I had a similar experience playing with my 5-year-old boy, Max, right down to the boat being enjoyable and the car not so much--as well as that spaceship landing puzzle turning into a maddening solo challenge involving Dad using both controllers simultaneously. Definitely plenty of highs and lows, but that bittersweet ending was totally worth it. Max showed a twinge of sadness when he accepted that I was going to space without him. His solution impressed me: as soon as the credits had finished, he asked me to return to the "home" level early in the game so we could be there together again. Although he accepted the ending left us separated, communicating from afar (something he and I have done frequently IRL due to my travel blogging wife's amazing adventures), he understands video games are a fantasy we can control, and so he used the level select as a time machine to return to a point in our journey that had taken on unexpected importance... for both of us.
Thanks for sharing your experience with the game, Cord. It's funny that you decided to play with both controllers at the end as well. That's way too tough!
Ha your description of your daughter playing Astro Bot perfectly matches my son’s experience (to date his only game he’s played) so I feel like this is a preeeeetty accurate portrayal of how this would go. 😆 lovely story, thanks for sharing!
Thanks for reading, Eric. The concept of 3D space is a challenging thing to grasp. I think the playful atmosphere of Astro Bot's sandbox area allows children to experiment without penalty, which is important. I'm not sure the devs imagined us playing with our very small children, but we're going to try anyway!
I had a similar experience playing with my 5-year-old boy, Max, right down to the boat being enjoyable and the car not so much--as well as that spaceship landing puzzle turning into a maddening solo challenge involving Dad using both controllers simultaneously. Definitely plenty of highs and lows, but that bittersweet ending was totally worth it. Max showed a twinge of sadness when he accepted that I was going to space without him. His solution impressed me: as soon as the credits had finished, he asked me to return to the "home" level early in the game so we could be there together again. Although he accepted the ending left us separated, communicating from afar (something he and I have done frequently IRL due to my travel blogging wife's amazing adventures), he understands video games are a fantasy we can control, and so he used the level select as a time machine to return to a point in our journey that had taken on unexpected importance... for both of us.
Thanks for sharing your experience with the game, Cord. It's funny that you decided to play with both controllers at the end as well. That's way too tough!
Ha your description of your daughter playing Astro Bot perfectly matches my son’s experience (to date his only game he’s played) so I feel like this is a preeeeetty accurate portrayal of how this would go. 😆 lovely story, thanks for sharing!
Thanks for reading, Eric. The concept of 3D space is a challenging thing to grasp. I think the playful atmosphere of Astro Bot's sandbox area allows children to experiment without penalty, which is important. I'm not sure the devs imagined us playing with our very small children, but we're going to try anyway!