Now I Am Become Three-Year-Old, The Destroyer of (Game) Worlds
When a game tells you it's for ages four and up, you have to own the consequences of introducing it to a three-year-old who does not care or respect rules.
The gap between my two daughters is nearly four years. We intended to have them closer together, but, well, that was out of our control! They get along about as well as you can reasonably expect for one kid who’s about to turn seven and another halfway to four, which is to say they oscillate between best friends and mortal enemies.
Last week, I wrote about a series of new board and card games by Elan Lee. Lee made these games in conjunction with his own daughter, and I like them a lot! Importantly, they’re meant, first and foremost, to be fun for both kids and adults. They’re kid-centric in design, trying to account for how children respond to rules, logic, and luck.
All of the games Lee developed with his daughter are meant for ages four and up, but over the past month, I’ve rotated through them with my children, and if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll realize an important issue: one of my kids is not four years old. The mental development of a child when they’re in The Three Zone is completely wild, and it feels like you’re waking up to a new, often crankier person on some days.
Development is not entirely linear, but, uh, let’s just say that when Lee said these games were meant to be played by kids at least four years old, I discovered why the hard way. This, friends, is how you destroy a game’s well-tuned rules to stop a tantrum.
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