released in 1992. You can download the original version of the game for FREE on GOG.com. Their second game was my beloved Beneath a Steel Sky, in 1994, also available for FREE on GOG.com. The game follows Robert Foster and his lovable (and offensive) robot Joey. I love a good sci-fi yarn, and this is a great game, without too many impossible puzzles!
And then, of course, in 1996 Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars was released. Not only was this an atmospheric puzzler set in Paris, with possible romance on the cards between George and Nico, it was responsible for a puzzle so annoying that it has its own Wikipedia page: The Infamous Goat Puzzle! 1997's Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror was great fun too, but for me things went a little downhill after that, when things went 3D.
The Infamous Goat of Lochmarne Castle
In 2000 they released In Cold Blood on the PlayStation (their first 3D game), a game that I never managed to get very far in (I seem to recall that since it's the protagonist's memories, every time you die he says "no, it can't have happened like that", or something similar). They also released Gold and Glory: The Road to El Dorado. Following this Broken Sword hiatus, things went 3D for George Stobbart in 2003's Broken Sword III: The Sleeping Dragon. According to Wikipedia, the switch to 3D was the only way Revolution could get publishers for their games. Suffice it to say, this doesn't sound like a super happy time in the studio's history.
In 2004 Revolution changed from being a designer and producer of video games to being purely game designers. Staff were let go. Changes in the market had made times bad for independent developers. Using this new model, a number of former Revolution staff were taken on by Sumo Digital to make 2006's Broken Sword IV: Angel of Death.
What Revolution moved to a couple of years ago, because it was difficult to survive as an independent developer with a team of 15-20 people, was move to a freelance model, which some call the Hollywood model. We'd pull people together for a team project, then everybody would dissipate and either get together for the next one or not. Clearly that suits us, in that our overheads are lower, but it also creates a wonderfully dynamic working environment.
When people join it means that they really care about the project. They know that they're going to work with us for an X number of months and for X fee, and everybody really wants to make sure, from a personal and professional level, that the project is good as it possibly can be. It's a very exciting and very interesting dynamic. Personally I much prefer it to staff, where there are much more complex dynamics going on in the relationships between people. Some of the people that used to work at Revolution before we downsized a few years ago got jobs, while some of them decided to work with us again on a freelance basis and I'm delighted to have them back.
- Charles Cecil speaking to Mark Walton (Gamespot) in 2012
Thankfully, the dark times were not to continue forever. By the end of the decade, with digital distribution, it was possible to self-publish. Also, with the rise in mobile gaming, in 2009 Revolution was asked to produce some versions of Broken Sword for iOS. This relationship with Apple continues with Beyond a Steel Sky, and the new versions brought Broken Sword to a new audience.
Broken Sword V was announced in August 2012, with a Kickstarter campaign. New methods of funding meant that Revolution could control everything themselves, instead of being under the mantle of a big publisher. The game returns the series to its original 2D roots, hooray! Broken Sword V: The Serpent's Curse was released in 2013.
And that brings us up to today, with the recent announcement of Beyond a Steel Sky. The game looks gorgeous, from the images on their website. It's due to be one of the launch titles of Apple's new "Apple Arcade" subscription gaming service, though apparently there will be a concurrent PC launch.
I just hope Joey's in it! :-D
Revolution, then, a brilliant UK game developer - I hope they have many years of creativity to come!
So, this popped up from PlayStation on my twitter feed the other day: 23 great PS4 games for kids available right now. Since this is the very thing that this blog is about (family friendly gaming), of course I clicked on it! But were there any fun surprises waiting for me? Have they missed some obvious family friendly games? Hmm, well, no. And to be honest, it's a sort of disappointing list. And why are there 23? They could have just made it the 20 best. It's like they were trying for 25 and they ran out of ideas! Anyway...
I should say here that I'm not totally clear what PlayStation were thinking with "kids" - little kids, or teenagers? Because though a lot of games on here have low certificates, they're not really fun for little kids. Like their number 1 game on the list - FIFA 19 (PEGI-3), also NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 (PEGI-3), Everybody's Golf (PEGI-3), even Rocket League (PEGI-3). By their nature, sports games don't have a lot in them that's offensive, hence the low certificates. But that doesn't mean they're good games for kids. (If you have a teenage boy chances are he's heavily into FIFA, but he's probably not going to want to play with his family...)
Gang Beasts (PEGI-3) is a crazy party game, so we'll go with that (admittedly I haven't played it). As is Overcooked! 2 (PEGI-3).
There are some PlayLink games like Chimparty (PEGI-3) and the card game classic Uno (PEGI-3). I don't know how I feel about playing Uno on the PS4. I think part of its charm lies in the physical act of playing with cards. Hmm. Also, Melbit's World (PEGI-3), which I have never heard of! (So I will not comment further.)
There are lots of LEGO games on the list - Lego Movie 2 (PEGI-7), Lego Marvel's The Avengers (PEGI-7), Lego Harry Potter Collection (PEGI-7), Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens (PEGI-7). Fair enough, Lego games are fun, but they're all pretty similar just with different stories.
There are some classic platformers, like Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Collection (PEGI-7), Spyro Reignited Trilogy (PEGI-7), Ratchet & Clank (PEGI-7). Good fun, sure. :-)
LittleBigPlanet 3 - one of the best games on this list...
Then there's Yooka Laylee (PEGI-7), which has co-op mode and some multiplayer games for four players, so truly a family game that everyone can get involved with. And LittleBigPlanet 3 (PEGI-7) has a fun multiplayer (though I have to say the third game is not my favourite). And Tearaway (PEGI-7) is awesome, though single player.
Minecraft (PEGI-7), don't really need to say much about Minecraft! You know what Minecraft is, surely?! Unless you've been living under a rock or something for years. I believe the list's Dragon Quest Builders (PEGI-3) is "Minecraft inspired" but I haven't played it. Single player though.
Bringing up the rear of the list is Singstar Celebration (PEGI-12), which is ok, but hey, it's karaoke. I'm not sure it's a fun game for little kids. And no. 23 is, terrifyingly, Monopoly Plus (PEGI-3). I would like to see a three year old play Monopoly. (Perhaps the PS4 version is very different..?)
The more I think about this list the more disappointed I feel. Some truly great games are not on here, and some rather poor games have made the cut. For instance, you could buy Hollow Knight: Voidheart Edition (PEGI-7) for only £5.79 at the moment. You could get the charming Unravel Yarny Bundle (PEGI-7) for only £9.99. How about Rayman Legends (PEGI-7)? Or one of our family multiplayer favourites, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (PEGI-7)?
I'm thinking that maybe PlayStation had some sort of agenda when putting this list together. Perhaps we shall have a family think and put together our top ten games for kids. Hmm....!
My final word on the subject - probably best not to get FIFA for your 3 year old. ;-)
Yesterday was an exciting day in our house - Stampy was back, with a 'Let's Play' video about the Early Access release of Dreams!
There hasn't been a Stampy video since Christmas, so we ordered Chinese and all sat down in front of our telly to watch it. Hooray!
Dreams (PEGI-12) is a perfect Stampy 'game', if indeed it is a game, and the Early Access version launched on 16th April. It costs £24.99, if you're interested in trying it out. I've talked about it briefly before, but it's sort of a game maker, more than a game. You can create incredibly complex things in it, graphically, musically - just awesome stuff. So you can either surf other people's 'Dreams', or make your own. Or both!
Stampy's big idea for this series is that he'll think of a simple theme or word, and everyone can try and make a Dreams creation about it. Tag it with the word/theme and 'Stampy', and he'll make a video showing his creation and other people's. Sounds like fun! In his video he gives us the word 'spoon', so if you make something to do with spoons, tag it with 'Spoon' and 'Stampy' and maybe he'll look at your work.
I'm using too many exclamation marks, but I'm excited!!!
Seb's keen to try it, but I worry that it will be too complex for him. (Seb, however, vehemently denies this.) He has big ideas, but rarely has the patience to learn how to do things. Perhaps this time it will be different, since he's such a huge Media Molecule fan. (HUGE fan of 'Little Big Planet' and 'Tearaway'.) I guess we shall see!
The big reveal this week, then, was Google Stadia. But what is a stadia? Well, I shall tell you: a stadia is a measurement of length (about 185 metres). Alternatively, it is the plural of stadium (an athletic/sports ground), which is probably what they were going for. The Google c.185m doesn't mean that much, after all.
Stadia is not, as some thought it would be, a games console. Instead, it's a streaming service. The present setup is with Chromecast, so you'd plug a Chromecast dongle into your telly. Your Google controller will connect directly to the service, and the service will broadcast back to your Chromecast setup. Nothing is happening in your house - it's all happening remotely, up there in the Cloud.
The intention is that eventually the service will (I keep seeing this quote) "run wherever YouTube is". Also, you won't have to use a Google controller, but with a Smart TV you'd be able to plug any USB controller in and use that. What's intended and what's actually possible at this stage are two different things entirely...
The only games announced so far as Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Doom: Eternal, which aren't at all family friendly. Since the service is due to go live later this year, you have to hope lots more games will be announced soon. Google have said you'll be able to do couch co-op and there'll be parental controls, which shows they're at least considering family gaming in their setup.
A remote gaming service, where a console isn't needed, has been mooted for years as the future of gaming. Every time we're coming up to a new generation of console, people start asking whether it'll be the least "console" generation, or whether we'll be looking to the Cloud instead. Considering we're hearing a PS5 could be coming as soon as this Christmas, it seems like Sony aren't writing off consoles yet. So far, internet speeds have meant that Cloud gaming hasn't really taken off. The last thing you want when playing competitive multiplayer is latency! Google say you need 25Mbps for it to work at 1080p 60fps.
(Apparently the average internet speed in the UK is now 46.2Mbps, though we're paying for fast internet and when I tested it a moment ago we were only getting 24.2Mbps. The only good way to get that 25Mbps (or more if you want 4K gaming!) is to go fibre all the way to the front door. For those of us who have to put up with fibre to the exchange and copper to the house, that might not be an option...)
Slow internet - it makes us all mad...
It's an ambitious service, then, and the "reveal" has left us with plenty of questions. Various people have been attempting Cloud services for a while, with varying levels of success. PS Now has been around for a while, though many of the games are older (most are PS3), and PlayStation let you download games if your connection isn't brilliant. Also, you can't use if if you're under 18. (But that's because you can't go online with a child account.)
My biggest question is, "How much will it cost?" PS Now is £84.99 a year, so maybe we're looking at something similar. They have been VERY quiet about costs, though. And to get big games on there, you'd have to give publishers a way to make money. If they can make more selling either digital or physical copies direct to the consumer, it's hard to see why publishers would want to shoot themselves in the foot and make them available via Stadia.
In February, PS Plus didn't really have any family games to offer, but March's lineup (now only two games, since there are no longer going to be PS3 and Vita downloads) includes The Witness (PEGI-3). I'd heard a lot about how good this game was, but I'd never played it. To be honest, I still haven't, since Dad and Seb have been playing it together. I think perhaps it has melted their brains since at the moment Seb is giggling maniacally and Dad is calling him Mr Ploppy. Ah well.
The Witness throws you straight into the game, with no preamble. It reminds me a lot of Rime in the way that you are just there, on a mysterious island, trying to figure out what on earth is going on. I suspect, like Rime, you never actually find out what's going on... After arriving on the island it's just puzzle after puzzle, which can be intense! As you walk around the beautiful surroundings you discover new challenges: there are more than 650 puzzles, some of which are optional, thankfully. All the puzzles are solved in the same way, by drawing a line on a grid to get from one point to another. There are different rules for each puzzle. This doesn't sound that exciting, but it's keeping a 7-year old quiet for a surprising amount of time (and Dad hasn't wandered off or started looking at his phone), so it's obviously more exciting than you'd think. :-)
One of the maze puzzles in The Witness's pretty world
If you have PS Plus, download it and give it a go. It's a great "couch" game for everyone to sit down and try and work out the puzzles. Alternatively you can all sit there and shout at one person trying to solve the puzzles as if they are in the Crystal Maze. Hehe.
This is a refreshingly positive article: The argument for playing video games with our kids, by Elissa Strauss. The author definitely hits upon a few things that I wholeheartedly believe in, namely about this being a huge part of our kids lives; we shouldn't abandon them to make their way in it all by themselves. There are a lot of opportunities for learning, like social skills (such as teamwork and conversation), psychological aspects (resilience, and so on) and with games like Minecraft you can tackle science stuff as well as things like ethics (the author points out it gives you an opportunity to talk about why you've killed something in the game - I know for ages Seb was very against killing the animals in Minecraft!). Definitely worth a read. And the book she's advertising (Raising Kids to Thrive in a Digital World by Jordan Shapiro) sounds interesting, too...
This year has so far been a bit rubbish for those of us who watch YouTube a lot in this house. Which is all of us, since we watch things together on the telly. Stampy and Sqaishey have disappeared - apparently they're getting married this year, which is nice, but I miss them on YouTube... Then there's Squiddy, who seems to have gone a bit haywire. He was very strangely hyper in the last video of his we tried to watch, plus he's blaspheming a lot... he doesn't feel safe for kids to watch any more. I suspect he's deliberately trying to attract an audience who can give him money on Twitch etc, rather than the kids he was getting before. It makes me sad though. Having to unsubscribe from one of your (previously) favourite YouTubers is like cutting off a friend who has let you down. Boo.
Squiddy has made me feel like this... :-(
I've been trying, largely in vain, to find some new family friendly YouTubers to watch. Seb's been watching Tewtiy playing Plants vs Zombies, since he's gotten back into that in a big way. We're still watching Zebra Gamer, Dan TDM, Paul Soares Jr and ThinkNoodles. But a lot of the old gang aren't playing things that we're finding all that appealing. Somehow it feels like YouTube isn't as easy to watch. It's certainly not easy to try and find new family friendly YouTubers. Discoverability is poor. And I get fed up of watching loads of YouTubers to find out whether or not a) they swear and b) they're really annoying.
Perhaps YouTube's becoming a little outdated. The main problem seems to be that people aren't making videos for fun any more, which might have been how it worked a while back. Now they're desperately trying to make some money. YouTube ad revenue clearly isn't paying enough. A lot of people stream these days, with subscribers paying a monthly fee, and donating money as they play. You can also have subscribers on YouTube, for instance ThinkNoodles and Dan TDM charge £4.99 a month to get perks such as custom emojis and money off merchandise. Paul Soares Jr has a Patreon thingummy where if you give £5 a month you get access to his private Discord server, so you can chat with him and other fans. Various people are trying money making ventures. I don't know what works best. I'm not sure I like anyone enough to give them £5 a month though...
I was going to recommend something, but I'm not sure what we've enjoyed enough lately to give a glowing review. I like that Paul Soares Jr has started a new Minecraft series. But to be honest, I'm feeling a bit down on YouTube at the moment! So... here's an amazing Planet Coaster rollercoaster, on Channel5 Gaming.
A-MAZE-ING...!!!
Edit - I just realised one solution (der!!). Watch some old videos! This never seems like an option when you log into YouTube on the telly and it just tells you the latest videos by your subscribers, but it could be a solution. I mean, there are 649 videos in Stampy's Lovely World playlist!
Seb's latest obsession is Nova the robot. We love her to bits. And the crazy thing is, she's not even in the game much, because at the start of it she's BLOWN INTO TINY PIECES BY THE EVIL DR EROS!! Yes, we've just finished Love you to Bits (PEGI-7). What a wonderful little game! Well worth the £3.79 it currently costs on Google Play, plus it goes into your family library so that you can all play it. And it looks totally amazing on our new Samsung Tab S2. (In fact, I'd recommend you play it on a tablet if possible, it's a bit small on a phone to spot all the details.)
LOL I just realised I sound like I'm doing a lot of product placement. I'm not getting paid for this. Honest. ;-)
The game's a point and click puzzle adventure. Generally you can solve the puzzles by wandering backwards and forwards picking up everything and checking to see if you can then use the things you've just picked up. Sometimes, though, you have to do things in a certain order to progress. And some of the levels definitely had us stumped for quite a while. And we did not find all the extra collectables. Boo hoo.
The premise is that Dr Eros (evil dinosaur scientist), who created Nova, attacks at the beginning of the game and blows her apart. You (as her boyfriend) then have to find all the pieces and reassemble her. Also, you can collect objects that contain her memories, and feed them back into her. All her memories can be accessed via the computer she's hooked up to, and can be watched over and over. They're cute little animated stories. Some are very funny, and some tug at the ol' heartstrings.
Reassembling Nova and giving her her memories back
So, in each level you're on a different planet; you have one part of Nova you have to find, and a couple of memories. When you obtain the piece of Nova you can teleport back to your ship and see your progress, and watch any memories you've found. Gradually you get more and more invested in both Nova and Kosmo. We really wanted to get them back together, despite the sticky issues surrounding robot/human relationships. (We aren't going into that with Seb. But hey. Blade Runner. That's all I have to say about that.)
It's hard to say what my favourite level was. 'Matter of Perspective' was clever, with lots of platforms you had to rotate around to get to different sections of the level. It took a lot of thought. And 'A Dungeon in Panels' was fun since you wandered from comic book panel to comic book panel, becoming larger and smaller as you did so. That said, there are a few moments I found a bit questionable. For instance you do kill some people. 'Trapped in the Lab' is a sort of evil lab where they're doing some sort of crazy monster construction, but is it right to kill people who work there so that you can put your girlfriend back together? I really don't know. But perhaps I'm overthinking things...
I should also mention the music. When we first played the game, Seb said the music at the start was the saddest he'd ever heard. Great compositions - they add such a lot to the atmosphere of the game. Despite its cartoony graphics it has a lot of depth to it.
Totally recommended! Great fun to play together as a family. It took all our brains to complete it. :-D
We discovered Nicolas Daoust tonight and it was the funniest (and best) thing we've seen in ages! Seb's been crazy obsessed about Crypt of the Necrodancer (PEGI-12) lately. Our house is covered in A3 paintings of all the monsters in Stage 1. And it turns out that this crazy Canadian has been doing REAL VOICE versions of the songs in the game! Perhaps this isn't as funny to most people as it was to us. But hey. It made us smile. :-)
I love that the internet means people who like to do these mad things can be discovered and applauded. Kudos, man!
