Is it, uh, really already almost summer? I know, summer doesn’t technically start until pretty late into June, but we’re getting days in the 80s now every once and a while, my kids are asking about when the pool is going up, and they’re in the final month of school. (No, please don’t ask about my youngest leaving kindergarten, because it will cause myself and my wife to spontaneously begin crying. Don’t get us started about my nine-year-old entering her final year of elementary school next year, either. STOP.)

Anyway, weird month for games. There’s a handful, but it’s also pretty light, and I was forced to, at times, expand the definition of what qualifies of this category. (I am obviously biased by having younger kids, but in general, I stop at recommending an “M” game unless it falls into a pretty specific category of theme that might work.)

If you represent these games and have a potentially interesting story to share about how these games consider kids as part of their audience, do get in touch with me!

• Constance (Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Switch) — May 1

Description: Constance is a 2D hand-drawn action adventure featuring a paintbrush-wielding artist, striving to escape from a colorful but decaying inner-world, created by her declining mental health.
Rating: E
Price: $19.99

The best and worst thing to happen to Constance was being released around the same time as Silksong. But if you finished Silksong and were looking for more, Constance scratched that itch. On the contrary, if you tried Silksong and found it too much, Constance is, by default, an easier and more forgiving game and has options to make it even easier. I think Silksong should’ve had those, too, but an argument for another day.

• Wax Heads (PC, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Switch) — May 5

Description: Dive into the vibrant, punk world of Wax Heads in this trailer for the upcoming narrative sim game from developer Patattie Games and publisher Curve Games. Wax Heads is a cozy-punk slice-of-life narrative sim about managing a struggling record store. Chat to quirky customers with unique tastes, explore a handcrafted record collection, fall in love with bands (and their drama!), or just slack off with your colleagues – all to restore the groove!
Rating: T
Price: $14.99

Maybe a cozy game about vinyls is a tough sell to a younger audience who doesn’t know what a vinyl is, but who cares? (Do they sell the Gabby’s Dollhouse bops on vinyl?) Wax Heads looks charming, and Pocket Tactics was taken by a demo, saying “Wax Heads is dripping with style and heart, two things that always sell me on a game.”

• Nick Jr. Replay! (Apple Arcade) — May 7

Description: Step into a world of wonder with Nick Jr. Replay! Let your preschooler’s imagination run wild and revisit tons of beloved retro Nick Jr. games, authentically preserved, in a vibrant, interactive universe where learning and laughter go hand in hand!
Rating: 4+
Price: $6.99 per month

Once again, I am confronted by games that would have been very useful to me a few years ago, but suddenly, my oldest is nine and my youngest is six and we’re in the middle of the final season of Stranger Things and I’m not sure I can sell either of them on “Nick Jr.” It’s encouraging to see Apple continue to invest in experiences like this.

• Good Pizza, Great Pizza+ (Apple Arcade) — May 7

Description: Join over 300 million Ovenists world-wide on Good Pizza, Great Pizzat to fulfill pizza orders from customers, advance the storyline and upgrade your restaurant to keep your doors open! An endless variety of toppings, decor and kitchen equipment help compete against your pizza rivals in each chapter!
Rating: 4+
Price: $6.99 per month

The “+” means it exists elsewhere—in this case, on the App Store and Google Play, in addition to Switch and PC—but now without DLC or ads. Critics were high on the original, with Nintendo Insider saying “it’s an addicting game with a simple premise.”

• Perchang World (Apple Arcade) — May 7

Description: Get ready for Perchang World, a thrilling evolution of the classic hit Perchang. The skill-based ysics puzzler takes you to vibrant, dynamic worlds filled with incredible new challenges.
Rating: 4+
Price: $6.99 per month

Interestingly, this is a sequel. The first game is on platforms like Switch, while this follow-up is exclusively Apple Arcade. (For now. They show up elsewhere a year later.) Nintendo World Report was not glowing about the original, calling it “a mild distraction that does little to be innovative or hold your attention for longer than a few hours at most.” Well, there’s always room for improvement on the sequel, right?

• Ultimate 8 Ball Pool+ (Apple Arcade) — May 7

Description: Looking for an incredible 8 Ball Pool experience? Look no further! Play against live opponents from around the world and become the King of Pool in the best full 3D 8 Ball Pool game! Compete in live multiplayer matches or play solo in hundreds of unique billiards challenges.
Rating: 9+
Price: $6.99 per month

It’s not super shocking to learn that many other pool games have called themselves some version of “Ultimate 8 Ball,” going back to the original PlayStation. It’s also not shocking many of the complaints about the original ad-filled version of this are the ads, which won’t be present in this version. Otherwise, seems like competent pool?

• Everything Is Crab (PC) — May 8

Description: The Animal Evolution Roguelite. Hunt, Flee, Scavenge and Thrive in a living ecosystem. Choose from 125+ Evolutions and Specialisations for unique creature combinations in every run. Adapt to survive the natural curve in order to beat carcinisation... or get Darwin’d trying!
Rating: N/A
Price: N/A

Being able to rapidly upgrade a weird little guy sounds like fun, even though it seems more than likely that “roguelite,” however “lite,” puts it out of the difficulty curve for many kids. Loot Level Chill enjoyed playing an early version, saying “there was the potential for dozens of hours of replayability in this build alone, and that’ll likely only increase massively as development on this compelling Roguelike continues.”

• Outbound (PC, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Switch/Switch 2) — May 14

Description: Explore a colorful world and build your own cozy home on wheels. Craft workstations, and source energy from the sun, wind, or water. Upgrade and customize your vehicle, grow crops, and live sustainably off-grid with up to 4 players.
Rating: E
Price: $24.99

My children—specifically, my nine year old—is obsessed with the idea of buying and living in a camper van, either with us or on her own. (I told her no, but okay, it is a cool idea.) In the short term, though, video games are probably our best way to make it happen. Game Grin had a chance to play it early, saying “The chilled-out feel of exploring at my leisure was great, and seeking out the little collectibles was always fun, even though I ended up overencumbering myself more often than I care to admit.”

• Forza Horizon 6 (PC, Xbox Series X/S) — May 19

Description: Discover the breathtaking landscapes of Japan in over 550 real-world cars and become a racing Legend at the Horizon Festival. Start your journey as a tourist and explore a world full of hit music and Japanese culture. Build a Valley Estate, acquire awe-inspiring homes, and display your prized car collection in fully Customizable Garages. Cruise the roads with your friends and join Car Meets around Japan, unleash your imagination with EventLab and build together in Horizon CoLab.*
Rating: E
Price: $69.99

Is the first Forza game that I get seriously into? I was quite taken by the last Horizon, even if my relationship with it predictably ended after a few hours. Simulation racing games have never landed with me. IGN really enjoyed an early version, saying “if the preview didn’t have a cutoff time, I can guarantee you I’d still be playing it now.”

• Yoshi and the Mysterious Book (Switch 2) — May 21

Description: Play as Yoshi and help a mysterious talking book named Mr. E remember the creatures living within his pages. Open him up, explore colorful habitats, and experiment with each creature to learn all kinds of surprising facts across every page.

Rating: E
Price: $59.99

Nintendo is nothing if not calculated. Wow, my children just so happen to be interested in playing a Yoshi-centric games a few months after the new movie, which just so happened to feature a bunch of Yoshi! I wonder if they’ll want this! Nonetheless, I’m curious about this take. Nintendo uses Yoshi as a platform to take swings—some work, some don’t. Did you know this one has basically eliminated combat? It’s more about exploration and curiosity, though GameSpot had a question: “it remains to be seen how Yoshi and the Mysterious Book sustains its entire length.”

• Bubsy 4D (PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Switch, Switch 2) — May 22

Description: Join Bubsy on a new, intergalactic, platforming adventure! Yeah, we couldn’t believe it either. The world’s most infamous, wise-cracking bobcat has returned to 3D with new challenges, new moves, and even more purrsonality – in space! Run, jump, glide, and roll across alien planets, battle robotic sheep, and collect tons and tons of yarn. What could possibly go wrong?
Rating: E10+
Price: $19.99

Bubsy it a bit of a joke, partially for a disastrous 3D outing and being part of a mascot platformer explosion in the 90s. But grabbing the developers Demon Tide, who are at the forefront of platformer experimentation, is—well, it should be interesting, at least. MonsterVine basically agreed with me after trying a demo, saying “believe it or not, I’ve come away from Bubsy 4D with a rather optimistic feeling about the whole thing.”

• Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC) — May 22

Description: Embark on a journey that begins with the origins of Batman as a young Bruce Wayne trains with The League of Shadows, becomes the hero of Gotham City, and forge a new family of allies with Jim Gordon, Catwoman, Robin, Nightwing, and Batgirl. Confront an ever-growing threat from across Batman’s Rogue’s Gallery as you face The Joker, The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Bane, and more.
Rating: E10+
Price: $69.99

My kids have been eating up every trailer. But if I’ve learned anything, just because they watch a trailer does not mean they want to play the game. We’ll have to see! Frankly, I’m probably the one who’s most excited here. GamingBible backs me up, saying “I’m not making it subtle that I’m well and truly on the hype train, but I totally believe LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight deserves such hopeful anticipation.”

• Yerba Buena (PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S) — May 26

Description: Step into a surreal puzzle-platforming adventure as Barb, a young woman living as an NPC in an abandoned gameworld. When a sinister plot threatens your beloved San Francisco, you must step up to save it with the help of a mysterious and powerful device: the Oscillator.
Rating: T
Price: $19.99

Seems like we might be in for an odd one here, where critics have enjoyed the puzzle parts, comparing it to Portal, while not really feeling the story parts. IGN, for example, said “its endearing visual style and relatable main character weren’t quite enough to get me excited to play more Yerba Buena given the confusing plot and dismal quality of the writing. The puzzle possibilities of The Oscillator might, though.”

• My Little Puppy (Switch) — May 29

Description: Sniff sniff… this scent… One day in dog heaven, Bong-gu wakes from his nap to a very familiar scent. Sniff sniff… it’s dad!. Though faint, surely it is dad’s scent he has been waiting for. Jubilant, Bong-gu escapes dog heaven and embarks on a journey to meet his dad - a journey that may hold unexpected dangers. Just as his dad once found him by some miracle, it is now Bong-gu’s turn to find his dad.
Rating: E
Price: $24.99

I know what you’re thinking. Patrick, you’re recommending a game about a dog who dies and tries to find its owner? I think so? It looks cute? I’m not sure how sad it’s going to be? Nobody’s played it yet, though, so we’re left with a melancholy premise.

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Accessibility features can be a wonderful thing for everybody, especially when gamers can get into the nitty-gritty of customizing a game experience. They’re intended for gamers with disabilities, but there’s a beneficial overlap not only for kids, but for those of us who are getting older and need things like subtitles.

I hadn’t paid much attention to accessibility features until I became a Certified Accessible Player Experiences Practitioner through the AbleGamers Charity.

Apart from Sackboy and LittleBigPlanet 2, one of my absolute favorite co-op games is Overcooked! All You Can Eat, in which up to 4 players fend off hoards of zombies (the Unbread) by fulfilling orders in various (and very wacky) kitchens. The only downside is that when you play with children who can’t keep up or refuse to follow instructions, it feels too much like real life with nagging and losing your patience.

But between Overcooked and Overcooked! AYCE, the introduction of the latter version’s Assist Mode could be called the greatest thing since, well, sliced bread. Instead of a barrage of orders piling up relentlessly where everybody ends up failing terribly, rage quitting and/or crying, Assist Mode reduces the number of orders to two, with time customization options, like increasing the round timer and time to fulfill orders.

Ahh. Challenging yet peaceful gameplay.

Knowing all this, when you’re booting up a game with your kids, here are some accessibility potentially useful features to look into, starting with common problems:

“I can’t reach the buttons!”

If kids are having trouble reaching certain buttons because their hands are too small or keep slipping (i.e. tablet problem), for mobile games, try an alternate control setup or attaching a Bluetooth controller. For consoles or PC/Mac, try remapping controls and/or switching to a keyboard/mouse input if the option is available.

“I’m too slow!”

If kids aren’t quick or dextrous enough for quick-time events, try slowing down the action with options like auto-aim, adjustable difficulty, control sensitivity, target lock-on, and optional repeated taps.

“I keep dying!”

Some platformers have invulnerability/invincibility/infinite stamina modes or unlimited lives. This is a game changer for precision platformers that are often punishing. Try also for double jump functions. You may also want to look for games with replayable losses, frequent checkpoints, skippable gameplay, etc.

“I don’t like when the controller shakes!”

Try turning down/off haptic/rumble feedback, as well as the controller speaker.

“This is boring.”

It might be that you bought a game with too many cinematics or heavy emotional content that was fun to play, but the story hits too hard (or light) in the feels for a kid. Some games may offer a skip content function so you can bypass things like death scenes. To be honest, if that’s the case, the game content might be too mature in the first place.

While the writer and narrative designer in me would advise against skipping cinematics, I’m not opposed to skipping them when they don’t offer any special or new information.

“I’m scared of spiders! I’m scared of the big circles!”

Some games like Grounded offer customizable arachnophobia sliders and options that reduce the detail in spiders so that they can become blobs or even cats. Similar features sometimes exist for trypophobia.

“I want to play too!”

While games like Pikmin 4 and Super Mario Odyssey don’t do well in providing an actual second character, playable assistants can be used by grown-ups who can tolerate the boring “unnamed target” and Cappy to play along and make things a little easier. On the flip side, some kids don’t mind being “unnamed target” because it means spending time with you. Cue melting hearts.

“There’s too much happening!”

It should be noted that neurodivergence like autism and ADHD are more commonly recognized as disabilities in game developers themselves, so many studios are aware of gamer needs from a cognitive standpoint. Some gamers find too much information overwhelming and overstimulating, so sometimes it’s good to be able to turn off things like certain sound and visual effects.

While age has made me more prone to motion sickness in games, and not having motion sensitivity controls is often a dealbreaker, I’m otherwise okay with accessibility features as a surprise.

However, if you’re looking for particular accessibility features, try searching databases like AccessibleGames.com, AbleToPlay.com, and FamilyGamingDatabase. On the first two, you can customize and save searches to be used and updated as more games are released and added. Many games now list accessibility features on Steam store pages or offer specifically dedicated store pages.

Happy gaming!

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A little while back, in the midst of playing Pokémon Pokopia and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, I came up with a review template for my kids. My children were tickled and I heard from folks in the Crossplay community that they wanted their kids to try it, too.

I’ve been collecting those reviews over the past few weeks and have enough to share, which includes reviews of Minecraft, Teardown, Pokémon Pokopia, and Grounded 2!

(This would be a million miles long if I included all of them; stay tuned for part two!)

Folks, I am tickled to know there are families doing these together, and it’s also part of a broader mission at Crossplay to incorporate more voices from kids here. I am constantly brainstorming ways to make that happen, and I’m happy to hear your ideas, too. If you happen to record videos or voice notes about your experiences, pass ‘em on!

In case you missed it, the review form is below, and you can email the reviews here.

Crossplay Review

262KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Kia (9 Years Old) on Grounded

“There are lots of crashes.” No one can blame you for being upset about that, kiddo. I’m still upset at losing a PlayStation 2 memory card in the mail with my FFX-2 saves.

Mia (10 Years Old) on Pokémon Pokopia

“I have no recent dislikes about Pokopia!” is a statement that makes my heart swell, and is the kind of thing one only feels when you’re really swept up in playing a game.

Kyle (7 Years Old) on Minecraft

Kyle, like my own children, does not care for survival mode in Minecraft. My children’s enjoyment of Minecraft comes from unleashing endless creativity without restrictions.

Jonas (10 Years Old) on Teardown

“10 all the way” is one of the best descriptions of a video game I’ve read in a minute. It’s not enough to just give the game a 10/10, it’s 10/10—all the way. Masterful, Jonas.

Also:

• I’d intended to publish all the reviews I’ve received, but this article is already big. Apologies if you submitted one and it’s not here. Feel free to keep sending!

• No Tomodachi Life review from my kids just yet, though my nine-year-old was enthralled with it for the extent of a car drive. It just hasn’t popped up since.

• Personally, my next review is a Saluspa inflatable hot tub. My wife was kind enough to replace the one that broke a year or so back, and I’ve finally set it up.

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“I don’t know where the balance is as a parent,” Chandana Ekanayake, director of the new food-centric RPG Dosa Divas and Outerloop Games co-founder, told me recently.

Chandana could be talking about anything, but in this case, it’s the balance between nurturing a children’s individual interests and including them in your own. How much is too much, too little? How do you avoid trying to raise a tiny version of you?

Notably, Chandana’s son, Aidan, was also on the call with us.

Over the past year and change, Chandana and Aidan went from a father and son with a shared interest in video games to a father and son who became legitimate co-workers, as Aidan grew into a part-time contributor in QA at Outerloop Games.

QA means “quality assurance,” and is the department that finds and catalogs bugs that need to be fixed by the rest of the development team. It’s not uncommon for developer to get their start in a QA departments, before moving into, say, design.

Despite having a father who’s worked in games for decades, aka his entire life, Aidan had never really given the idea of moving into game development any serious thought.

“I don’t think it was something I was really thinking about that much when I was younger,” said the 20-year-old Aidan, who’s also in college studying data visualization.

One of Aidan’s big passions: speedrunning video games. In speedrunning, players do their best to push through a game as fast as possible, competing with other players.

Speedrunning is, on some level, a numbers game. (“I love big numbers,” he said.) It’s why Aidan is obsessed idle games, which are all about watching numbers go up up up.

Ahead of releasing anything to the public, Outerloop does a family and friends playtest to, in Chandana’s words, “get a sanity check.” Is the game any good? What are they missing? What might people complain about when the rest of the world tries it?

“We’ve had Aidan playtest a couple of times,” said Chandana. “When he playtests, he just pushes all the edges and finds all the things. There’s areas you can jump out of the level and he just finds all these places to break, because he likes to run around in the game and explore. The team saw that [and asked] ‘Can we get him to just playtest more?’”

So he did!

And over time, Aidan became more than just “friends and family.” He dropped his part-time job at a local department store (Marshalls) and signed up for between 10 to 20 hours per week of QA work. It was an opportunity for Aidan to apply that personal love for speedrunning. But in this case, Aidan would be breaking the game to help it.

For Chandana, it quickly became clear that “Dad” is different than “co-worker.”

“I wanted him to feel like he has that autonomy,” said Chandana. “We’re all remote, too, so I was like ‘Okay, go talk to Sunny [another developer on the Dosa Divas development team],’ and I was like ‘Tell Aidan what he needs to do. If you need me, fine.’ He and I are similar in personality, too, and sometimes we butt heads, so I wanted make sure he can have a good time at work without dad being involved so much.”

Aidan focused on QA, but experimented with implementing changes to bugs, such as areas where the player could accidentally jump and fall outside the game world.

“It’s definitely a change of pace,” said Aidan, who noted that trying to learn Blender, a popular tool to create and modify 3D models, proved a little overwhelming to grasp.

The whole experienced lasted about 18 months—nearly two years, all told.

Dosa Divas was released last week on six different platforms. The big lift is over. It’s also a moment for Chandana and Aidan to reflect on a decidedly unique experience.

In other words, was it worth it?

“We tried to introduce both boys to different things and I never wanted to push like too hard on [video games],” said Chandana. “With Aidan especially, he [once] wanted to make a game. So I was like, we’ll sit together, build a tower defense game or a clicker game. But don’t want to over steer. I want him to find his own thing. […] One thing I keep telling them is to find something you love doing, because you’re going to spend a lot of time at your job. Most people hate their jobs. If you can find something that you love to do that you’re gonna spend a lot of time doing and it’s some some way of living, then that’s all we can hope for as parents.”

Aidan is, at least, giving it some thought.

“When I was younger, I wanted to be like a teacher or like an accountant or something,” he said. “But now that I’m doing this and also my major in college is data visualization, it can lead into something in video games, as well.”

Aww. 🥰

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Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.

Also:

• My daughters, of course, want to be “on YouTube” with me. I have said no, though I’ll admit to considering a stream where they could be v-tubers with me.

• Funny enough, I haven’t pushed video games onto my kids and the result is that while they like video games, do they do not love video games. I wish they did?

• My oldest is nine, aka a really formative age. It’s where I fell in love with video game writing. Only a few years later, I’d take steps into being a professional. It’s still unclear what her own passion is, but my theory is that it’ll be art-related.

Early last year, I could only afford to buy my 12-year-old daughter a $700 Dell laptop that was already obsolete the moment it came out of the box. I had bought it so that she could play a recent PC game, but I foolishly forgot to check the system requirements—which the new laptop couldn’t meet.

It didn’t stop her from trying, though. She still installed it anyway and tried to soldier on, despite choppy cinematics, horrendously bad visuals, and frequent crashes. There were brief moments of enjoyment there, but that only made the baseline poor performance even more frustrating.

When I was a kid, gaming was pretty sweet. We didn’t get a NES until several years after it was launched, despite four out of five of us siblings begging for it, but there was no shortage of console games for me to play. PC gaming was still a cottage industry and didn’t require any demanding hardware. And for the times that it did, my elder brother earned enough to buy the games, PC upgrades, and peripherals that my parents didn’t.

Many of today’s games, though, are much more complex and need powerful rigs to run. While I’d love to give my daughter the PC gaming experience she deserves, practically speaking it just ain’t gonna happen.

A decent gaming rig costs anywhere from $1,500 to $3,000—and that’s without going overboard on graphics cards and processing speed. That’s tough to justify in today’s economy, especially with the prices of RAM being artificially inflated because they keep getting bought up by AI datacenters.

And then I’d have to double that cost, because I have a potato PC, too. We play a lot of co-op. It wouldn’t do for her to have an upgraded PC with my laggy relic being the millstone that dragged down our gaming sessions.

There were other games her laptop couldn’t handle, either. GTA V, It Takes Two, and Where Winds Meet were also on her wishlist. Those were different shades of choppiness. It Takes Two was especially bad because our computers would de-sync at the worst times due to her lag. I wound up refunding the game because neither of us could progress—thank you Steam return policy.

Once again, there was a lot of momentary frustration, but I’d set her expectations by telling her the system requirements were pretty steep. The game probably wouldn’t run well and she might get frustrated. She said she understood, but wanted to give it a try anyway, with the promise not to go nuclear if it couldn’t run.

It couldn’t and she didn’t.

She’s asked me for an upgrade, of course. But I explained to her that it was a big purchase and that there were other important things to spend on first, like the house and the groceries. She was disappointed but ultimately understood. (I suppose it helped her to know that I was stuck with a slow machine just like her).

I also pointed out that the games would always be there to come back to once she eventually got a better computer. Just to prove my point, I found several older AAA games for her to play, like Portal 2 and Assassins Creed 2, and supplemented them with newer and less-demanding indie games like Roboquest, Monaco, and Operation Tango.

Her mother also volunteered to lend our daughter her iPad every once in a while. This was great, because as it turned out one of the games on her wishlist (Where Winds Meet) ran just fine on the iPad.

I count myself extremely lucky that I have a gamer daughter that shares my interests, and that she’s mature enough now to both control her temper and understand financial priorities. While I’d love for us to play the latest and greatest games together, it would be irresponsible to buy two new gaming rigs at the same time.

I’m not sure when we’d be able to splurge on new computers again, but at least we have a decade’s worth of old AAA titles and potato-friendly indie games to fill in the gaps.

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Another set of changes are coming for parents with children who are on Roblox, with the platform now following existing trends at places like Instagram, Uber, and others who have youth-targeted accounts. Starting in “early June,” Roblox will now have “Roblox Kids” and “Roblox Select” accounts meant for its most vulnerable audience.

The news was announced via press release earlier today.

“This update will bring age-checks, account-level defaults, content ratings, ongoing moderation, and expanded parental controls together into a unified framework for younger users,” said Roblox founder and CEO David Baszucki in the press release.

“Roblox Kids” is for children between 5 and 8, limits access to games with “minimal” or “mild” maturity labels, and has “all communication” disabled. (Parents can change this.) “Roblox Select” is for children between 9 and 15, uses different communication defaults based on age group (9-12, 13-15), and allows games with “moderate” labels.

Player ages are determined either by Roblox’s relatively new AI-assisted (and unsurprisingly controversial) age check system, or manually set by a verified parent.

(It also remains curiously and frustratingly easy for kids to bypass parental controls.)

An important change: Roblox is now curating the games for “Kids” and “Select” accounts. Though the company says it will still include “thousands” of games that are “dynamically updated,” there is reason to believe games that your children have access to now, even under an account with parental controls, will disappear in the future.

Roblox has not said what games might vanish, but the company said it believes players “will have access to the vast majority of their favorite games at launch.”

“We can't share specific games at this time given the games have not gone through the three-step review process,” said a Roblox spokesperson to Crossplay. “The games available in Roblox Kids and Roblox Select will be a subset of those available on the broader platform, including many of our most popular.”

In other words: we’ll have to wait and see.

Importantly, parents can selectively approve individual games. If Roblox removes a game from the lineup for “Kids” and “Select” accounts, you could re-authorize it.

Here’s a chart from Roblox explaining how the accounts break down:

As a Roblox user gets older, they will shuffle between these different restrictions.

Like many parts of the internet, Roblox also includes games that leverage new AI technologies. So far, the company has not given parents tools to block children from engaging with Roblox games that use AI. Nothing about this update changes that.

Roblox’s explanation for how it’s picking the games for “Kids” and “Select” accounts is a little fuzzy. For example, one pillar is what Roblox calls “real-time evaluation,” where the company watches “how users age 16 and older interact with new games and monitor user reports to assess suitability for younger users.” It’s also going to exclude “games that feature sensitive issues, social hangouts, or free-form drawing games.”

OK, but what’s a “sensitive issue”? Politics? Queerness? Violence? To my surprise, the company did provide a more specific list of topics it considers a “sensitive issue”:

• Immigration

• Capital punishment

• Pay equity in sports

• Prayer in schools

• Racial profiling

• Affirmative action

• Vaccination policies

• Reproductive rights

“This is not a comprehensive or finite list,” said a company spokesperson. “Any issue that meets the above criteria qualifies as a ‘sensitive issue.’ These issues are topics that are frequently in the news and inspire strong opinions and emotional debate. We also understand that what is sensitive varies in different regions.”

However, a parent can turn on individual access to almost anything on the platform. The only hardwired rule is “restricted” content that requires you to be 18 or older.

Is Brookhaven, one of the most popular role-playing games, a “social hangout,” or are we talking about games where players are in a bathroom? Brookhaven is probably safe, based on what the company told me about how it’s approaching a “social hangout.”

“Roblox games are considered social hangouts where the primary theme or activity is to chat or interact with other players with voice or text,” said a spokesperson. “Note that if the title or description includes content referencing social hangouts, the game will be classified as a social hangout. Social hangouts that include private spaces (e.g. bedrooms or bathrooms) are Restricted and can only be played by users over 18 years old.”

Roblox remains under enormous pressure, in light of ongoing lawsuits and regulatory threats. One reason much of the internet in the United States and elsewhere is now requiring users to scan IDs is because social platforms like Roblox, Instagram, and others have spent far too long emphasizing profits over safety. The consequences of their inactions is having tangible and negative consequences on everyone, as a result.

Nonetheless, many of the changes Roblox is making here, combined with other changes, are a meaningful step forward. It’s unlikely to change the public sentiment towards them, nor slow the lawsuits, but Roblox remains a massive platform that’s used by tens of millions of children. Every feature that makes it safer is a good thing.

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Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.

Also:

• In general, Roblox use is down in the house among my kids. But that’s also becuse device use is down, because we’re just spending way more time outside.

• I do not think the ID’ification of the internet is a good thing, but I also don’t have faith many parents are using parental controls on Roblox. A tough problem.

• Of course, if Roblox was a platform where you simply felt safe with your kid surfing through it without worry, all of this would be less of a big deal, too.

Over spring break, my family spent a few days at a decidedly Midwestern staple: the Wisconsin Dells. It’s many things, but chiefly, the Wisconsin Dells is a series of massive hotels with waterparks that go on forever. And they’re also stuffed to the gills with other amusement options, including go karts, mini golf, and, of course, arcades.

Calling it Midwestern Disneyland would not be all that far off the mark.

On vacation, my financial impulses go out the window. The reason I avoid spending money every other day of my life is to say “yes” as often as possible while on vacation.

But as we walked through the “arcade” in our hotel, I despaired. They were all games of chance, the closest young children can engage in our society’s ever-expanding gambling complex. Games your children are certain to lose. All they do is eat dollars.

They are, plain and simple, scams. Which is what I taught my kids to call them, too.

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I stay very quiet when I’m standing in a parenting circle and the phrase, “oh, we’re really strict about limiting screen time with our kids” comes up. Ah, how much energy you must have, and how much time you have to shuttle your kids to a plethora of extracurricular activities, I think to myself.

Being in game development ourselves, my husband and I are in the actual business of needing to know what’s new and how to play as many of the 18,000+ games released every year that we can. It only makes sense to reap the rewards of having birthed my own playtesting focus group and Sackboy team of four.

“I need my children to play boss fights for me,” I sheepishly replied when it was just a mom friend and me in the car.

“What’s a boss fight?” she asked. I adore this friend and trust me, this is much better than the mom who asked if I work at GameStop when I told her, “I work in video games.”

“When you have an enemy that’s really hard to defeat,” I explained. Don’t we all wish our children could fight real life evil bosses for us?

“Child labor” is the only way I could get through the boss fights of Astro Bot (so full of delightful surprises), Split Fiction (flimsy story but fantastic variety of mechanics), and HOA (precise platformers are a killer for me but OMG what a brilliant soundtrack).

I’m there for joyful experience, not frustration. My youngest son, currently eight, likes to gloat a little—nay a lot—about how his video game prowess works in my favor. In the spirit of validation, I say as enthusiastically as possible: “Yes, honey, thank you so much. It wouldn’t have been a lot of fun to be stuck and never progress.”

Husband and I know that “screen time” is sacred to our kids, pertaining more specifically to video games but it includes YouTube. I once fined the littlest for acting up during a piano lesson, but taking away video game time is for when you did something really offensive—usually something I nagged about and they neglected to do.

We’re pretty lax about the time available on weekends and holidays if we’re just home and enjoying our mortgage, but I changed up the rules after finding the kids playing at an ungodly hour.

And if I’m really being honest, we recently had a discussion about how playing Wobby Life with your brother does count as screen time, and that does not entitle us to extra hours. However, helping Mommy and Daddy with boss fights and punishing platforming is not included in daily screen time allowance.

Now, don’t go thinking I’m some gamer weakling. I can Megastar in Just Dance, outbeat the rest of my household in Beat Saber, produce the expensive stuff in Coral Island, and finish all my own point-and-click indie games barring game-breaking bugs.

When spinning the copywriting wheel, I wax poetically that video games teach us things like perseverance, dexterity, hand-eye coordination, cooperation, problem solving, and time budgeting, that last one because on weekdays, my kids are only supposed to play for two hours.

I have no idea if we’re actually learning these things. Notice I didn’t include quicker reflexes. But skill-building time allocation means both children can be very sweet and responsible and that’s more important to me than catching a ball.

“Ugh, I’m gonna rage quit!” screams my frustrated 11-year-old.

“No!” I protest. “You’ve been training your whole life to get me through this level!”

And it’s true. He’s been playing video games since he was in diapers and we should have really used increments of screen time to bribe him to potty train.

“Okay,” he grumbles. And then runs away as soon as he and the little one have done stuff like the hard boss fight in Split Fiction where round chainsaws attack you relentlessly.

We’ve had similar conversations before.

“I don’t really want to play with you, Mommy.”

“Hey, I made you pancakes!”

“Oh, yeah!

“So…you’re gonna shoot the monsters for me.”

“Okay, fine.”

The adventures continue.

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There is a famous post on Tumblr about modern Star Wars that goes like this:

“every time a new Star War movie or show is announced all the fans are like ‘OMG Glup Shitto is back’ 😭😭😭”

That’s what I felt like every time I would turn over to my nine-year-old during The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, in which I would proudly—perhaps too proudly—inform here “that’s R.O.B.” Or “that’s a Super Scope, which your dad used to have at your age.”

She would look at me, squint, and go back to the movie.

Did you know that one’s named Birdo…? OK, back to your popcorn and sour gummies.

There’s been an understandable conversation around whether The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is “good” and whether it matters if it’s a “good,” because it’s targeted at kids.

Kpop Demon Hunters is a movie meant for children and it’s a great movie. Hoppers is a movie meant for children and it’s a great movie. These are films that can be enjoyed without an ounce of irony or distance if you’re an adult. Hell, Minions does it better!

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is a fun way to spend 90 minuets. I had fun and my kids had fun. But it’s reasonable to have expectations that are more than a roller coaster, especially when we’re talking about one of the most popular characters ever created.

Yet it’s also a reasonable expectation from a movie adapting a character who has historically found this balance in his original medium, video games. Mario games are explicitly designed to be appreciated by a child who is learning how to jump in a game for the first time and the seasoned adult who’s excited to sweat through a series of increasingly hard jumps. It doesn’t have an “easy” mode. It doesn’t have a “hard” mode. The Mario games remain one the best examples of player-agnostic dynamic difficulty. It’s a company that’s grown up with its earliest fans and drawn in new ones.

Why wouldn’t you expect the movie to the same? Isn’t that what plenty of others do?

But I don’t think it comes from a place of cynicism or hostility from the house of Mario. I think it’s a sincere expression of Nintendo’s approach to designing Mario games over the years and specifically Mario’s creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, who has a well-documented history of chaffing at the notion of over emphasizing story in games.

It’s an emphasis on “fun” over everything. The problem is the mediums are different!

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is a never-ending series of elaborate set pieces. It feels as though Nintendo and Illumination (but mostly Nintendo?) came up with an idea of something that would look cool, then worked backwards. “Wouldn’t it be fun if…?”

Which, naturally, makes all the sense in the world when you’re making a video game, and makes a ton of sense for Nintendo’s games, which often do not emphasize stories. (This point is especially true of the Mario platforming games, though ironic that this movie, in particular, is influenced by Mario’s biggest flirting with adding a real story!)

It’s also, much like the original, gorgeous—a true wonder to look at. And it’s this level of craft, care, and commitment that makes the lack of effort with the story stand out.

There are loads of awful kids movies on the various streaming services. But the “bad” part extends to every single part of the film—the art, the music, the story, the everything. What makes The Super Mario Galaxy Movie so strange is that you’re watching a truly incredible-looking movie that feels like a premise and nothing else.

(The movie gestures at an alternate path with Bowser’s parenting regrets and Peach’s deep isolation from her family, but no time is spent with either of these ideas. And what happened to Mario’s family? That was one of the better parts of the original!)

Of course, none of these reasonable dings against the movie can negate my six-year-old crying as [REDACTED] fell into the lava, or when [REDACTED] showed up during the second post-credits scene—at which point she nearly exploded in her theater seat. Six is probably the exact right age to be swayed by the bright colors and shallow emotions that make up the (tiny) journey you go on in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

But it was barely enough for my nine-year-old. And it’s a movie my wife and I won’t think about in a week. Holding a Mario movie to higher bar is not unreasonable, but I also think Nintendo made the movie it wanted to make. It was not tricked by Illumination. It feels like the Minions people were dragged in Nintendo’s direction.

Sure, roller coasters are fun. But your first ride is the best, and the reason you go on another one is to chase that feeling again. Maybe that’ll be the inevitable third movie in a few years, maybe it’ll be whatever Nintendo’s trying to do with their live action Zelda movie, or maybe, like most kids, they’ll simply grow up and find it elsewhere.

It is, however, a missed opportunity. (But it’s also not anti-art. C’mon.)

I did not have time to to ask my children to write movie reviews, but on the ride home from the theater last night, before my six-year-old passed out, I asked some questions.

• Favorite character: Rosalina (and the “Lumas”)

• Favorite part: When everyone stopped fighting (they liked Bowser being nice)

• Worst part: When Rosalina was kidnapped

• Favorite other part: When [REDACTED] shows up in the post-credits scene

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Also:

• The music is so dang good in this one; there are no needle drops and tons of wonderful interpretations and references to the great music in the Mario series.

• I wonder what these movies would be like without Nintendo’s deep involvement; I swear Illumination is trying to give these movies more depth.

• When I went home, I fell asleep on the couch re-downloading the Super Mario Galaxy games. I’m really excited to share those games with my kids this week.

Phew! Video games are back.

Well, I mean, by many accounts the video game industry is in the midst of a slow motion crash whose depths have yet to be fully understood, but if by “back” one means “there are more games to play for families this month,” then we’re fully back.

Let me know what you’re looking forward to—and have been playing—below!

If you represent these games and have a potentially interesting story to share about how these games consider kids as part of their audience, do get in touch with me!

• Goat Simulator 3 (Switch 2) – April 1

Description: Pilgor’s baaack! Gather your herd and venture forth into Goat Simulator 3; a totally realistic, sandbox farmyard experience. Invite up to three friends in local or online co-op, create carnage together, or compete in mini-games and then not be friends.
Rating: E10+
Price: $29.99

This is a series that I’ve continually figured I should put in front of my kids eventually. Maybe this is the time? Feels like it lines up with their largely non-serious approach to video games. IGN was positive on Goat Simulator 3 back in 2022 (!!), saying: “Goat Simulator 3 is the evolution in idiocy I’d hoped for from this iconically weird series. It almost certainly won’t wow you with its level of polish or a deep, meaningful narrative, but sometimes it’s a good idea to turn your brain off and buck your hooves into an old lady’s face while she fires a rocket launcher at you.”

• Darwin’s Paradox (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC) – April 2

Description: Use Darwin’s unique abilities to sneak past enemies, ink your way out of danger, and solve environmental puzzles in creative ways. From squeezing through tight spaces to manipulating the world around you, learn everything you need to know about the clever octopus, Darwin.
Rating: E10+
Price: $24.99

The company largely known for Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill are also dipping into cute-looking platformers. Reviews were mixed on it, with Game Informer saying: “I appreciate this attempt at taking the mechanics and presentational focus of the genre and applying them to a fun cartoon. That part of the game, alongside the platforming and puzzles, works well and is attractive. Unfortunately, the frequent sneaking slows the game down and is a barrier instead of a fun series of challenges to overcome.”

• DREDGE+ (Apple Arcade) — April 2

Description: Captain your trawler across a remote archipelago, sell your catch, and dredge the depths for long-buried secrets. Outfit your boat with better equipment to trawl deep-sea trenches and navigate to far-off lands, but keep an eye on the time. You might not like what finds you in the dark...
Rating: 13+
Price: $6.99 per month

I’ve wanted to play this for a minute. It’s very much up my alley. Perhaps a chance to play this on a tablet while another episode of Bluey loops will be where it happens. The “+” means it’s the original game without micro transactions or ads. Pocket Gamer reviewed the original release, saying it’s a “solid port” of “an otherwise perfect game.”

• Unpacking+ (Apple Arcade) — April 2

Description: The multi-award winning Unpacking comes to Apple Arcade as Unpacking+, the zen game about the familiar experience of pulling possessions out of boxes and fitting them into a new home. Part block-fitting puzzle, part home decoration, you are invited to create a satisfying living space while learning clues about the life you’re unpacking. Over the course of eight house moves, you you’re never told. are given a chance to experience a sense of intimacy with a character you never see and a story you’re never told.
Rating: 4+
Price: $6.99 per month

Another banger. Unpacking is a tremendous games, one that I wish I’d lavished more praise on at the time of its release, but I have fond memories of playing through it myself, then watching my then-much-younger oldest play through chunks of it, too. Noisy Pixel called the original “an experience, unlike anything I’ve played this year.”

• My Very Hungry Caterpillar+ (Apple Arcade) — April 2

Description: It all starts with a tiny egg... Tap it and watch in wonder as it hatches into The Very Hungry Caterpillar! Can you help him find something tasty to eat? Eric Carle’s beloved character has captured the hearts of millions. The Very Hungry Caterpillar loves food and fun! Feed him, play together, and tuck him into his cozy leaf bed when he gets sleepy. The bigger he grows, the more exciting activities you unlock! When he’s ready, he’ll spin a cocoon. Tap to help him transform into a beautiful butterfly! A world of beauty, wonder, and fun-one you’ll want to visit again and again!
Rating: 4+
Price: $6.99 per month

It’s sad to realize there are things my children have entirely grown out of. Reviews on the Google Play and App Store storefronts are glowing, with lots of people happy to have paid for the upgraded version. Obviously, that comes baked with Apple Arcade. One mother said it was the “best toddler game” and a babysitter who also downloaded it described it as “so cute and detailed that all three of us spent hours playing it!”

• MotionRec (PlayStation 5, Switch) — April 2

Description: Experience the unique mechanic where you “record” and “playback” your movements in this tape recorder themed puzzle action game, MotionRec!
Rating: E
Price: $9.99

Great game. I started it and did not finish it but I do not have an excuse, except that I didn’t and now I feel guilty. Siliconera agreed, reviewing the original game and saying “those who love platformers that make you think would probably be able to spend a few fun afternoons with this one.” Probably a game you want to play with your kids.

• People of Note (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC) – April 7

Description: In this turn-based RPG musical, join Cadence as she recruits an ensemble of musicians on her quest for stardom. Experience turn-based combat like never before, where each battle is a musical performance with evolving combat conditions and genre-bending mashup attacks!
Rating: T
Price: $24.99

Rooting for this one. Could it be my Clair Obscur of 2026? I have access to this already but hadn’t had time for it just yet. Polygon’s preview seemed cautiously optimistic: “People of Note looks to be both a love letter to music and a commentary on it.”

• Nippets (PC) — April 7

Description: Step into the charming world of Nippets, a handcrafted hidden-object game inspired by the joy of people watching!
Rating: N/A
Price: TBA

One of my early game memories with my kids was playing a hidden object game on the TV, with the two of them simultaneously scanning, trying to find whatever it was we were looking for. At times, we’d pretend we could’t see the object, letting our youngest catch up and feel victorious. This looks like a very good one of those games.

• Pokémon Champions (Switch) — April 8

Description: Pokémon battles for everyone! Recruit Pokémon in-game or transfer them from Pokémon HOME, then gear up for thrilling battles with Trainers near and far! Compete in three different modes of Pokémon battles: Ranked Battles, Casual Battles, and Private Battles. You can challenge these modes in both Single Battle and Double Battle formats. Plus, use in-game Victory Points (VP) you’ve earned to improve a Pokémon’s stats, acquire new looks for your Trainer, and more!
Rating: E
Price: Free, but packs, memberships, and battle passes cost money

A game for people in it for the love of the fight, which means if you (or your kids) enjoy the whole “adventuring” part of Pokémon, look elsewhere. Serbii predicted it could be “could truly be the most accessible version of competitive Pokémon so far.”

• Tiny Bookshop (PlayStation 5) — April 10

Description: Leave everything behind and open a tiny bookshop by the sea in this cozy narrative management game. Stock your tiny bookshop with different books and items, set up shop in scenic locations, and run your cozy second-hand bookshop while getting to know the locals.
Rating: T
Price: TBA ($19.99 on other platforms)

A port of a game that’s been available elsewhere for a bit, but if this flavor of cozy is a setup that you find interesting, Qualbert was into it: “Tiny Bookshop would be a perfectly steeped cup of chamomile tea: calming, warm, and slightly floral. It won’t jolt you awake or set your heart racing, but it will leave you feeling quietly content, and maybe, just maybe, make you want to re-organise your bookshelf in real life.”

• Cleaning Up! (PS5, PS4, Switch 2, Switch, PC) — April 15

Description: Turn huge messes into sparkling spaces! Feel the satisfaction of restoring them to order with your super-powered cleaning tools. The quick, cozy joy of tidying up!
Rating: E
Price: $14.99

We’ve yet to dive too deep into multiplayer games because the gap between my five-year-old and nine-year-old feels like it’s a setup for a fight. Cleaning Up! ;ooks fun, though, and LadiesGamers was into a demo from last year: “this is a fun, simple game.”

• Mouse: P.I. For Hire (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, Switch, PC) — April 16

Description: Join private investigator Jack Pepper on a guns blazing, jazz-fueled adventure in MOUSE: P.I. For Hire. MOUSE combines the charm of hand-drawn rubber hose animation inspired by the classic cartoons of the 1930’s with the adrenaline and action of an explosive first person shooter.
Rating: T
Price: $29.99

You know, this one probably skirts the line with younger players, but I can also imagine kids, much like horror, being interested in a game with such cartoonish visuals. The early impressions on the game been good, too, with GambingBible saying the game “oozes style, charisma, and a unique seediness that only the noir era can provide.” Mostly makes me want a Cuphead sequel. Where’s that studio’s next game?

• Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream (Switch) — April 16

Description: What if you, your family, friends, or others lived on your very own island? In Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, you can create Mii characters and do just that! Take care of your Miis, have them meet each other, get all sorts of items for island decorating, and plenty more. Plus, with local wireless, you and a friend can send each other your custom-made Miis and items!
Rating: E
Price: $59.99

One of the best descriptions I’ve heard for this game—which I have access to but haven’t yet played—is that you’re overseeing an ant farm. It’s not The Sims. Nintendo Everything described it as a “charming little community simulator” with a “focus on easy and fun interactions felt a lot like a low-stakes sitcom that I could drive.”

• Kiln (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC) — April 23

Description: Create your pot, grab your friends, and join a team of colorful spirits who face off against one another in online arenas, where the ceramic creations you sculpt on a pottery wheel become the bodies you bring into battle.
Rating: E10+
Price: $19.99

The line for Kiln was packed at PAX East. Being onto something does not mean that it’ll become a successful—lord knows what Microsoft even deems a success these days—but it’s no shock that Double Fine has probably landed on something really fun.

• Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth (Switch 2, Switch, PC) — April 27

Description: From the creators of Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley comes a heartwarming new adventure inspired by the beloved Moomin stories by Tove Jansson. This time, join Moomintroll himself on a charming but cold winter journey.
Rating: TBA (Likely E)
Price: TBA (The previous game is currently $19.99)

Had my eye on this, so stay tuned—I might chat with these developers soon. Gaming Trend characterized their response to the game in a really interesting way, saying “Moomin, despite being a cartoon, still tackles a lot of relevant themes as its first game talked about authority and greed paired with an ongoing urbanization crisis.”

• He-Man & the Masters of the Universe: Dragon Pearl of Destruction (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC) — April 28

Description: He-Man, Teela, Man-at-Arms, and more are coming to a brand new hack ‘n slash ’n magic adventure! Battle across Eternia in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Dragon Pearl of Destruction!
Rating: TBA
Price: TBA

There are as many nostalgic beat ‘em up games as there are cozy games, in that you can find one for whatever nostalgic property is your favorite. He-Man is not one of mine, but maybe it is one of yours? (I did not think the movie trailer looked good.)

• FIFA Heroes (iOS, Android) — April 28

Description: Step onto the pitch like never before in FIFA Heroes, the ultimate arcade football game where every match is packed with supercharged action, unique powers, and fast-paced fun. Forget the slow build-up of traditional football – here it’s 5v5 battles, 90 second matches, and nonstop thrills.
Rating: TBA
Price: TBA

The first game produced by FIFA since the organization split with Electronic Arts, who continues to make soccer games without the branding. They’re not doing the sim route with FIFA Heroes, instead making a free-to-play (uh oh) “arcade football” game. It’s coming to mobile platforms first, but apparently it’s headed to consoles soon after.

• Winx Club: The Magic Is Back (PlayStation 5, Switch, PC) — April 30

Description: Something strange is happening at Alfea and it looks like the Trix are behind it!

Join the Winx on a brand-new magical adventure, uncover the mystery, and help save the school of fairies once again. Are you ready to transform and play?
Rating: E
Price: $29.99

Look, I think you, your children, and God know what you’re in for if you buy this.

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The first time I played Super Mario Bros. Wonder with my children was a delight—and a disaster. They fought over wanting to play as the same character (Peach). My youngest, who was three at the time, had no competence with a controller. The game’s “easy” mode was a punishment where she had to play as Nabbit, who couldn’t even transform into one of Wonder’s signature features: being a cool elephant. She hated it.

In the end, my three-year-old stopped playing. The family eventually stopped, too, except for Dad, who played many, many hours of Wonder and unlocked all its secrets.

The Switch 1 version came out in 2023. It’s 2026, and my children now nine and five. They’ve played a lot of new platformers, chiefly Astro Bot. And I’m happy to report the Switch 2 version of Wonder, which arrives this week as a $80 (!!) standalone release or $20 upgrade, is a much more family-friendly version of an excellent 2D Mario game.

Is there $20 worth of new stuff for older players who’ve already played Wonder? Nah.

The new multiplayer modes are fun enough, and I’m a huge fan of the Toad Brigade Training Camp mode that tasks the player with conquering an increasingly difficult (and increasingly clever!) set of one-off trials, such as having to survive a stage while being “invincible” the whole time, or not touching a coin. You’ll get a few hours out of it. I would happily play a more fleshed out version, but otherwise, this is a nicer-looking version of a 2023 game. There’s also a series of largely mediocre new boss fights that you get bored of halfway through. If you haven’t played Wonder, it’s great!

Is there $20 worth of new stuff for families looking for a more accessible Wonder?

Yes!

My children are not interested in playing Wonder—or many games, really—as an exercise in challenge. They’re distractions, or role-playing exercises, with friends and family. Your house might be different. But that’s how my kids use games, and now, Wonder is immediately one of those games we’ll be reaching for every few nights.

(Well, in-between obsessively watching Stranger Things. A post for another day.)

The important family-centric additions to Wonder’s Switch 2 version are as follows:

• Assist Mode: Payers do not die. Players do not even lose their power up upgrade, like being an elephant, if hit. Falling in a pit means you can fly back wherever you want.

No more sending children to Nabbit Jail; Assist Mode works on every character.

Not losing your power-ups after being hit is so smart. I watched with dread as my five-year-old, happily bouncing around as Elephant Rosalina, sprinted towards a goomba. Instead of shrinking, she character briefly flickered—acknowledging the contact—before she was allowed to keep going. Perfect. No notes. When she wanted to change power-ups, I’d drop the one she was looking for from the sky and we’d move on.

Our one issue?

Learning to hold jump long enough. But hey, we’ll get there. The “get there” part is why I’m so happy with Assist Mode, because it means my five-year-old can focus on properly learning how to jump in the game while playing with me and her sister. She doesn’t feel left behind or judged. She can work on quietly getting better at jumping.

Or not. (In this clip, I had to use her controller.)

Last note: Assist Mode is on or off for everyone. It’s not player-specific. Your mileage may vary if one person is looking for a challenge but another requires Assist Mode on.

• Camera Lock: The camera can either bounce between different characters at the whim of what Wonder deems most interesting—or you can lock the camera to player one.

It’s not fun when the camera leaves a player behind. You had less control over that in the original Wonder, whereas now, if you make yourself player one and lock the camera, you can do the equivalent of holding your child’s hand and crossing the street.

(Side note: I wish every character had a “grab” function like Yoshi, so you could carry players from one platform to another during a tricky sequence. This new version has many great additions to keep a level moving, but give Yoshi’s feature to everyone!)

• Casual Co-Op: The addition of Rosalina from Super Mario Galaxy also comes with the addition of Luna, her star companion. Luna cannot get hurt or die and can freely roam the screen to bust blocks, destroy enemies, and otherwise help the other “normal” players.

My children fought over who would be Peach in the original Wonder. Now, with both kids amped for the new movie, they fought over who could be Luna in this version.

We settled on swapping who played as Luna every other level, though over time, my nine-year-old became our Luna, while my five-year-old swapped from one character to another. Characters she picked? Peach, Daisy, Rosalina, Toadette, and Blue Yoshi.

You will notice that she did not pick Nabbit. Nobody picked Nabbit.

(I will laugh really hard if Nabbit shows up in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.)

What didn’t work for us? The list of complaints is small shorter this time. No tears!

Like most (all?) Nintendo releases, none of the text is voiced, which means I’m reading what’s happening to my five-year-old, or asking my nine-year-old to do the same.

Also, the five-year-old was regularly confused by the buttons being different when you put a Joy-Con on its side. I’m not sure what Nintendo could do. But she would get used to what “A” or B” meant and then look at her sideways controller and feel lost.

As with Pokémon Pokopia, I asked my kids to write a review. I had had hoped to spend more time with the game over the past few weeks—thankfully, Nintendo is now granting Crossplay early access to some of its games—but the whims of life, the never-ending draw of an evening Stranger Things episode, and spring break limited our time.

Still, here’s what my children had to day.

For my five-year-old, I wrote down what she told me to fill in.

For my nine-year-old, obviously, she can write on her own.

Dang, 7/10. I’m sorry, Nintendo.

If your kid would like to produce a review of Wonder, which I promise to publish in the future alongside other reviews folks have sent, I’ve published a template below.

Crossplay Review

262KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Lastly, I leave you with the cutest moment of this experience. My five-year-old was wondering where “regular” Toad was, and when Captain Toad showed up, she flipped into goofy hysterics and kept calling Toad her “true love.” No, I don’t get it, either.

Incredible stuff.

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Also:

• I thought I’d played every secret level in Wonder, but apparently not. I’m really excited to dig into the last final secrets of Wonder that I somehow missed out on.

• We’re setting up for a really exciting future for Mario, between whatever is coming next for 3D Mario and whatever sequel we’re inevitably getting to Wonder.

• Maybe it’s time for me to just revisit Super Mario Odyssey, a game that I played a whole lot of, but I left many, many moons on the table by the time I finished it.

During last year’s Halloween parade at my children’s school, there were two constants among the kids: KPop Demon Hunters and young adult horror you’ve probably heard of, like Five Nights at Freddy’s, and young adult horror you might not have heard of, like Poppy’s Playtime. The face of Poppy’s Playtime is a blue monster named Huggy Wuggy.

There is a good chance, at least, that you’re familiar with that ugly mug above.

Poppy’s Playtime, a survival horror series kicked off by a retired toy employee who returns to an abandoned factory to only stumble into the former toys having become monsters, is one of many horror worlds conceived in the wake of Five Nights at Freddy’s. Huggy Wuggy wouldn’t appear until 2021. Freddy Fazbear started in 2014.

But they both are enormously popular with younger audiences, even if those audiences often do not play the games and may not even like being scared that much.

So popular, in fact, that eight-year-old children wear Huggy Wuggy costumes. (It’s a cool design!) There are toys at Target. And, of course, there are plans to turn Huggy Wuggy into a movie. It’s a world that’s expanding beyond games, even if games remain a big part of Poppy’s Playtime. A new chapter—the fifth—came out last month.

George Krstic was hired last year to become “senior director of creative development for film and games” at Mob Entertainment, the company behind Poppy’s Playtime. The press release announcing Krstic’s hire used flashy (and often ominous) buzzwords like “transmedia,” aka we want to be more than just a game. Krstic has spent decades writing for games (League of Legends) and TV (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Transformers: War for Cybertron), which makes him a decent and interesting match for Huggy Wuggy.

“We make a game for many types of people, many types of players, and some of those are children,” said Krstic. “We want to have stories that they can relate to. Some of our main characters are children. We want to keep that in the frame of mind as we’re telling these stories.”

Like Five Nights at Freddy’s, the Poppy’s Playtime games are rated “T” by the ESRB:

“As players use robotic arms to interact with the environment, they can be surprised by dramatic jump scares. Monsters/toys are killed by various means: a monster crushed under a falling gate; a toy caught in a grinding machine, screaming while slowly crushed; a toy electrocuted, resulting in toxic gas and burning. Blood-splatter effects accompany monster/toy deaths, and several environments are stained/splattered with blood. Some black-and-white surveillance footage depicts human characters killed by toys, with corpses strewn on the ground. The words “p*ssed off” appear in the game.”

Children being attracted to scary stories is not new. It’s also not new for companies to be actively pushing it on children. I mean, they made goddamn Robocop toys, and the gap between the violence in Robocop and Poppy’s Playtime is several oceans wide.

“Children are drawn to danger and darkness and boundaries, right?” said Krstic. “They just naturally do that. Why are you walking into traffic? Why are you going into the closet? Why are you picking up that knife? It’s like they’re drawn to it. I think that’s how they find themselves.”

Our family is in the midst of watching Stranger Things together. My wife and I have seen the whole series, but all the marketing around the final season nabbed the attention of my children and we’ve been working our way through Hawkins, usually one episode at a time. (This week, we wrapped up season three and everyone, including me, was a mess at the end.) It’s a scary show, one that explicitly pulls on all sorts of 80s horror tropes that defined my own first encounters with being scared by a piece of media, and it’s clear my kids are using it to push their own boundaries, too.

My nine-year-old, for example, has spoiled the series by watching endless videos. But it’s been useful, because my five-year-old (almost six!) will get upset and scared when someone is in danger and ask her sister to spoil the show to make her feel better.

“I think that there’s a flavor of that to [Poppy],” said Krstic. “Our character design team, they’re just brilliant in that they match creepy with cute. They give you the right balance, where it doesn’t edge too far into body horror or threatening horror. And then also it’s very appealing and approachable and cute.”

Gremlins were cute. Pennywise is less cute, but you still see kids imitating him. You can see why kids might think characters from Poppy’s Playtime, like CatNap, are cute:

“We worked with George Lucas closely to create the Clone Wars,” said Krstic. “There was a moment where we realized we needed to speak to a younger audience, because the initial path forward was was pretty adult. Then, we created Ahsoka. She was our eyes in to the story. Someone younger, someone that people can relate to that maybe don’t know [Star Wars] and are a different generation. That was a big learning [moment] that I’m constantly taking forward— know your audience, know their POVs, and always build on ramps and not broken ladders.”

“On ramps and not broken ladders” is a great way to put it. Part of Stranger Things’ magic is how the characters function as a nostalgic hook for adults and point-of-view for a younger audience. “Young” is relative. A teenager can look at Nancy. A grade school kid can look at Dustin or Eleven. My five-year-old even has someone like Holly.

It makes perfect sense, then, for worlds like Poppy’s Playtime to take similar lessons. It’s part of an ongoing cycle of kids seeking out ways to feel afraid (and safe) at the same time. The difference these days is we’re using “transmedia” to describe it, when it’s really not much different than what was happening for me as a child of the 90s.

“It’s like it’s that dark ride at Disneyland. when your child is holding your hand but still enjoying themselves,” said Krstic. “I think that’s where we are. That emotion that we’re trying to capture where it’s like, ‘Are we going to be okay?’ But deep inside, you know are going to be okay.”

Also, let’s just be clear: jump scares are fun.

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Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.

Also:

• The Poppy’s Playtime games seem like better “games” than Five Nights at Freddy’s, though I have to admit I’ve only played the security camera ones.

• We are considering buying tickest to see the Stranger Things animated premiere in movie theaters, though regrettably the nearest theater is nearly an hour away.

• Okay, by “considering” I mean that I just purchased tickets, because if my kids found out we could watch it in a movie theater and didn’t, they would kill me.

Not long ago, “learn to code” was a phrase that was used online as an insult and was pretty decent advice. Computers are the future, and the future would need coders.

But it feels like a fraught time to make any predictions about what the technology landscape will be like for my children when they’re adults. Much of the AI revolution is overhyped, but it’s undeniable that AI, now and in the future, will bring change.

“We’re cautiously optimistic about its [AI’s] impact on coding,” said Ed Kim, the VP of Education at Code Ninjas, the chain of stores that promise to help teach your kids how to code (and make video games). “The workforce or the needs for the workforce or coders is going to decrease. But there’s still going to need to be hyper-specialization in computer science jobs over time.”

Code Ninjas was founded in 2016 and has quickly expanded across the country.

For years, my children have been taking swimming lessons at a place that’s next door to a Code Ninjas spot. My nine-year-old does not know what “code” is, but she does think computers are cool and ninjas are neat, so nearly every time we’d arrive for swimming lessons, she’d look at me and ask when she could try out Code Ninjas, too.

A few months back, she got that chance. Code Ninjas was interested in an interview, and I asked if it was okay if my daughter sat in on a few lessons, while I observed.

The basic pitch of Code Ninjas, as Kim put it, is obviously attractive to a child: “to ignite [their] passion for learning how to code and create through video games.”

That pitch immediately landed on my kid, too, who spent a few weeks working one-on-one with an instructor to draw pixel art for her medieval fantasy game, learn some basic theory about code, and came away interested in revisiting the experience when she’s a little older. She’s crafty at heart, so Code Ninjas spoke to her primary interests.

“Our pedagogy comes from Mitchel Resnick, who wrote a book called Lifelong Kindergartner,” said Kim, “and we also follow Seymour Papert, who created constructionism out of MIT, in terms of education philosophy. The whole idea is that we’re forever kids, and the best way to learn is to play, to find a medium that we enjoy. To learn through that medium is the best way to learn.”

Prior to Code Ninjas, Kim spent more than a decade at the college prep company C2 Education, where he rose in the ranks from a mere tutor to becoming an executive.

Whatever the impact of AI on the job market, coaxing children into learning through games makes sense. There’s so much cross disciplinary creativity in video games, and it provides an opportunity for you to see it one, or more, speaks to you. Maybe you’re not going to become a concept artist, but hey, you can still put some pixels together.

(That was, far and away, my daughter’s favorite part. The coding theory was fine, but it was an obstacle to be defeated in pursuit of being able to go back to crafting pixel art.)

Children at Code Ninjas work their way up, over time, to independence.

“The students you see coming in either started off as very independent learners and their parents told us as such, or they became confident, comfortable in our classrooms,” said Kim.

At the start, students use what’s called “block-based code”—aka, visual-based coding to convey the concepts of writing actual code—before they move onto JavaScript, then later C#, at which point they’ll even become familiar with common tools like Unity.

My daughter likes working with teachers. She dropped an art class because, in her words, “they told us to draw something and then played on their phone.” In the classes I observed, it was a mixture of kids working one-on-one, following along with an instructor as part of a group, or if the kids were older (think teenager), on their own.

I mean mostly as compliment: Code Ninjas has a daycare vibe. Any aftercare program is going to cost you a ton, and in many cases, it might just be adults hanging around, making sure everyone is staying safe. Building a video game isn’t a bad alternative.

“Sometimes locations have an aftercare option to add to your cart when you enroll with us,” said Kim, “because they know it’s all nine-to-six-o-clock working parents and they need three hours of babysitting and they’re like ‘Hey, at least make it productive.’ Absolutely we get that.”

That vibe could be different at different Code Ninjas locations, though; it’s a franchise model, which means anyone can apply to build and run a Code Ninjas, much like a fast food restaurant. If someone’s interested in opening a Code Ninjas, they can apply right on the website and start a conversation with the company. Kim, who has been with Code Ninjas for almost three years, admits the process used to be a little fast.

“For the new owners, it used to be just training around sales and the point of sale system,” said Kim. “It didn’t really go into the pedagogy, the marketing practices, the operational behaviors, any of that other stuff that you need to build a successful business. That’s why we have a whole week now.”

The reviews for locations in our area—there are a handful—are generally positive.

When it comes to instructors, there is a training program, but Kim said Code Ninjas emphasizes less technical expertise and more “How good they are with kids?”

“Are they making them smile?” he said. “Are they teaching them effectively? Some of our best teachers are actually summer camp counselors across the country.”

Alongside that, Code Ninjas now has summer camps, clubs, and other ways for children to find their way in the building. A description like that might conjure an image of a business that’s overflowing with children coming in and out—and perhaps some locations do have that. In our case, it was much more chill. Fewer kids. A handful of children swapping out for another handful on a random weekday evening.

(My kid was usually swinging by after an early dinner. The location closed at 7:00 p.m.)

It does not appear we’re about to become a Code Ninjas family, but I’m not ruling it out. Plus, we’re gearing up for my five-year-old to have swim lessons again, which means we’ll be walking near a Code Ninjas. I’ll have to see what my daughter says.

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Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.

Also:

• If you have experience with Code Ninjas, would love to hear about them in the comments. I suspect experiences could vary wildly between different locations.

• If you have suggestions for alternatives to Code Ninjas, also drop this in comments. My kid has asked about ways she can “make her own app or game.”

The term “AI” has become misleading, confusing, and aggravating. “AI” can mean what an enemy does in response to the player in a game, the audio and visual output of generative “AI” technologies, corporate slop mean to send a company’s stock price soaring by mere AI association, and increasingly, somewhere vaguely in-between.

What’s happening in Roblox is somewhere vaguely in-between, as I outlined in a recent story. What’s worrying for parents is how often AI “upgrades” are without consent, and the assumptions being made by companies is that it’s always positive.

There are two AI-related developments in Roblox I wanted to highlight.

AI Update #1: (More) AI Comes to Roblox Chat

First, the new: deploying AI to “rephrase messages that break safety rules.”

In the past, if you said “HURRY TF UP,” aka “HURRY THE FUCK UP,” in public chat, the platform would try to catch the infringing language and change it to “####.”

If you’ve ever been in a popular Roblox game with a robust public chat, otherwise known as experience chat, it’s very common to see “####” spammed all over. (In most cases, I’m guessing it’s users pushing the limits of the system to troll everyone else.)

“To help keep chat flowing and respectful, we’re enhancing our chat filters and rephrasing profanity to words that are within our guidelines,” said the company in an announcement about the latest changes to Roblox chat moderation. “This is the first step on our long-term path to reducing #### for a more natural chat experience.”

Having automated moderation combing chat boxes in online games for swearing, harassment, bullying, and other issues is not exclusive to Roblox. It’s standard.

Repeatedly getting hit with “####” in chat results in a Roblox user being muted for longer periods, with the possibility of “suspensions or bans,” per Roblox’s policies.

Going forward, “HURRY TFUP” does not become “####,” it becomes “Hurry up!”

Well, “might become,” because Roblox says it’s “still at the beginning with rephrasing and providing more context to users when text is blocked.” It’s focused on “profanity.”

When a correction occurs, the user who typed the phrase is told it’s being rephrased.

Over time, the company says, the goal is to entirely eliminate “####” from Roblox chat.

For the moment, it’s also limited to public/experience chat.

“In its current state, this technology is specific to in-experience text chat,” said a company spokesperson. “As a reminder, you can only chat after you age check and with those in your own age group and similar age groups, as appropriate—unless they are Trusted Connections.” (Trusted Connections is its own tier of “friend” on Roblox.)

AI Update #2: What Is an “Extended Interaction?

When I last wrote about Roblox and AI, I noted how easy it was to find Roblox games connecting to chatbots like ChatGPT to allow a conversational back-and-forth. Roblox does not allow parents to explicitly block games that use AI, which means that even if you’re not allowing chatbots use in your house through ChatGPT or Gemini, it’s entirely possible your child is interfacing with a chatbot through a Roblox game.

What the company told me at the time was that they “require creators to disclose if they are using AI interactions in their experience, and creators who have extended AI interactions receive a content maturity rating of Restricted (18+).”

Naturally, I had a follow-up: How does Roblox define an “extended AI interaction”?

Here is what a company spokesperson told me in response:

“‘Extended interactions’ are defined as ongoing, unlimited conversations between users and AI systems. For example, if users spend most of their time talking to an AI NPC, this would be an extended interaction. However, brief conversations with an AI NPC during regular gameplay would not qualify as extended interactions. Any experience designed primarily for extended interactions will receive a ‘Restricted’ content rating.’”

When you dig into an example of an AI-driven Roblox experience, like Talk to Character AI, you get immediate disclaimers about why it’s not “extended”:

[DISCLAIMER: The game meets all requirements to be classified as “Al Interactions (Limited)” because it’s not possible to save conversations, daily messages are limited, and therefore it’s not possible to interact with the Al continuously.]

That feels like splitting hairs?

Put aside that Roblox refuses to define what “brief” means, but it only reinforces my desire for the company to incorporate a parental control that blocks children from engaging with Roblox games that use AI, whether ChatGPT or Roblox’s own tools. I shouldn’t have to play whack-a-mole and block access by peering over their shoulder.

But hey, you’ve got me. I’ll keep peering over Roblox’s shoulder for you!

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Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.

Also:

• The quotes from Roblox’s Teen Council in their chat announcement are a little sus. But it’s probably how a teenager would sound filtered through corporate PR.

• It does feel like my nine-year-old’s new Fortnite interest in sticking; we had an incredible moment this week I’ll share more about very soon. Letting it play out.

• Naturally, our Fortnite interest comes as a price increase hits V-Bucks. Right now, we’ve punted on the Battle Pass because the current chapter is unappealing.

Most of what you hear on Crossplay comes from the perspective of parents and caregivers. On some level, that’s what Crossplay was about from day one, trying to cultivate a community for frank and honest discussions about screen time, the stress of Roblox, and more. But I’d like more voices from kids here, and I cannot always rely on my own kids, because unlike me, there is more to their life than games, I guess.

(Again, unless you don’t count Roblox. Then, they play a lot of video games! And I do consider Roblox to be, largely, a video game. It’s just one that sucks up so much time, and I don’t want every post on Crossplay to be about Roblox, even though it could be.)

But when I reviewed Pokémon Pokopia with my nine-year-old, I gave her an assignment. She’s in fourth grade, which is when homework, book reports, and other things have kicked into gear. Sometimes, I’ll have my phone record our conversations while we play video games, but in the case, I thought: why not give her a book report?

This is what she handed in last week:

Then, another thought occurred: maybe I should make this a template for everyone!

So here you go:

Crossplay Review

262KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Please share what your kids have to say about games! You can send copies of their reports to my email address, and once I’ve got a batch, I’ll share them with everyone.

It’s perfectly okay, too, if you have to write the report for them—or help them. I’d like to get my five-year-old involved with this in the future, too, and while she’s at the early stages of putting together reading and writing, she can’t do it on her own just yet.

Get writing, kiddos!

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Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.

Also:

• I survived another week with my kids as a solo dad, only for both children to get sick at the end of the weekend, right as my wife returned from her long work trip.

• My nine-year-old is obsessed with Snoopy, and I just got early access to the new Snoopy video game. Will she care for it? I have no idea, but I’ll report back soon.

• She is, however, re-obsessed with Fortnite. I’ve even had to put parental controls onto her Switch. She’s pitching me on a two TV gaming setup for her and I. It’s a lot. I’ll have more to say next week, because I can’t tell if this is another phase.

My son is six, and we’ve been playing games together for well over a year now. I wanted to give him the gift of this hobby that’s meant so much to me. Most of all, I wanted to be the dad I always wanted to have: someone who’d be there to support, to cheer, and to share in all of his fun adventures.

Pokémon Legends Z-A was shaping up to be a really special game for us. It was the first Pokémon game that we’d start playing at the same time. We dissected trailers, talked about our starter choices, even decided what we’d nickname our pokémon. And this time, I wouldn’t have the advantage of going first. My son was thrilled at the idea of being on an equal footing with me.

But he really struggled with it. Z-A isn’t turn-based like other Pokémon games. It’s a real-time action game, and a relatively unforgiving one. You don’t have time to think about your next attack and pick it out from a menu. You’ve got to work out your strategy while trying to lock on to an opposing pokémon that’s moving around, then quickly pressing one of four face buttons corresponding to the attack you want to use. In other games, the battle pauses when you switch out your pokémon, but that doesn’t happen in Z-A. You have to remember what the best counter is while tapping away on the Switch’s fiddly D-pad to throw out the correct pokémon as soon as possible.

Frankly, I had trouble getting to grips with this new system, and I’ve been playing Pokémon games for 30 years. My son still struggles to use both analog sticks at once to walk and move the camera, so this was a lot to deal with. He doesn’t like to lose, and he started getting angry and frustrated.

I sat by while he took on the single-player story and online battle modes, offering encouragement and chipping in with advice. I played up the stories of my own defeats, to show him he wasn’t alone and to keep his spirits up. But, privately, I wondered if this new action-based battle system was just too much for him.

He got discouraged. He stopped playing and went back to his old standby, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Fair enough, I said. Games are meant to be fun, and if you’re not having fun it’s okay to play something else. Z-A will always be there when you’re ready.

The next week was full of work and other commitments that kept me away from playing games. One day, locked in my home office, I thought I heard the sounds of Z-A coming from the living room. He must be dipping his toes back in, I thought. Good lad.

Then I heard a shout of triumph and the rapid patter of small feet. “Daddy! I did it! I made it to Rank D!”

Wait. What?

Last time I saw him in the campaign, he was nowhere near Rank D. So he jumped five ranks and defeated a whole string of bosses in just a few days… all by himself?

I started to leave the office door open to pay a little more attention to what was happening. I heard him win and I heard him lose, but it was what I didn’t hear that was more important.

There were no grunts of frustration. No angry yells. No blame, no excuses. Once I even heard him calmly explain to his little sister exactly what he’d done wrong in that last battle.

This was welcome, but shocking, because it’s not what he’s like around me. He’s not patient about solving problems and lashes out when things go poorly. It’s the controller’s fault, or someone else’s fault for distracting him. Even when he’s not playing against me, defeats seem to hit harder when I’m around. Without me, though, he seemed to be taking it in his stride, constantly popping in to the office to tell me how he was doing.

It was hard not to come to a difficult conclusion: Is it me? Am I the problem here?

I like to think that I am being a positive presence, but I could also see how I might be making things worse. Maybe he feels pressure to perform in front of me. Maybe he’s less patient about solving problems because he’s sitting next to the guy with all the answers. Maybe he gets frustrated faster because he knows that I could tell him exactly what to do, but by trying to nudge him towards discovering the solution for himself, he thinks I’m withholding.

As he kept running into the office to announce his latest triumphs, I realized there was a simple solution here: just stay away. Give him his own space to play.

Except, well, I don’t want to do that. I want to be the dad of a family that games together. I want to be involved in my son’s hobbies. But one thing kept gnawing away at me: isn’t that selfish? Surely that would mean prioritizing my needs over his.

I was thinking about all this over the next few days when he came into the office yet again. He was about to reach the top rank in online battles — some achievement for a boy who, days before, couldn’t consistently use the shoulder buttons to lock on to opposing Pokémon. And he wanted me to come outside to be there to witness the moment he achieves his goal and to celebrate with him.

What I’d missed in all my self-centered deliberations was that he was never mad at me. He took defeats poorly when I was around, sure, but at no point did he actually want me to step away. I spent all that time worrying so much about doing what I thought was most fun for him that I missed out on what he really wanted, which was more time with me.

We still play together as much as my work schedule allows. Sure, he still gets frustrated and lashes out when he loses. And yes, I still suspect that I am an unintentional source of pressure.

But I also know that win or lose, he wants his dad there, so that’s where I’ll be.

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I had a plan for Sunday afternoon: fly back from a weekend-without-kids-in-a-very-sunny-and-warm-place getaway with my wife and write up a a Pokémon Pokopia review on my flight back. Then, my flight was delayed—and delayed. And delayed. And then it was cancelled. And then I had a layover in Dallas, with a 45-minute layover that also required me to jet through customs and take an airport train to another terminal. Deep breaths, Patrick. But I was anxious, annoyed, and really tired.

Normally, having anyone else around—a friend, my wife, the kids—would calm my nerves, or at least force me to put on a brave face in Dad Mode. But alone, I felt a creeping sense of “this is too much.” Typically, I am not a “cozy game” person, but in this moment, dang was I thankful to have Pokémon Pokopia, a new collaboration between Koei Tecmo and Nintendo that’s out this week on Switch 2, in my backpack.

Amidst this stress, there was no greater relief than quietly collecting 20 stones.

Pokémon Pokopia has often been described (including here at Crossplay) as a mashup of Animal Crossing and Minecraft. Having played a number of hours of Pokémon Pokopia on my own and with my nine-year-old daughter, I’m less convinced about the Minecraft part. There’s ample world customization in Pokémon Pokopia, but at its heart, this is a lighthearted game about slowly bringing a world—and a community—to life, one fetch quest at a time. At least in the portion that I played, you cannot make quick and sweeping changes to the world in the way you can when you’ve learned to really wield the tools of Minecraft. It’s charming and calmingly repetitive, but for most people, I don’t think the latter will be a problem. If anything, it’s a part of the pitch!

The basic setup: you’re a Ditto, aka the transforming pokémon, and you’ve taken on the form of a human. You arrive in a place where there are no pokémon or humans. The land is dry, busted up, and in need of a caring hand. Pokémon Pokopia is a task-based game. Collect 20 of these, find 15 of those. It’s slow. The basic loop is building little homes (i.e. a patch of grass) to attract new pokémon, asking those pokémon what they want to feel better (i.e. more food, a cool toy), and gaining new pokémon powers along the way, like the ability to vomit water onto the ground, terraforming the land.

(Watching that animation never, ever gets old.)

In a world of chaos and anxiety, Pokémon Pokopia is a leisurely balm. You aren’t sure what to do, friend? Don’t worry, Pokémon Pokopia has a task for you. It’ll only take a moment, and at the end, you’ll have something cool, hear a neat chime, and someone will thank you for taking time to make them feel a little happier and more comfortable.

When I played an hour of Pokémon Pokopia a while back, I mused on the difference between how I approach video games like this and how my children approach them.

I tend to look at games like this as busywork (derogatory), but my kids look at games like this as busywork (complimentary), because games about organizing and task completions scratch an itch in their brains that doesn’t exist in mine. Our tastes are polar opposites! But I do get real joy out of helping my kids out, and it’s not hard to look at Pokémon Pokopia as a game that might work differently for both my children, and open up forms of overlapping play that gives them (and us) opportunities together.

There is no greater catnip for my two children than a video game where you can organize things. However, they are impatient. They don’t want to grind. Much of this is driven by their ongoing obsession with Minecraft’s creative mode, where they can interface with the world entirely through their own imagination. Whatever object you want, you can have. But that’s not how most games work. Friction—good friction—is core to the experience. At least, that’s the way it’s been so far. In a post-Roblox world, what role is there for “good friction,” and are we headed towards a generational gap?

A question whose answer is too big for this story—and this one game.

But it is a charming game, though describing Pokémon Pokopia as “little” feels like a grand betrayal of a game that very obviously is interested in absorbing gobs and gobs of time. It’s both grand in scope and miniature in the moment-to-moment. It takes time to walk from one section to another, collecting lots of materials s along the way. Time spent waiting for pokémon to finish turning your wood logs into lumber or to build a house. Sometimes, as with the wood logs, you have no idea when the task will be completed. You just come back later. Other times, such as the house construction, the game tells you to come back in 15, 20, 30 minutes, to see what they’ve done.

Go away, suggests Pokémon Pokopia. Find another task. There’s always another.

There is no hurrying Pokémon Pokopia. Even while waiting, there’s surely something else to do. A creature that needs your attention. Or a specific amount of items that you need to collect to complete a goal. Accomplishing that nets you coins to buy things in the shop, which is also helping you complete other goal that net you more coins th—are you starting to get it? Have I told you there are “daily” quests, too?

These games are in the eye of the beholder. I can blink at Pokémon Pokopia and go “I bet people are going to really like this,” even when I feel myself chafing at what feels like endless downtime. These are often not my kinds of games, even if I cannot say I had anything resembling a “bad” time in the hours I spent helping my pokémon buddies. But I also felt like there was a better source than myself: my nine-year-old.

Over the past week, she’s dipped in and out. I asked her to play the opening hours, while I sat on the couch, and observed how she responded to it. (Nintendo does not allow me to play games over GameShare ahead of release, so I have not been able to test my ideal setup: my kids playing in “my” world while on their Switches. Stay tuned.) It went a bit like how I expected: many questions about why you could do this and not that. Why do I have to wait to do this when I actually want to do that? I get it.

But she’s also in fourth grade now, which also means she’s doing book reports. So I asked her to write her own review of Pokémon Pokopia, based on a form I whipped up.

Very good, kiddo. If you’d like to have your child fill out this review, here’s a template.

Crossplay Review

262KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

(Please send me your children’s reviews, for Pokémon Pokopia and otherwise!!!)

Some takeaways from her review:

• She loves little creatures, so even though she has not played a Pokémon game before, there was a real pop every time a new Pokémon would grace the screen.

• Stranger Things has my nine-year-old on a lore kick, so perhaps I should have had her watch a YouTube video that explains the world of Pokémon before jumping in.

• Squirtle is a good choice. I can’t remember what my starter was for the original?

• Hopefully, we’ll play together when the GameShare restriction lifts.

• The “hehe” really cracked me up.

• She told me the drawing at the bottom was “her idea for a new pokémon for Nintendo to use.” I’m expecting a credit when they reveal this in a future game!

Big picture: I liked Pokémon Pokopia. My nine-year-old liked Pokémon Pokopia, too. As for how it goes when all three of us can play the game? I’ll report back soon on that.

Pokémon Pokopia will be available on March 5 for $69.99 on Switch 2. It supports local multiplayer via GameShare for up to four people, which means the other participants can join the host’s world and can also play using an original Switch. Online multiplayer is also available. The game has “cloud islands” that can be shared between a group and accessed without having to have anyone else in the shared group online and playing at the same time.

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Also:

• The plan was to publish this alongside everyone else’s fancy review when the embargo lifted, and then I fell asleep on my second flight back home. Sorry!

• One dynamic I’m expecting is that I might pluck away at the grind-y aspects of the game, while my nine-year-old enjoys all the fruits of the time I spend in it.

• Task-oriented cozy games work for me more than “find your own things to do!” games, so I’m going to give this a real go. I want to see if it can fit into my life.

Just as the winter itself is beginning to thaw in fits and starts, we’re starting to see more games targeted at kids and families, too, now that we’ve got some meaningful distance from the holidays. (Hey, if you work in games publishing and have insight into how different the rhythm of releasing games for these audiences, let me know!)

The big question for my family this month is Pokemon Pokepia. Animal Crossing burned hot in the house for, uh, exactly a week. Will this be different? Time will tell. (I have my doubts, and it’ll basically have zero reflection on whether the game itself is good.)

If you represent these games and have a potentially interesting story to share about how these games consider kids as part of their audience, do get in touch with me!

• Gnaughty Gnomes (PC) – March 3

Description: Crush your friends in combat by embodying these adorable yet Gnaughty Gnomes! Throw everything you find along the way, choose cards to upgrade your build, change the rules of the game... whatever it takes to win.
Rating: N/A
Price: N/A

This is the same studio who made Bread & Fred, which is a wickedly hard co-op platformer that I would not recommend playing with your children unless they’re platforming experts. Even then, it’s designed to be a good/bad time. Gnaughty Gnomes seems to be playing in the chaos realm, but one that’s likely a little less frustrating.

• Scott Pilgrim EX (PC, PS 4/5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch/Switch 2) — March 3

Description: Scott Pilgrim EX is an action-adventure game where players can fight as Scott Pilgrim, Ramona Flowers and more as they battle through the fractured time and space of Toronto. The combat gameplay is driven by instinct and improvisation—a hectic ballet of fists and flair that rewards strategy, spontaneity, and a good bit of brawling chaos. String together stylish combos, experiment with wacky weapons and unleash over-the-top special attacks. Rating: E10+
Price: $28.99

It’s interesting that Scott Pilgrim EX enters a world of many, many legitimately good (too many, honestly?) beat ‘em ups, when part of the original game’s novelty was how rare that was in 2010. A Nintendo World Report hands-on was positive on the game, but did note “this genre is very crowded and new games that follow its style tend to fall into the same trappings, so it’s encouraging to see Tribute bringing some new ideas to the table that helps to bring the characters, settings and powers to the forefront.”

• Oceanhorn 3: Legend of the Shadow Sea (Apple Arcade) — March 5

Description: Oceanhorn 3: Legend of the Shadow Sea picks up one thousand years after the events of Oceanhorn 2. In this new era, you’ll navigate the treacherous Shadow Sea, accompanied by Em, the infamous technopirate and her rugged crew of Warlock’s Revenge. With the help of familiar faces, such as Blackhat of the Uncharted Seas, you must face the threats slumbering beneath the waves of the Shadow Sea, uncover the mysterious Lost God, and build a future for the people of Red Town.
Rating: 9+
Price: $6.99/month

This series has been going, if you can believe it, since 2013. Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas was/is a Zelda-inspired action adventure game released on basically every platform. The sequel, Oceanhorn 2: Knights of Lost Realm, came out in 2019. It’s wild to see comments in the trailer for Oceanhorn 3: Legend of the Shadow Sea, where people are excited because they’ve been playing the series since they were kids! I have not heard of this series, I have no experience with it, but I think I gotta at least try it?

• Pocket Love!+ (Apple Arcade) — March 5

Description: Welcome to the most wholesome life simulator in town! Shrink down to pocket size and move into a cute new home with your partner and your favorite pet. Everything is smaller, sweeter, and more adorable in the world of Pocket Love!+ Whether you love interior design, dressing up in kawaii fashion, or just need a relaxing game to escape into, this pocket-sized world is waiting for you.
Rating: 9+
Price: $6.99/month

I was putting together this story while my kids were watching an episode of Stranger Things, only for them to peer over at my laptop and go “WHAT’S THAT????” (They love games where you customize a room.) There aren’t a ton of reviews of the non-Apple Arcade version of the game, but the ones that do exist aren’t super kind. Metro said: “Between the mountains of paid content and limited range of things to do, you can’t shrug the sense of stultifying pointlessness in a game that’s not really a game at all.” Yikes! Well, at least the Apple Arcade version won’t have the paid content part?

• Flow Free+ (Apple Arcade) — March 5

Description: Connect matching colors with pipe to create a Flow®. Pair all colors, and cover the entire board to solve each puzzle. But watch out, pipes will break if they cross or overlap! Free play through hundreds of levels, or race against the clock in Time Trial mode. Gameplay ranges from simple and relaxed, to challenging and frenetic, and everywhere in between. How you play is up to you. So, give Flow Free a try, and experience “mind like water”!
Rating: 4+
Price: $6.99/month

A game with hundreds of thousands of reviews on the App Store and more than a million on Google Play. Which isn’t always the case with games that convert to Apple Arcade? Sometimes, they’re shockingly obscure. As is usually the case with mobile games, there aren’t a ton of formal reviews, but ITZZZPERRY on Metacritic had a funny review: “Flow Free is probably the most addictive app I have ever played on the IPhone. Throughout my playthrough, I had one feeling. I had to finish ever last level.”

• Doraemon Dorayaki Shop Story+ (Apple Arcade) — March 5

Description: A game where you run a sweets shop with the popular manga character Doraemon. Let’s make Doraemon’s favorite dorayaki and create a store that will be the talk of the town. First, make the sweets, set up the shelves, prepare the tables, and get ready to run the shop! In addition, various characters from Fujiko • F • Fujio’s works will appear as customers!
Rating: 9+
Price: $6.99/month

Do you remember Game Dev Story? This is the same company behind Game Dev Story. It was so popular they spun off the concept in a ton of different ways, including, it appears, Doraemon. Digitally Dowloaded put it this way: “The problem with Kairosoft games is that they’re inevitably good fun and even compulsive for a while. Once you sit down to one fresh you’re inevitably going to get hooked for a while, be that a few days or a few weeks. But soon after you’ll put it down and completely forget about it.”

• Pokémon Pokopia (Switch 2) — March 5

Description: Shape the world and build a cozy new life with Pokémon! Learn the moves of your fellow Pokémon to change the land, such as Bulbasaur’s Leafage to make the wild grass grow. You can also use abilities to transform and navigate the world around you, like crossing water with Lapras’s Surf.
Rating: E
Price: $69.99

You can look forward to a proper review of this next week—well, you’ll see. I have a concept I’m trying out. My kids love the concept of games where you customize things, but when you actually have to put effort into the “game” part? That’s where it usually falls apart. Generational difference? Lazy children? A little from both of those?

• Planet of Lana II: Children of the Leaf (PS4/5, Xbox Series X/S/One, Switch/Switch 2, PC) – March 5

Description: On Lana and Mui’s home planet, new technology brings progress but also stirs greed and imbalance. As different tribes adopt it in their own ways, tensions grow and the world’s harmony begins to shift. When those seeking power push too far, Lana and her little companion are pulled into a journey that reveals long-buried truths about their planet and about themselves.
Rating: E10+
Price: $19.99

I adored the first game, which was basically a take on “cinematic platformers” like Inside or Limbo, except with a much bigger emphasis on puzzles. Feels like the kind of game that could be neat to play alongside a kid. I can’t tell you what I think of this second game yet, except to suggest that if you like the first, I bet you’ll like the second.

• WWE 2K26 (PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Switch 2) — March 13

Description: Run the world’s greatest show your way and live out your WWE fandom to the fullest. Experience the most expansive gameplay to date with rebellious Legends of the Attitude Era and Superstars of today. Featuring the most stacked lineup in franchise history with 400+ playable WWE Superstars and Legends including The Rock, Triple H, John Cena, Rhea Ripley, and fan-favorites like Rey Fénix, Rusev, and Blake Monroe.
Rating: T
Price: $69.99

Every year one of these come out, I defer to…literally anyone else. Not my thing! IGN seems optimistic about this one, saying: “I have little doubt that WWE 2K26 is set to be the best the series has ever looked, sounded, and felt, and if you’re a WWE obsessive eager to replicate the pageantry at home, then you’ve never had it better.”

• Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection (PC, Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X/S) — March 13

Description: Monster Hunter Stories is an RPG series set in the Monster Hunter world, where you can become a Rider, raising and bonding with your favorite monsters.
Rating: T
Price: $69.99

I’ve requested to check this out! I have not played a previous one! Monster Hunter Wilds did nothing for me! I liked Monster Hunter World! But Polygon feel like this could break out: “It feels like Capcom’s goal is to elevate Monster Hunter Stories, a series that began as a humble Nintendo 3DS spinoff, clearly positioned as a B-game compared to the main series. Monster Hunter Stories 3 sheds that feeling and instead presents something that’s as grand and complex as any modern Monster Hunter game.”

• MLB The Show 26 (PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch) — March 17

Description: Step up and take control of how you leave your mark in the most immersive MLB The Show yet. Discover new Road To The Show mechanics, deeper Franchise experiences, enhanced customization options, and true-to-life on-field action.
Rating: E
Price: $59.99

Ah, baseball. My Chicago Cubs were fun last season, hoping they’re even more fun this season. No one’s had a chance to play this latest installment yet, though the weirdest part is there’s no proper Switch 2 release. Feels like an upgrade candidate later this year. Sadly, Nintendo World Report was not convinced by last year’s Switch version, saying “if you want to play a licensed baseball game and you only have access to Nintendo Switch, MLB The Show 25 will do the trick. This version is an adequate representation of the pristine gameplay design and mode variety the series has been consistently delivering for years, but every aspect of it feels compromised on Switch”

• Disney Dreamlight Valley (Switch 2) — March 25

Description: Disney Dreamlight Valley is a hybrid between a life-sim and an adventure game rich with quests, exploration, and engaging activities featuring Disney and Pixar friends, both old and new.
Rating: E
Price: $39.99

Grind games have never done anything for me, nor do games almost exclusively about customization. But I also know I’m an outlier! All of these are popular! It makes total sense Disney is bringing this to Switch 2! GameSpot’s review of the Switch version basically highlighted my genre issues: “Two concepts clash here: the delightful and whimsical themes that spark the joy of your inner childhood, and the frustrations of time management as you experience the monotonous daily grind as an adult.”

• Neopets: Mega Mini Games Collection (PC, Switch, PS5) — March 26

Description: Journey back to Neopia with 26 classic games, brought back to life for new and returning fans!
Rating: E
Price: $24.99

My first impression: What? My second impression, after some brief research: What?

• Hozy (PC, Mac) — March 30

Description: Restore a forgotten neighbourhood through your favourite hobby, one cozy room at a time. In Hozy, clean, paint, and decorate abandoned homes with satisfying mechanics and intuitive controls. Enjoy the little details as you interact with tools, items and furniture to bring each space back to life.
Rating: N/A
Price: N/A

Oh my god, both of my kids basically did this in response to the trailer: 😍😍😍 The problem is how many of these games, however gorgeous, end up stuck on PC. Little chance this is coming to Switch anytime soon, if it’s coming at all, and I don’t have a great way to have a PC game played on my family room TV. Help me, Steam Machine!

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“Wish Failed. Failed to process Wish. Refunded!”
”COOLDOWN: Please wait before sending another Wish.”

These failure states were the vast majority of my experiencing trying to get Roblox’s new AI tool to produce a “Nintendo Switch,” some “Pokemon,” and at one point, a “naked lady,” in a Roblox experience called Wish Master. The experience uses text prompts to search a Roblox model database and, at times, tapping genuine AI to make objects. It did, after a few attempts, try to make a Switch. What I got, though, was this:

Not sure about that button layout, buddy. And no, it did not produce a “naked lady.”

Wish Master was recently promoted by Roblox as part of pushing its new “4D generation” AI efforts, which bring AI tools beyond developers and into players’ hands. Wish Master, which has been played 3.5 million times, promises “a sandbox game where your wishes shape the world from simple objects to mind bending creations” and a chance to “wish for almost anything and let AI bring it to life!”

“Today, players can use Wish Master’s Basic, Pro, and 4D generation options to create all manner of objects,” reads the announcement from Roblox earlier this month. “Laksh [the game developer] and the team have big plans for Wish Master, including a new AI model for outfit generation, a build mode, and a player-versus-player mode.”

And here’s how Roblox describes “4D generation:”

“While traditional generative AI creates static 3D meshes, Roblox’s 4D technology generates fully functional objects, meaning a player can prompt a pineapple-shaped car, and create an object that already has the wheels, physics, and seat-logic ready to go — all they need to do is hop in and drive.”

What Wish Master actually delivers on is a little more complicated. The experience promise “3 different” AI models called WM Basic, WM Pro, and WM 4D. WM 4D is the only one that actually legitimately taps into AI to produce a creation. The others are only trying to interpret your text prompt and search Roblox’s model store, which is a combination of Roblox-made designs and community creations.

Roblox describes WB Basic as “basic search of a model library; no AI used” and WM Pro as a “text generator, our in-experience LLM API, to understand the prompt and create a smarter search.” You’re basically using a fancy chat bot as a search engine.

It also probably explains why, for example, my copyright-infringing ideas were less successful while trying to tap into 4D, but were way more successful everywhere else.

WB Basic and Pro were more than happy to deliver some copyrighted content!

(For the record, the “thicc” idea was recommended to me by Wish Master itself.)

“For our AI models, we have implemented filters to reduce the likelihood that they generate content that is similar to copyrighted works,” said a Roblox spokesperson. “We are continuously refining our approach to IP rights protection in the generative AI space.”

When I asked WB Basic to “make a sexy lady,” the request failed just like WD 4D did, telling me “Wish Failed. Failed to process Wish. Refunded!” That is, I assume, Wish Master’s way of saying “hey, we can’t do that,” but it’s also a problem that you aren’t aware of what the boundaries are. What requests are too far? “Failed to process” is a long ways from saying “what you are asking for is inappropriate, please stop that.”

With WD 4D, my request for it to generate a Nintendo Switch, even if the result was a horrifying nightmare version of it, failed a few times! But if I asked over and over, it tried to produce something. It’s not hard to worry the same logic applies to other topics.

So much of what drives Roblox as a social-first gameplay platform is a mixture of mechanics and role-playing, experiences where players dig through developer-designed pieces of clothing and objects to tailor a story. It’s a natural extension to imagine Roblox using AI to turn a finite number of options into infinity. Do you want a pink dress, but the developer didn’t make a pink dress? All good, 4D will make one!

The difference between then and now is these tools are in the hands of players, bringing Roblox-approved prompts, Roblox’s own take on ChatGPT, into Roblox itself.

And at least right now, there’s no way to ban a child from interacting with Roblox AI.

“While there isn’t a specific control to block all experiences where 4D is leveraged,” said a company spokesperson, “for precise control over their child’s access to specific experiences, parents can block specific experiences to limit their access.”

Which means it is possible to block Wish Master—but you have to do it yourself.

In Roblox, if you click on the “Content Maturity” label, it describes Wish Master as “Al Interaction (Limited)” and “Violence (Occasional/Mild).” It’s not a huge leap to let parents have control over the AI part, unless Roblox’s goal is pushing mass adoption.

Roblox’s own AI tools aren’t the only options. A search for “AI” brings up Roblox experiences that promise you can interact with ChatGPT, a service currently being sued for allegedly encouraging a 23-year-old to kill themselves, or other AI models.

How does Roblox safeguard against a tool that’s being outsourced off the platform?

“We require creators to disclose if they are using AI interactions in their experience, and creators who have extended AI interactions receive a content maturity rating of Restricted (18+),” said a Roblox spokesperson.

The platform’s own guidelines define chatbot use like this:

“Restricted experiences are not accessible in certain regions. Experiences with AI interaction may contain chatbots. Chatbots may not be suitable for some minors, and chatbot experiences with extended AI interaction are only available to age-verified adult (18+) users.”

I’ve asked Roblox for clarity on its definition of an “extended AI interaction.”

All told, Roblox has deserved, and continues to deserve, scrutiny for the influence it has on the lives of young people. But it’s also worth pointing out the times the company has improved, especially when it comes to the parental controls. My argument has always been this: it’s okay if you say no to Roblox in your house, but that does not mean there shouldn’t be pressure on Roblox to keep getting better, because it’s for the benefit of the many millions of young people and families in the ecosystem.

Parental controls promise, in theory, what’s on the tin: control for parents. But increasingly, it feels like one avenue where parents are losing control is AI. Google has started pushing Gemini, its own AI service, on children. YouTube knows its platform is full of “AI slop,” but parents aren’t allowed to turn it off. Now, it’s nearly impossible to scroll through funny animal videos with your kids and know if it’s real.

It’s a simple request: parental controls should extend to AI, too.

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Also:

• This will likely follow a typical AI playbook, where the tech is quickly pushed ahead of meaningful controls over it. We’ve seen this happen over and over again.

• It’s also important to have conversations about AI when age-appropriate, as it’s likely your kids are going to have different feelings towards the tech than you.

• Last week, my five-year-old randomly asked if she “could use ChatGPT.” Startled, I asked her what ChatGPT was and she couldn’t give an answer! Okay!

I was supposed to publish a piece of reporting today that was, in my estimation, pretty interesting, but as it sometimes goes, it’s taking longer than I’d hoped for the final bits to come together. Combined with a traumatic and unexpected funeral and its surrounding arrangements this past week and it’s been time-constrained Crossplay!

Thank you for your patience, though, as always, and please weigh in below with what your family has been playing, watching, and reading lately. I love getting new ideas!

What My Family Is Playing

• Nex Playground

Somewhere, a publicist is wondering what the heck happened to the interview that I did with one of the leaders of the Nex Playground that was conducted over a year ago. I know, I know. That’s my bad. It’s coming! This Kinect-inspired device is genuinely neat, and it’s become a staple for my five-year-old and her friends to waste time. There are games on here, but they spend most of their time playing with the camera filters? I have more to say, especially in the context of a trio of reviews/features I’m prepping based on the New Playground, Board, and LeapMove. They’re all in the same space with different price points and technical ambitions—but it’s about playing together.

What My Family Is (Always!!) Watching

• Stranger Things (Netflix)

Something about the marketing for the final season of Stranger Things convinced my children it was a show for them. It just never occurred to my wife and I that they would want to be included. My kids say they like scary things, but also not really?

We decided to start watching the first season—together, as family—as a nightly ritual before bedtime. Fast forward a few weeks and we’re nearly done with the second season, with my nine-year-old constantly have to be told to be quiet about upcoming spoilers (she already knows everything that happens from YouTube videos), while my five-year-old constantly has to be told to be quiet because she keeps. asking. questions.

It’s also, weirdly, the show that basically prompted “the conversation” with my oldest? We were on the verge of all that already, but you forget how much of the first season is centered around whether or not Nancy and Steve are gonna get together and have sex.

I also have a lot of thoughts and feelings about how my daughter is actively spoiling the show for herself and has no problem with it, but that’s for another post, once we’ve seen further into the show and I can gauge more of her emotional reactions to it.

(Like, will she cry when someone dies/almost dies?)

It’s been a blast. The show was so different back then, too! We’re having a good time.

What My Family Is Listening to

• Stranger Things

Are you noticing a theme? When we’re not watching Stranger Things, we’re talking about the cast of Stranger Things, we’re listening to music composed for and licensed for Stranger Things, and we’re asking if we’re going to watch Stranger Things tonight.

The soundtrack bit has been fucking cool, though. It’s got them listening to all sorts of different kinds of music that they wouldn’t listen to otherwise. Now, granted, we’re mostly listening to pop and pop rock in the car, so it’s not a huge curveball to introduce the litany of 80s rock and pop that’s within Stranger Things, but it’s also cool to be listening to Diana Ross’ “Upside Down” instead of Kpop Demon Hunters yet again.

Also, the soundtrack is what’s gotten my nine-year-old really into the theme from The Neverending Story. Do I make them watch that traumatizing movie without warning?

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Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.

Also:

• Stranger Things was such a small show in its first two seasons, before things became ridiculously sprawling in every season that would come in the years after.

• My oldest started reading The Hunger Games, though she’s not far enough for me to say very much about she thinks. I’ve somehow never seen the movies before?

• The Stranger Things cartoon does not look very good, but it appears I will have no choice but to watch the Stranger Things cartoon when it comes out this spring.