Gaming with children
This may be a bit hard to follow if you've never played the phenomenal game called Formula DE, but I love playing games with my kids and I figured I'd share this wonderful experience from this past weekend.
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Having kids, as any geek-gaming parent will tell you, is fraught with, well, less gaming. At least until they start growing up and soak in the gaming bug. Not that they can avoid it, the poor dears; I mean, how could they?
Well, mine couldn't, considering it's my biggest hobby and my 300 games are all proudly displayed in our living room. There's a process to it, where they start with fondling components, then playing made-up rules, then playing simplified rules, then...
... well, then my 7 year old son proposes we play Formula De. And his 5 year old sister pipes up saying "I want to play Formola too! with the real rules!"
I admit that my initial reaction was not the best; I mean, she doesn't normally have the patience or wherewithal to play games in a "serious" way. But then I remembered that she has been growing up recently - they have a tendency to do that - and has been kicking our collective behinds in Cheeky Monkey playing "by the rules" and even going one better by attempting to get an unauthorized peek at her selections.
Well, why not, let's give it a shot. I pull the game out, then remember I recently acquired the Chicago/Sebring track from the newly editioned Formula D. As my eyes briefly lock onto it, so do my son's as he has already learned to look where I look because when it comes to gaming I seem to look in places where stuff is happening or is going to happen even if no one else seems to notice, the little brat. Sorry, smart little guy.
"Hey dad, is that a new track? let's play the new track!"
I guess we're playing the new track.
Put it on the table, went to the restroom, came back with the shrink off the new track. One thing that really sucks with kids is that at some point, they become afflicted with your own surprisingly contagious tendency to want to pull the shrink off and punch stuff out - and they don't wait for anyone. Grrr. My son even tried smelling boxes but apparently that's one oddity that is not contagious.
He knows the rules, but my daughter did not, so I explain them. She listens. Like, the whole way through. She even asked a couple of clarification questions. I mean, she was like this newly created gamer, for heaven's sake! even my son seemed a bit surprised.
We each got two cars - she got red, of course, I took white, my son chose yellow. He's been choosing yellow ever since he figured it was my favorite playing color. In response, I almost took away all his legos for like, an hour, but instead chose to sulk. Regularly.
We rolled for placement. Little one got first and third, middle one got fourth and last, big hulking menacing scary dad-thing got second and fifth. No one stalled, no one had a flying start, and the race began.
I don't remember much except that somehow by half race, my daughter had both cars in the lead, having careened through corners with absolutely number-perfect cornering - err, die rolls - my son hanging behind her by a thread with a car that was riding on something akin to rubber paste and with smoke billowing through bent brake rotors, and daddy way, way, way behind with two perfect, unblemished, paint-still-shining cars driven by morons. Yes, that's what my son called my drivers.
And he had every right to, really.
So daddy upped his game, and started ignoring all safety rules, driving rules, racing rules, and the middle pedal. Slowly but surely, those two white cars closed in on the rest - well, truth be told, we cut the lead of the fourth place car from two corners to one. The first two cars were so far ahead we only heard about them on the pit radio, where my crew were saying things like "hey, moron, looks like tortoise is gonna lose this one!"
Right.
But then - salvation! a yellow car went one too far and spun out. The other yellow car almost crashed into that one, and both white cars nosed ahead of them. The red cars were right up ahead, we could even see their tails. We looked victoriously through our helmets at the yellow car drivers, tears filling their eyes, and felt awfully smug. Well, kinda sorry too, but a race is a race!
Except that we then got a little excited and spun out too. That same yellow car driver was shrieking hysterically at us as he passed by waving. The other one was still trying to recover from his spin, but then spun out again and crashed, but by that time it didn't matter.
Both red cars finished first and second, with a comfortable lead. Yellow was third, but seemed happy enough because whites took fourth and fifth.
And my daughter? the glint in eyes assured me she would be racing again.
---
Having kids, as any geek-gaming parent will tell you, is fraught with, well, less gaming. At least until they start growing up and soak in the gaming bug. Not that they can avoid it, the poor dears; I mean, how could they?
Well, mine couldn't, considering it's my biggest hobby and my 300 games are all proudly displayed in our living room. There's a process to it, where they start with fondling components, then playing made-up rules, then playing simplified rules, then...
... well, then my 7 year old son proposes we play Formula De. And his 5 year old sister pipes up saying "I want to play Formola too! with the real rules!"
I admit that my initial reaction was not the best; I mean, she doesn't normally have the patience or wherewithal to play games in a "serious" way. But then I remembered that she has been growing up recently - they have a tendency to do that - and has been kicking our collective behinds in Cheeky Monkey playing "by the rules" and even going one better by attempting to get an unauthorized peek at her selections.
Well, why not, let's give it a shot. I pull the game out, then remember I recently acquired the Chicago/Sebring track from the newly editioned Formula D. As my eyes briefly lock onto it, so do my son's as he has already learned to look where I look because when it comes to gaming I seem to look in places where stuff is happening or is going to happen even if no one else seems to notice, the little brat. Sorry, smart little guy.
"Hey dad, is that a new track? let's play the new track!"
I guess we're playing the new track.
Put it on the table, went to the restroom, came back with the shrink off the new track. One thing that really sucks with kids is that at some point, they become afflicted with your own surprisingly contagious tendency to want to pull the shrink off and punch stuff out - and they don't wait for anyone. Grrr. My son even tried smelling boxes but apparently that's one oddity that is not contagious.
He knows the rules, but my daughter did not, so I explain them. She listens. Like, the whole way through. She even asked a couple of clarification questions. I mean, she was like this newly created gamer, for heaven's sake! even my son seemed a bit surprised.
We each got two cars - she got red, of course, I took white, my son chose yellow. He's been choosing yellow ever since he figured it was my favorite playing color. In response, I almost took away all his legos for like, an hour, but instead chose to sulk. Regularly.
We rolled for placement. Little one got first and third, middle one got fourth and last, big hulking menacing scary dad-thing got second and fifth. No one stalled, no one had a flying start, and the race began.
I don't remember much except that somehow by half race, my daughter had both cars in the lead, having careened through corners with absolutely number-perfect cornering - err, die rolls - my son hanging behind her by a thread with a car that was riding on something akin to rubber paste and with smoke billowing through bent brake rotors, and daddy way, way, way behind with two perfect, unblemished, paint-still-shining cars driven by morons. Yes, that's what my son called my drivers.
And he had every right to, really.
So daddy upped his game, and started ignoring all safety rules, driving rules, racing rules, and the middle pedal. Slowly but surely, those two white cars closed in on the rest - well, truth be told, we cut the lead of the fourth place car from two corners to one. The first two cars were so far ahead we only heard about them on the pit radio, where my crew were saying things like "hey, moron, looks like tortoise is gonna lose this one!"
Right.
But then - salvation! a yellow car went one too far and spun out. The other yellow car almost crashed into that one, and both white cars nosed ahead of them. The red cars were right up ahead, we could even see their tails. We looked victoriously through our helmets at the yellow car drivers, tears filling their eyes, and felt awfully smug. Well, kinda sorry too, but a race is a race!
Except that we then got a little excited and spun out too. That same yellow car driver was shrieking hysterically at us as he passed by waving. The other one was still trying to recover from his spin, but then spun out again and crashed, but by that time it didn't matter.
Both red cars finished first and second, with a comfortable lead. Yellow was third, but seemed happy enough because whites took fourth and fifth.
And my daughter? the glint in eyes assured me she would be racing again.
posted by Blinkered at 9:25 AM
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