My first reading for this week The Playful and the Serious: An approximation to Huizinga’s Homo Ludens by Hector Rodriguez. He argues play’s separation from the ordinary world has been confused with its relation to seriousness or work, and this has been critiqued. Huizinga’s description of how play becomes spatially separated from the ordinary world into a magic circle has been widely discussed, dismissed, and re-invented based on a too rigid interpretation of what a boundary is.
I was also tasked with playing the children’s app Metamorphabet. As kids tap through, letters magically transform into various things that start with that target letter. The letter A grows antlers, changes into an arch, and then begins to amble about, for example. With each new transformation, kids see the written word and hear it said out loud. Kids can go back to letters they’ve already seen but can’t go forward until they’ve “unlocked” the whole alphabet.
Metamorphabet covers really basic material in ways that will captivate kids. Kids will love the interactive elements, and play is super easy, full of free exploration. Kids start with the letter A and cannot choose letters at random, though they can go back to choose letters they’ve already done. This makes the game feel like a purposeful journey through a magical world of letters rather than an aimless and scattered game.
That said, some of the word choices such as “amble” and “daydream” aren’t quite right for little kids but might extend the app’s appeal to kids beyond learning the alphabet. Discovering the complexities of each animation and experiencing delight each time you do really makes this app a nice visual experience.
The game I chose from the article we were given was Lego Indiana Jones 2. It is a fun and imaginative adventure game contains a ton of fighting and tidbits of lowbrow humor, it’s all presented in a playful, unrealistic manner.
Elements that might seem problematic in a different game are here mitigated by the fact that the characters are all Lego figures. No one is really hurt; no one really dies. It is brainier and slower paced than its predecessor (or most of the Lego titles, for that matter), which is perhaps reflected in its higher rating, with a much greater emphasis on puzzle-solving.
It also supported online cooperative play with chat on launch. Live voice chat on most systems was unmonitored. This is something that parents would potentially have cautioned against and check their systems parental controls if they want to prohibit such activity.
The classic elements of the Lego video games are intact. A split-screen for cooperative play allows two players to finally travel in different directions. And the Builder Mode, in which you can create your own playable levels from scratch offers hours of enjoyment on its own.
